| Author | Message | ||
     Sprintex |
Evening ride to our cottage on the shore, temp in the low 60's about 45 minutes on the highway doing about 70 75 get off and my fan is on which is odd. Stayed on for the next 11 miles on back roads. O6 with comfort kit,had to keep my right leg away from the frame tank more then I normally have to do wearing mesh pants didn't help. Oil's fine, just changed it. Kind of strange, bike runs fine 27k on it, just seems to run real hot lately . | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Powerwash the oil cooler. Those fins pack up with bugs and dirt and limit the cooling efficiency. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Make sure your oil level is correct too. I know you just changed it, but maybe you forgot to add that last 1/2 quart or something. Low oil level will definitely make it run hotter. | ||
| Teeps |
Fan operation on my '06 has always been fickle. I've had the fan run on 60 degree days and had the fan not run on 100 degree days. Even with the comfort kit the fan behavior has not changed markedly. About 9 years ago I borrowed Xbimmer's Ron Crins right side scoop. With that RS scoop the fan hardly ever ran. This was, of course, pre comfort kit days. Cleaning the oil cooler... hum, never have cleaned it beyond blasting with compressed air @110 psi. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
What you really need to do is measure the oil temp in the swingarm oil tank. Usually the fan will turn on at shutdown when the oil hits 150 F degrees. If your oil is getting over 210 F after riding at hiway speeds even in hot weather then something is not right. Cool weather it is hard to get the swingarm oil over 210 F. Use a good meat thermometer. Submerge to over the dimple on the probe. Here is how to make a ULY specific oil temperature dipstick. http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/142 838/461500.html?1243467928 Mine works great after many years of service and has never needed recalibration. | ||
| Sprintex |
Riding surfaces streets it stays off just seems to kick on on a long stretch of highway, Electra, I'll try the meat thermometer. Oil level was oaky, Mobil one. | ||
| Sprintex |
Went out at lunch and check the oil cooler, clean, no birds or chipmunks in there, | ||
| Phelan |
Fan runs according to head temp, not oil temp. There is no oil temperature sensor on the bikes. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Phelan, That is very true but oil temperature gives a good indication of how hot the engine is getting. The oil should only get so hot if everything else is doing its job correctly. The rear head temp sensor should signal the ECM to turn on the fan at a certain temp to keep things were they need to be. The oil cooler needs to help out and its fins needs to be clean to do its part. If something isn't working properly the oil might get past normal operating temps and the only way to know that is to measure it. I look at the dipstick most everytime I shut off the motor to see if I've ridden long enough to get the oil to the temps I normally see when the fan comes on at shutdown. That is around 150 F give or take and of course this temp is lower than what the oil is experiencing up in the cylinder head. The swingarm cools the oil down so the oil temp read there is lower but relative to oil temps elsewhere in the engine. I have no way of knowing what the the rear head temp sensor is reading short of hooking up the ECMSpy program which isn't going to happen unless really necessary. I have found that oil temperature is a great way to know how far to ride, especially when the fall temps drop and you need to ride further to ensure that condensate doesn't build up in the oil and create metal etching acids. I know I have further to ride if the oil temp is too low to boil off the condensate. Knowing the fan will come on when I turn the key to off is a good thing to know. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
The 150 degrees F is just the oil temp at the swingarm that indicates the fan will come on but when I ride for a long time the oil temp will get up around 200 +/- 10 degrees at the swing arm. I never see more than that even when it is very hot outside. Come cold weather it really comes down in temp and that is why the goo forms on the dipstick if bike isn't ridden long enough to get the oil temp at the swingarm up to a reasonable temp 150F. Stuffing a rag into the oil cooler helps out in cold weather. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Someone here hooked up a couple of cheapo computer fans to the oil cooler. I always thought that was pretty brilliant. | ||
| Sagehawk |
Eg97/ have you mapped out your whole system temp wise? After a 50 or so mile ride, stop and take swing arm oil temp, shoot at oil pump temp, oil filter temp ,and the cooler temp? Some of the connecting lines as well? | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Sagehawk, Haven't done that. Don't have an infrared temp gun. My son's 07' runs hotter than my 06' bike. His has about 24,000 compared to my almost 54,000 mile bike. At times his bike's fan comes on while running and mine will stay off until shut down. His oil will read 5 degrees hotter. Just to me an interesting difference. Does the 07 have the upgraded oil pump? If so, maybe it works the oil a bit more. | ||
| Sagehawk |
Eg97, define upgraded oil pump for 07? I've tracked around on my bike and we have the right idea. Monitor the one machine over time and see what changes could be happening as compared to what is going on 6 months ago , a year ago. I hook up spy monthly and see what parameters are slowly drifting around. You have an option of keeping up with 2 bikes where I've got the one. Laser thermometers are 30 bucks at harbor freight. Just saying! | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
The oil pump was updated to move more oil. Hugh knows when. | ||
| Sprintex |
How about if I had a leaky somewhere om the intake manifold? That would cause it to run lean and hot. Just throwing it out there. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Yeah. Bear in mind that the computer only reads the rear jug in terms of temperature and Oxygen sensing. Theoretically, the front could be running like garbage and the computer wouldn't have any idea. You would notice the idle sounding wrong most likely. | ||
| Sprintex |
Idles fine, funny thing it always pinged on a hot day now I haven't noticed it pinging, could be the ear plugs. | ||
| Teeps |
Sprintex, My '06 has pinged off and on since new. No rhyme or reason, just does. I've heard it ping on hot days and cool days. My thoughts are the fuel quality, I can only get 91 (on a good day) here in CA. Got so bad and consistent one year that I was adding Toluene to the fuel as an octane booster. Which worked fine except that to do any distance required carrying more T. Oh, it's been my experience that I can hear it pinging even with ear plugs. | ||
| Etennuly |
I changed my intake gaskets to try for the heat issue, no difference at all. If it runs well otherwise that is not a cure. I retarded the timing a couple degrees to stop the pinging. That seemed to help, but did not cure the over heat. Changing the ECM to a swap off another Uly, known good one.....no difference, TPS reset, clean throttle plates and intake, no change. The only thing that seemed to help mine was running conventional type oil per seasonal changes and running the fan on hi all of the time(with comfort kit). Weirdest thing is in my long list of things I tried to remedy the problem(many more than listed here), the bike would show me it was cured.....for a little while. Then it would go right back to "Flashy Light Run Skip". Damn thing will still do it if I am trying to run over 80 mph on a hot day. Below a maintained 80 mph in hot weather it runs perfectly. | ||
| Sprintex |
It did seem to start running hot when I added the comfort kit years ago, makes no sense with that air scoop dumping air on the back jug. | ||
| Reepicheep |
My 07 heads were REALLY badly carboned up after just 30k miles. And it pinged frequently. | ||
| Mr_obsessive |
non contact infrared thermometers are 14.99 at Menards. 7.99 on sale. fyi | ||
| Tootal |
The 07 has an improved oil pump over the 06. In 08 they got a completely different oil pump. In other words, you can put an 07 oil pump in an 06 but the 08 is completely different. |
