so i couldnt find any guides on here on how to flush your coolant for the f3. so i decided to just blindly do it myself and take some pictures of the key places that you will be working on when doing so.
(im not great at this) im sure some pointers or fixes to my attack strategy will be posted later on in the thread.

okay, before you check your thermostat its probably a good idea to go ahead and flush your coolant. start by taking your radiator cap off and then disconnecting the hoses and drain plug on your water pump
(underneath where the coolant is squirting out there is a drain plug, start with that first so you dont make a big mess like it did) then continue disconnecting each hose and getting as much coolant out as possible. I also noticed that rocking the bike back and forth helped get more of it out.

after all of the coolant is out you can pour some distilled tap water into the radiator cap to flush the system and get any extra junk that could be in it out. (do not pour water into the white coolant reservoir tank, it will not drain from there and is a pain to get back out)


this is where your thermostat is located. it will sit loosely inside of there. just pull it out. it looks like this....

clean out the housing if necessary, mine did not need any cleaning. although my thermostat seemed to be jammed. im letting it soak in pinesol to see if it frees up at all. once youve checked that reinstall the same way you took it off.
this is the one part i didnt understand and would like some input for. is this ground for the thermostat everyone is telling me to hard wire? and if so, how would i do that if my frame has a finish on it?
everyone gives great descriptions for it, but a picture speaks a thousand words... right?

once youve fairly sure that your fan, thermostat, and radiator are to your liking and youve made sure all of the hoses are connected back in there original spots pour coolant into your radiator cap until you can see it, but its not completely full and fill your reservoir up to the "lower" marking and let your bike run to circulate the coolant. then fill your reservoir back up to where it needs to be.

i hope i didnt botch this tooo bad. good luck!

 

Good writeup. I'm pretty sure your correct about the fan kicking on when you ground it out. As for a location to ground it out you could connect it to the bolt on the upper left radiator mount behind your fork. That's the ground I used for my f4i gauge swap.

 

That device in your hand is called a Thermo-Switch. All it does is turn the cooling fan on or off based on the temperature of the water in the Radiator. The cooling fan cools the water in your radiator. When the bike is moving, your fan doesn't turn on because air is moving through it enough to keep it cool. When you're in traffic, you don't get enough airflow, and the cooling fan kicks in.

The Thermostat on the other hand is a mechanical valve that opens when the water in the engine gets warm. When the Thermostat opens, then water flows from the engine, via the water pump into the radiator. Cooler water in the radiator flows into the engine.

Hope this explains how some of these things work.

 

Oddly enough I was looking for a coolant change guide, then checked my service manual and it seemed pretty easy overall.

Thanks for the write up, this and my lawnmower are my weekend projects. Any recommended coolants?

 

every where i look idodirt is always helping me. what a nice guy. lucky to have him in the f3 section. this system makes so much more sense to me thanks to his input. maybe thats the reason he is a general tech mod? thanks again idodirt! you really know your stuff.

as far as coolants im not to particular. everyone says water wetter helps. but just warning from personal experience. make sure it is 50/50 coolant and water. i put straight coolant in my truck before. a few weeks later i was changing a $600 water pump. :/ thats my only words of wisdom... or lack thereof.

 

also, in the last picture i posted, to check if the fan is in proper working order you must remove the wires from the big bolt, that screws into the radiator, by pulling them apart. they are a simple male to female prong assembly. then cut the rubber sleeve back to expose the female prong and ground it with the ignition turned on (i used the bolt that holds the fan in place right above it since it has another ground connected to it). the fan should spring to life.

information courtesy of - Idodirt