this is after riding my bike on sides streets with stop and go and then idled for 2 or 3 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtTHwwEiDTE

 

Thats where mine sits under similar conditions. Higher when its a hot day out in bumper to bumper. I wouldnt worry about it, but lets hear from some others.

 

Well I am at work and cant click on the vid, but a lot of F3 owners bring this up.On a day in the 90s in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic my bike will sit just above half to 75%. My fan will kick on around half way. I never had it go above 75% the way up. As far as I know from talking to other F3 owners this is ok. Just keep an eye on it make sure it doesnt got all the way up. Check your fluid make sure it is clean. Make sure your fan works and you should be ok. Also the real test would be go into some stop an go traffic an see what it gets up too. Then when it is hot get on a street where you can go 40+ and see if the temp will drop.

 

when i first bought the bike i noticed this. temp in manhattan would go up that high like in the vid. then on highway it would go back down to middle. next day i checked coolant level in overflow and it was almost empty. i took off radiator cap and filled it up and put some in the overflow. rode around and it still does the same. fan kicks in at around the time where the gauge is a little past half way. never goes all the way up though.

 

It depends. How long does it take for the temp guage to get up there? what is the ambient air temp? Had the bike just been sitting there idling for an extended period of time? How old is the coolant. The other thing is that your thermostat could be stuck closed. I've been having issues with this but the temp guage gets up there very quickly. I had worked through that list and the last part piece of the cooling system was the water pump. Found that the water pump was on its way out (leaking at the weep hole). I can say something if it fixes the problem.

 

well yesterday i think the temps were around 80* outside. the bike doesnt immediately get to that temperature. it take about 20 min of riding around for it to rise up. if the thermostat would be stuck closed the temps would go up higher no?

 

Well if it took 20 min it should be ok. Not sure about the thermostat getting stuck. If you start moving does the temp go down? If it doesnt then marc may be right about the thermostat.

 

If you are sitting at an idle or low speeds where there is very little wind going across the radiator, then it will get hot. My bike was getting hot enough to have the fan kick on within a couple minutes from starting the bike while at low speeds. My battery would then die if I didn't get moving (RPM 2500 +) for more than 15 or so minutes. You can test the thermostat by putting it into boiling water to make sure it opens. It should start to open up at175 degrees.

 

thats normal . my bike gets that high once its warmed up good and i am riding in stop and go traffic , as said above when your speed is can be picked up it should drop back from the rush of air . bikes are mainly air cooled so if your not moving it will get hot . if i see im sitting in traffic to long without moving i split the lanes yeah its illegal in jersey but i know my limits . also when i ride in the summer i will drop my idle to about 1200 or as low as i can get it that helps somewhat

 

when the road is open it goes down. if its stop and go it wont go down much.