okay, so i was doing the last bit of work on my bike before i start riding next week. all i did was check the contacts on my fuel pump. it was ticking away perfectly, so i decided to take it out for a spin. you cant look at your bike running in the driveway and not want to right?

so i get a couple of miles down the road and i see my temp gauge higher than normal. i quickly pulled over to check what was wrong and when i turned my bike off i heard a noise, it was my coolant reservoir bubbling like crazy, sounded like a witches cauldron on haloween with dry ice in it and it was leaking all over the place. it was the actual white reservoir, not the lid for the hoses (that would have exploded like a 2 liter bottle had i opened it while the bike was hot).

ive never experienced anything like this before, thus have no idea how to diagnose the issue. any insight would be much appreciated!

 

first thing i would check is thermostat.. does fan kick on? take off thermostat and try to put it backtogether without it idk if it needs it as a gasket but i would try it .check for kinks in hose maybe u kinked a hose while checking pump. remember to put more fluid dont over flow it.. thats what i would do but im a nooby to bikes!!!

 

Definitely take a look at the fan and the switch the kicks the fan on. The switch is a temperature sensor that sits on the left side of the radiator and works as a switched ground (-). I ended up hard wiring mine to a flip switch just because the original set up seemed unreliable in summer traffic.

 

Baxter,
you say you were a couple of miles down the road. Do you mean two or had you gone much further than that?
If you'd gone two miles then there's no way your engine temperature would have reached normal running temperature even if you have got a rather pleasant ambient temp.
The rapid engine temp suggests that your thermostat is stuck. The water bubbling out of your reserve tank suggests that it suddenly unstuck, or the relief valve vented the pressure in the cooling system out through the reserve tank.
Run the bike again after checking the coolant level (under the radiator cap, not the reserve tank) and if it happens again you've probably got a buggered thermostat.
If it doesn't happen again, happy riding. It may pay to clean out the thermostat housing at the very least.

 

Mine has done the same thing only at low mph. When I get on the highway it cools down time for a radiator flush, new thermostat, and possibly radiator cap for me. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

dealer told me i should do radiator flush at 8000miles, just bought the bike and hit 8000 on it.
should i do it or should i just wait.

what do you guys think.

 

change it. IMO ive only had my bike since april and im thinking i should do a radiator flush/thermo check every season to be sure its in proper working order. wouldnt want to overheat in 100+ degree weather in texas

 

i was just cruising around my neighborhood, never over 30mph. it was 81 degrees outside today. i actually noticed that the fan wasnt kicking on when the temp went above what it should have been. since its so noisy. so i should check my thermostat to make sure everything is okay and flush the coolant and then i will be good to go until this grumpy thing wants to strand me again?

 

Pretty much. F3's are fussy bikes. Imo get her back on the road. Check the usual things like the radiator, thermo, etc

 

There's a high probability that your bike hasn't had a flush ever. Although Honda says you don't need to replace the fluid until you get 24K miles on it, they say that you should also replace it every 2 years, whichever comes first. I'd say you're way beyond the 2 year period so it's probably a good thing to flush it.

Baxter,
Don't be tempted to run without a thermostat. The bikes are engineered to run at certain temperatures. Running without one would cause it to run way too cool most of the time, and that's not necessarily a good thing.