So after my incident about 2 posts down I really took the bike out to run it today. After riding for a bit I had to stop for gas. So the temp was 3/4 of the way up.(99 cbr f4) so no digital guage. So after gas I drive up the road and it goes down to half where it usually is.

As I ride for 10 mins I see the guage going up pretty quick. I shut it down but it got into the H. Hopefully no damage.

IT spit out a tiny bit through the hose connected to the cap but not nearly as much as last time. Cant remember if I heard my fan running either. Not sureif it was. I heard it 2 days ago but not sure if I did today when it was really hot.

So Im thinking that my coolant is super low right now and probably air in there too. So tomorrow I will check when its cool. Even of the fan wasnt working just driving down the road usually cools it right?

Also the reserve is still half full. Doesent the rad pull from the reserve when its low?

So I am hoping from overheating the other day my coolant is low and just needs the system bled?

Thoughts?

 

You should start checking things in this order:

-Proper coolant level and condition. Yes it should pull coolant out of the reserve but that's given that there is enough in there to be pulled out, the hose is far enough in the bottle and the cap on the radiatoris good and ison tight ( it will not draw out if it's loose or off, the system needs to be closed from the outside atmosphere andpressurized coolant has a higher boiling point). Coolant should be nice and clean, brown and nasty= very bad for cooling systems.
-The fan is working properly and the rad fins are clean. The fan I believe comes on around 230 F? Fins isn't a huge deal unless they're all bent over or very plugged up.
-This is where it gets harder. T-Stat needs to be opening. I assumbe it's around a 190-210 F.
-Water pump needs to be creating good circulation. This I wouldn't put much money on this being badas if it were failing, you would probably have worse things happening.

Yeah on the highway your bike should run probably no more than half even without the fan being operational (again given you have emough coolant) unless it is extremely F'N hot out!
All in all, check the easy crap first, more times than not it turns out to be easy. Oh yeah, and I don't think there is any bleed points on the cooling system on these bikes, just fill it up cold and run it without the cap on for a while, the air should work it's way out, just keep an eye on the temp