Any ideas? F800GS overheating time & again.

[Slippy]

After shipping my bike from London to New York & covering 30,000 miles from New York up to Alaska & then south to here in Santiago, Chile (with my fair share of problems) the water pump seals gave up & so I waited 16 days, paid BMW $500 only for the bike to overheat almost immediately after the new one was fitted.

Changed the thermostat too only for the problem to persist. Bike overheats, red warning light comes on & coolant ejects from the resevoir.

It's not the radiator fan as I had to replace that in California (another $400).

I'm stumped & stuck in Santiago. Any ideas???

 

[bansk65]

Is it leaking water anywhere? Could there be a blockage?

 

[Fast2Martin]

You probably need to bleed your water system for trapped air. Think its a thread in here about how-to.

Martin

 

[StumpyFingers]

You probably need to bleed your water system for trapped air. Think its a thread in here about how-to.

Martin

I would also suggest this.
When bike is cold remove radiator cap and start the bike.
Let the bike warmup until the temperature activates the thermostat.
Because the coolant is not under pressure the trapped air should escape quite easily, top up coolant as and when to ensure there are no more air pockets.
Once the coolant settles down replace the cap and run up the temp to check it reads correctly.

 

[Davy F]

Great advert for the F800 and BMW mechanics.......

Hope you get it sorted, being stuck in Santiago must really suck.

 

[Slippy]

Thank you all!

Pulled the new pump back out & the plastic drive cog doesn't grip as it should ($560's well spent) & therefore doesn't turn. Salvaged the original metal drive cog from the original pump (with leaky seals) & all is well. For now.

Thank you again gents, very reassuring to be so far from home but able to access your wealth of knowledge.

 

[noyah]

The Cooling Fan on F800 is pretty flawed, it is way to easy to get dirt in there and it wont turn.
Reach in there and turn it around, check it every now and then.

 

[Greggers]

The system needs to be fully bled too otherwise it will overheat like a b!tch ...

IIRC, the bleed point is the uppermost bolt on the thermostat cover...

G

 

[v8legend]

When my top hose was fixed for the third time (still not fixed!), the dealer had no end of problems bleeding it properly. That was in a workshop with all the right equipment, so good luck.