My baby is put to bed for the winter but all last season I had a slight burnt coolant smell, especially when I would get off the bike to open the garage door and come back to the bike. I could find no outward signs of a leak. It always seemed to run fine and never over heated. Temps were basically the same no matter how hard I rode (not very hard actually) or what the temp was outside.
I seem to recall hearing something about a hose by the throttle bodies that would leak. What kind of good times am I in for on that? Or would you recommend some other places that are popular leak locations. Thanks!!
If it's never been done you need to give all the hose clamps a turn. One is likely weeping around the thermostat, under the throttle bodies.
I second this theory. My '98 didn't stop leaking when I tightened the hose clamps by the thermostat, though. I replaced all the hoses in the center of the "V" and changed the thermostat. No more leaks.
I have a feeling this will end up like my SV650. It leaked where the fuel went between the throttle bodies. The house looked perfect but after I replaced it, no more leak.
Does anyone have a picture of this area minus the air box of course?
I had much the same experience as RDMcD. I replaced all of the hoses around the thermostat with OEM parts to fix the leak. My leak sprung up after I had lowered the radiators to access the front valves. As a suggestion, replace the thermostat at the same time, these also fail with age, and as you'll discover, pulling the airbox/throttle bodies and 4 million hoses out is less fun than it sounds, so you'll only want to do it once. DAMHIK.
But was your bike losing coolant ? It could be as simple as a little corrosion under a hose clamp causing a micro leak. But if no coolant loss then no worries. That said these bikes are now quite old & the space under the tank is rarely seen never mind cleaned & checked. There are also two hoses to the throttle bodies that heat them & the cold start wax unit.
I can't 100% confirm that it was losing coolant. Only because hadn't been able to check it often enough. I never SAW any evidence (smoke, drips or runs) that it was but I could smell it. Which is why I was voting for up in the V. I will be paying better attention to it this year. The Coolant over flow was basically empty so I took that as another sign that it was being burnt but the temp ranges stayed consistent all year.
I only had a tiny leak in the V, not enough for much external evidence aside from some white staining on the collector, and the reservoir did not noticeably drop in level. The real giveaway was when I hosed some water through the V and it came out a bright green colour.