Hi all,
New 2000 owner here. I searched but have not found any info on how long it should take the bike to reach operating temperature. On a cool morning, 45F or so, I get to only 155F or so on an 8 mile ride at 50mph with a few stoplights. It took longer than that to get to 200F and I got there only after idling in my driveway for a minute or two. I was trying to get it warmed up enough to get the condensation out of the oil, a perennial problem on my Ducati M900.
It hit 100F in less than a mile also, if that helps.
Thanks for any insights,
-Joel.
How many miles does she have? You may find the thermostat is partially open when it should be closed.
I'm sure someone with a tad more knowledge than me will be along soon. :beer:
I agree with Skids, sounds like a stuck-open thermostat. To check, start the engine from cold and keep a hand on the right radiator. If it slowly gets warm, the tstat is stuck open. If it stays stone cold for a couple of minutes then quickly gets too hot to touch, all is well. The tstat should open at 176F or so, so the radiator should be cold below that. My bike warms to 78C by the time I put my helmet on and ride about 2km at 50km/hr.
Mine takes like 20 min to feel happy... Coolant could get hot, but oil takes longer... And i notice a lot that it takes ages to be at good working temp
Maybe an oil temp gauge would help.
Some time ago i pretended to develop a arduino 128x64 lcd with a myriad of sensors like egt, oil temp, oil pressure and so on, but developing such a thing is a time consuming task, and as long as i decided to be a parent, time flew away from me...
An oil temp gauge would be nice. Gettign the oil up to temp is important.
Riding around my neighborhood, I did find that the RH radiator heated up before the bike was at thermostat temp (82C / 180F I believe). With the display showing 135F the RH radiator was too warm to keep my hand on. SO I suppose I need to do the thermostat, but then I need to check the valves also so...
Thanks for the info!
-Joel.
Getting back to this, I just birthed the thermostat and at first I thought I'd bought the wrong replacement part then I realized the old one is a lot taller because it is stuck wide open.
I also checked the valves, they are OK. I'm getting new plugs, putting it back together in the next few days after the parts arrive. In the meantime I have to put on a front tire and replace the fork seals.
It'll be good to have the bike warm up properly, running too cool can cause serious oil sludge.
Thanks for the tips,
-Joel.
If you are that far in, I'd suggest you replace the radiator hoses around the thermostat in the V, mine started leaking soon after and required the same degree of surgery (again).
Thanks, I had seen that suggestion elsewhere and looked hard at these hoses. Mine seem to be in perfect shape and so I am going to leave them be. Now that I understand the procedure I can get back in there pretty easily if a problem arises.
People's writeups sure helped, it took some reading to locate the t-body boot screws and then to have the confidence to pry up the throttle assembly, it sure felt like it was bolted to something. Getting it back in was easy even though it was only 45F in my shop (I did not bother with turning up the heater) but I had sprayed the boots with WD-40 or the cheapo walmart alternative and the throttles went back in with a good press downward. I was ready to warm them up with a heat gun on low if needed.
Marvelous little engine, power on par with a 1st gen Supra or GTI and yet so small and light.
11 hours ago, JoelF
I also checked the valves, they are OK.
-Joel.
That's a bit of a surprise to me.
I've had the opposite experience with two different VFR 5th gen bikes in the last year (purchased one of them in north Denver and the other one up in Longmont). One bike is a '99 and the other is an '01. Both had low miles, the '99 had 19,000 and the '01 had only 11,600 miles. On both bikes the exhaust valves were all within specification but the intake valves were a mixed bag: several valves nearly out of spec and one or two valves right at the limit or over.
I'm pretty sure that both of my VFR800s had never had a valve check/adjustment done.
I went through both of my 5th Gens very thoroughly, refurbishing them and doing all the little bits of maintenance the prior owners had chosen not to do (yes, they were low-miles bikes but the 5th Gen VFRs are pushing 20 years old now, so there was a lot to do).
I documented the process while refurbishing the '99: http://vfrworld.com/threads/refurbishing-my-99-5th-gen.52488/