I bought some Engine Ice to try in the MV last week. So on Saturday I pulled off the belly pan and stuck my head under there, only to find that there isn't an easily locatable coolant drain. I see the water pump on the front of the engine next to the oil filter, and it appears to have a cover that pops off easily. The problem with that is I believe the water pump is slightly higher than the bottom of the top radiator, and it completely clears the bottom radiator. In any case, if I wanted to drain the water using the water pump cover, I would have to flush the thing 10 times or so to get the coolant out, and even then I'd still be left with the bottom radiator filled with water instead of coolant (maybe not all that bad, but it would be there nonetheless).

So I talked to my dealer and he said that it's really best to take the radiators off (!) and dump them out and flush them that way. He said it really isn't all that difficult to do, they kind of come off in a single unit.

Anyone else have some tips for this?

-- Andy Ruhl (quadreverb@yahoo.com), June 12, 2002

Answers

Andy,

I wished to avoid the "radiator removal" version of this bit of work. I drained and flushed my radiators ('02 F4S)for a track day. I wished to avoid the "radiator removal" version of this bit of work. Call my service guy and they told me of a hexbolt low on the side of the water pump. It has a copper crush washer beneath it. It is the ONLY one with a washer. I used that to drain the coolant. I drained 3x and flushed 2x and had most of the coolant gone, though the last flush still had a tinge of blue from the coolant. I found that squeezing the rubber hose on the left side between the two radiators helped in evacuating air from the system as well as a short run of the engine between flushes. Good wenching...

Scot

-- Scot Hennon (smhennon@gte.net), June 13, 2002.

Are you just going to run water and water wetter? If that's the case, then the bottom radiator being filled with clear water isn't all that big a deal. You aren't supposed to cut down this Engine Ice, but I often don't listen to the advice posted on premix coolant and add some more distilled anyway. As long as it doesn't boil...

So here's the other part of my dilemma. I was thinking about wrapping the headers and possibly the entire pipe where it is covered by the fairing with pipe wrap to reduce engine heat in the engine bay, and hopefully keep some of that heat from being so close to the radiators. Other hot spots are where the rear brake cylinder is right next to the pipe and also where the rear shock reservior is right next to the pipes as they are going upward (I may wrap it slightly right there too). Can anyone tell me if this will cause the tail pipes to heat up too much and cook the computer? I'd hate to try to fix one problem and then create another...

-- Andy Ruhl (quadreverb@yahoo.com), June 13, 2002.