Drain coolant for winter

[pontifex]

I've been doing a flush with Prestone in between fills as well. Waste of time?

[Kurlon]

It can't hurt. I'm just going to drain, flush with coolant and fill with coolant for the winter. Given the low hours my machine sees I don't think it needs an aggressive chemical flush.

[Jim]

Distilled water in the summer
Antifreeze in the winter.

That's it

[nhbubba]

I don't have a lot of experience with coolant. The last time I added coolant to a motor vehicle it was a car that was drinking the stuff; all I had to do was keep pouring it in. I've owned a string of air cooled bikes until now.

I did the swap on the track toy and the street bike couple weekends ago. For some reason my paranoia is getting the best of me and I'm not convinced I am protected. All my bikes live in a non-heated garage. I bought some aluminum safe Prestone and mixed it 50/50. I poured out the juice that was in each bike (water + wetter in the track toy, factory coolant in the street bike) and "flushed" a couple times with distilled water. By "flushed" I mean I basically poured some water into the rad, shook the bike side to side, and then drained again. I did this until I got clean water out the drain. I then refilled with my 50/50 mix, brought the bikes up to temp, and topped everything off.

Then the paranoia got to me. I bought a coolant tester at autozone and tested. The tester says my coolant is only good to +5 F.

I'm hoping the tester I bought is a pos.

[CBR929RE]

you should be fine. what are the chances its gonna get below 5°F for an extended time?

[DZircher]

Christian has been very busy and hasn't come to the house to do all that for me on all my bikes hahaha

How did you cook that deal?

[Kurlon]

How did you cook that deal?

Yeah... it's better not to ask...

[wiggeywackyo]

Anyone have any ideas on how to do this if the I can't run the engine to open up the thermostat? Just drain and fill?

[MarkMarine]

Anyone have any ideas on how to do this if the I can't run the engine to open up the thermostat? Just drain and fill?

Fill it with straight coolant, I'd pour it right down the return tube (top of the radiator is the return) and make sure it's topped off.

[Dave603]

Er, not quite accurate. Water with an additive to reduce it's surface tension will perform more consistently, and typically measurably better than plain water in real world pumped circulation applications. On paper you're right, but theory doesn't account for pocketing and turbulence when assigning basic thermal capacity numbers for different materials.

I'm glad this point was brought up, I was going to say something too but didn't want to spark a huge debate. Water is natures best coolant. However, on a molecular level when under pressure and high heat can cause chemical reactions with the metallurgy that creates phenomenon such as pocketing (due to pitting of the metal) and increased turbulence. Although it sounds contradictory when trying to cool, having a coolant that actually adheres itself to the internal surfaces prevents pitting and pocketing or air thus reducing turbulence and increasing thermal efficiency of the system with increased heat transfer. The most important benefit of treating water is the formation of this thin film to protect the magnetite layer of the metal. Water treatment does so by raising the PH and preventing carbonic acid to form within the cooling system (which causes microscopic pitting of the metal surface and allowing tiny molecules of oxygen to adhere to surface).

With all of this said, your motorcycle cooling water system is NOT under high enough pressures nor high enough heat for you to experience a critical failure in the metallurgy of the motor as long as you do frequent flushes of your system to prevent the build-up of carbonic acid as well as ensuring you have vented air from the system. The simplest way to tell if you are not flushing your system enough is to do a simple PH test to ensure you have neutral ph of water. Actually slightly above 7.0 would be ideal.

[tsorfas]

How did you cook that deal?

Bikes are all set and winterized! Lol

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah... it's better not to ask...

I don't walk around topless for no reason.

[Dave603]

I don't have a lot of experience with coolant. The last time I added coolant to a motor vehicle it was a car that was drinking the stuff; all I had to do was keep pouring it in. I've owned a string of air cooled bikes until now.

I did the swap on the track toy and the street bike couple weekends ago. For some reason my paranoia is getting the best of me and I'm not convinced I am protected. All my bikes live in a non-heated garage. I bought some aluminum safe Prestone and mixed it 50/50. I poured out the juice that was in each bike (water + wetter in the track toy, factory coolant in the street bike) and "flushed" a couple times with distilled water. By "flushed" I mean I basically poured some water into the rad, shook the bike side to side, and then drained again. I did this until I got clean water out the drain. I then refilled with my 50/50 mix, brought the bikes up to temp, and topped everything off.

Then the paranoia got to me. I bought a coolant tester at autozone and tested. The tester says my coolant is only good to +5 F.

I'm hoping the tester I bought is a pos.

Your basic anti-freeze coolant tester just measures the specific gravity of your coolant water and compares to the specific gravity of water itself and then depending on how it compares moves the float into a temperature scale reading for easy understanding. If your coolant is rated for a temperature below +5F and you desire a lower freeze point just add more coolant, this will increase the sg of your cooling water thus lowering the freeze point.

[carsick]

Hey, it's snowing here so I'll stick my two cents into this ramble- Nonionic surfactants increase heat transfer efficiency in an engine cooling system by decreasing water surface tension and allowing more surface area to transfer heat between the metal and liquid. This advantageous effect tapers off as the concentration becomes high enough to increase the viscosity of the solution to the point where flow is hampered. Handy side effects of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are lowered freeze points, and higher boiling points when held under pressure (thus the lowly radiator cap). And as Dave said, changing the coolant is a great way to avoid it becoming acidic and creating an electroplating system that removes aluminum from stuff you don't want removed.
I can understand being lazy and not wanting to bother with changing coolant, but just like brake fluid and OIL (did I say oil?) it yields great benefits. Fortunately my street bike is air cooled and will not be subject to this debate.

[Jim]

Bikes are all set and winterized! Lol

did mine last weekend too. tank and bodywork dropped off to repaint. exhaust dropped off to get Ti welded.
antifreeze in radiator. stabil in injectors (had U4 in there from Daytona).

[tsorfas]

did mine last weekend too. tank and bodywork dropped off to repaint. exhaust dropped off to get Ti welded.
antifreeze in radiator. stabil in injectors (had U4 in there from Daytona).

Who do you use to paint your tank? I need to buy bodywork for the SV but I want to paint the tank as well

[Jim]

Who do you use to paint your tank? I need to buy bodywork for the SV but I want to paint the tank as well

Adrenaline Cycles have a paint guy.

[tsorfas]

Adrenaline Cycles have a paint guy.

Awesome!!

[MarkMarine]

Awesome!!

I painted mine, I used two stage urethane (base/clear with a hardner on the clear) so it doesn't melt away when fuel touches it. If you want me to paint yours I can do it Sav. 200$ plus the cost of whatever color(s) you choose. It won't look flashy, but lets be serious, you're gonna crash the thing pretty quick.

Jim, I can't believe you got a professional paint job. Are you going to ride at 8/10ths next year?

[Jim]

Jim, I can't believe you got a professional paint job. Are you going to ride at 8/10ths next year?

i do one new paint job every winter for that season. usually something simple that looks decent ($500 range) from 100' or 100 MPH.

[Paul_E_D]

I better check my new bike to see that it has antifreeze in it. You never know til you know!!!

[CBR929RE]

i do one new paint job every winter for that season. usually something simple that looks decent ($500 range) from 100' or 100 MPH.

how come you aren't having Boosh do it?

I'm spending $0 on paint this year. I really don't care about the couple little marks in it.

[MarkMarine]

i do one new paint job every winter for that season. usually something simple that looks decent ($500 range) from 100' or 100 MPH.

Yikes. That's expensive.

[Jim]

how come you aren't having Boosh do it?.

That was a one time favor. Not something he's doing on the regular

[tsorfas]

I painted mine, I used two stage urethane (base/clear with a hardner on the clear) so it doesn't melt away when fuel touches it. If you want me to paint yours I can do it Sav. 200$ plus the cost of whatever color(s) you choose. It won't look flashy, but lets be serious, you're gonna crash the thing pretty quick.

Jim, I can't believe you got a professional paint job. Are you going to ride at 8/10ths next year?

32 races 0 crashes. We won't count open practice Thursday of the classic when it rained
I might take you up on that.

[MarkMarine]

32 races 0 crashes. We won't count open practice Thursday of the classic when it rained
I might take you up on that.

No I mean if you pay 500$ for it, that thing is gonna be like magnetized to the track. Prob what happens to Jim every season.