St1300 upper coolant leaks fix

This is my experience and may not coincide with yours. After a winter of -38c in unheated garage storage, my ST decided to leak a little pool on the floor. Same as late year. This time first warmup run on centerstand, the leak did not stop but increased. I fully agree with previous posters that the upper clamps on hoses below throttlebodies were no longer doing their job, just giving up. I read all the posts, and decided this was a fix I could handle. How to get the throttle bodies to pop out of rubber boots? Well, I tried prying gently. No dice. I got a can of penitrating oil industry sprayed the bootbody seam generously. Went for coffee. Tried prying gently again. Oh, a little movement this time. Time to try huge clamps bottom body edge to board over frame edges. Nope. Tried rope sling around bodies to board above, and lift. Very little movement, but some. All hosts and cables had been removed, nothing but tight boots holding. manual says you can pry it up over top over engine heads. Ok, but where to pry? Wait a minute. Kneeling down at right front you can see bottom edge of throttlebodies through space below frame where coolant hoses come out. There is temperature sender bump there that you can get a flat bar over and under bottom edge of throttle body. Well, here goes. Pop, and the throttle bodies actually jumped out of boots. Wow, it works. Removed rest of hoses from under throttlebodies, remember where they go. Lift rubber mat. There are the looseclamps, pool of green coolant. They were all loose. I'm. Not doing this again anytime soon so replaced all clamps with the sleeved hd ones from Co-op, replaced one 1/4" hose as well. Tightened it all up. Laid mat down, hooked up hoses and plugged electrical (marked cyl 1-4)back in. Clamped bodies back in boots. Tray back on, new air cleaner, cover screwed on. Gas tank refilled, bolted back on. Refilled radiator, cap on. What did I miss? Did tool count, I have no idea how many are in use, or sockets present. Oh, well
. Here goes nothing. Key on. Hit starter. Woh hoo. It running, no funny noises, and no extra coolant leak, just have to wait for, little pool of coolant top of engine to run out. Tupper ware next. I may be able to ride this weekend yet. The secret was/is USE LOTS Of PENITRATING OIL on boots.

Now you are an expert and can help others with this problem!! Great job of getting in there and finding that problem.

just a reminder for some, when u remove the throttle bodys watch the colors on the tps and map sensors. they are the same plugs but diffrent in color. the first time i took mine off i put them on wrong. and it is a pain to get them swapped with out pulling the carbs again. the tps is blue, and the map is gray.

Did you loose enough coolant that the air needs bled from your system? IF so you need to open radiator cap (after engine cool) and snap the throttle 3-4 times to bleed all the air out of the system that may have gotten in.