2001 ST1100 overheating

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you're more forgiving than I am. I think its a stupid design flaw that no customer should have expected just because the bike has a fairing.

I think that's a bit harsh, as it takes all of 5 minutes to remove what you need to get to the radiator cap. If your bike is in good maintenance, how often would you ever need to access the cap?

I overthought a "warm" needle reading on my bike recently and in the work parking lot pulled off the plastic to check the radiator and it was full. I was fine, I just got so used to seeing the temp gauge constantly low that a short spike from slow riding cause me to worry needlessly.
 
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I think that's a bit harsh, as it takes all of 5 minutes to remove what you need to get to the radiator cap.
yeah, I mentioned that in an earlier post, its not like its a big deal or anything.

But it would have been simple enough to arrange the fasteners such that you only need to remove the side panel and grey fairing pocket to get access. There's no reason the top shelter, seat, side covers, and saddlebags need to be removed, so I consider it a poor design.
 

Joseph/TX

R.I.P. - 2016/11/13
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But it would have been simple enough to arrange the fasteners such that you only need to remove the side panel and grey fairing pocket to get access. There's no reason the top shelter, seat, side covers, and saddlebags need to be removed, so I consider it a poor design.
"Poor design". I think that's the term I was using when I tried to change my headlight bulb in the 15 minutes I had before going to work. STill not done; probably gonna need at least an hour. Actually, I think I used some words other than poor, but Mellow would censor them. I suspect that they do this on purpose to discourage people from working on the bikes themselves...
 
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My biggest problem with faired bikes if the proliferation of poor housekeeping habits...out of sight, out of mind. Collect dust, moisture in the air, crud becomes thicker and deeper and holds more moisture...things like pretty parts corrode. Most importantly, electrical connections corrode...once intermittent connections start there are all sorts of random, difficult to diagnose problems. Worse area is the alternator connectors....high current and loose connections will lead to really expensive-to-fix damage.
Pull the plastic work, inspect and clean everything periodically...frequency depending on your operating environment.
 

Fatjock

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Honda has produced water-cooled Gold Wings since 1975, and they weren't the first, Suzuki had the water buffalo in the early '70s. The concept of a radiator wasn't new to Honda, or anyone else in the industry when the ST1100 was designed.
So what was the percentage of bikes produced as water-cooled in the mid-80's, in comparison to that of today?
If the figures are similar or higher, I'll happily eat my words.
If the figures are lower, I stand by what I said.
ABS has been around since the 1930's, doesn't mean it was in common use industry-wide. Even in the 90's it was still in it's infancy. Same logic applies to liquid-cooling motor-cycle engines.
There is a huge gulf between being in existence, and being common usage.

Perhaps the designer envisioned easy access to the expansion tank to be sufficient for most maintenance? After this is easily accessible.
Having the luxury of almost thirty years, and many millions of miles, experience on the machine is something the designers of the ST1100 didn't have. Nor did they have a widespread knowledge of the usage and reliability of different systems in use throughout the industry for of decades, as designers now do.
 
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Pull the plastic work, inspect and clean everything periodically...frequency depending on your operating environment.
Once a year, after the riding season, all the plastic comes off, everything that is scheduled for maintenance or replacement gets done along with a close inspection of wiring in known problem areas. Then a through cleaning of the naked bike and all plastic bits before re-assembly. The reward is long term reliability.
 
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So what was the percentage of bikes produced as water-cooled in the mid-80's, in comparison to that of today?
If the figures are similar or higher, I'll happily eat my words.
If the figures are lower, I stand by what I said.
ABS has been around since the 1930's, doesn't mean it was in common use industry-wide. Even in the 90's it was still in it's infancy. Same logic applies to liquid-cooling motor-cycle engines.
There is a huge gulf between being in existence, and being common usage.
Here's a link, take a look and you'll see that in 1987 just about all of Honda's street bikes were water cooled. I don't know the exact lead time for producing a bike, but that's probably about the time the first ST1100 was being designed.

http://www.motorbikes.be/en/Honda_1987.aspx
 
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I didn't bother to check out the listed bikes in the previous post, but I suspect that most motorcycle manufacturers knew just about all they needed to know about liquid cooled engines by the 1980's, with the possible exceptions of BMW and HD.
 
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So what was the percentage of bikes produced as water-cooled in the mid-80's, in comparison to that of today?
If the figures are similar or higher, I'll happily eat my words.
If the figures are lower, I stand by what I said.
ABS has been around since the 1930's, doesn't mean it was in common use industry-wide. Even in the 90's it was still in it's infancy. Same logic applies to liquid-cooling motor-cycle engines.
There is a huge gulf between being in existence, and being common usage.

Perhaps the designer envisioned easy access to the expansion tank to be sufficient for most maintenance? After this is easily accessible.
Having the luxury of almost thirty years, and many millions of miles, experience on the machine is something the designers of the ST1100 didn't have. Nor did they have a widespread knowledge of the usage and reliability of different systems in use throughout the industry for of decades, as designers now do.


The shift to water cooling was driven by EPA requirements. Water cooling was an easy means of meeting these emissions requirements...wasn't directly required by EPA. Compared with air cooled, the operating temperature is constant over most riding and ambient situations, therefore emissions are consistent and controllable to a greater degree than with air cooling. Maybe a memory thing, but I think it was phased in by the various manufacturers by engine displacement...bigger first. I also think that by the mid 1980's most large displacement bikes were water cooled.
Water cooling allows for a higher combustion temperature which burns the fuel/air mixture more completely, and faster. Plus side is that a bit more performance can be squeezed out of an engine.
 

RobbieAG

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Once a year, after the riding season, all the plastic comes off, everything that is scheduled for maintenance or replacement gets done along with a close inspection of wiring in known problem areas. Then a through cleaning of the naked bike and all plastic bits before re-assembly. The reward is long term reliability.
This is something I've learned after a couple years of ownership - you have to time your maintenance during the off season. I have to admit to scratching my head a few times (and muttering a few things under my breath) after finding out what had to be removed to get to the radiator cap - not to mention the coolant hoses under the catbs.
 
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I don't have an off-season thanks to our mild winters ;-)
Pretty much all my maintenance will have to fit in a weekend over at my parents' barn because I don't have any room at my house.
 

Ron

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If you leave the sheet metal screw out when re-assembly, You can pull the grey pocket plastic without pulling the tank cover.

If the overflow bottle is full and the radiator is low, the overflow hose is cracked. The hose passes water to the overflow tank but the vacuum to pull it back into the radiator is lost. The overflow bottle will drain it out when it gets full and the process continues until the over heating cannot be ignored.
 
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If you leave the sheet metal screw out when re-assembly, You can pull the grey pocket plastic without pulling the tank cover.
thanks, I was wondering about that, but never tried it. I seem to recall there's a little ridge on the grey part, and I wasn't sure if there was enough clearance to pull it sideways. Next time I'm in there I'll leave the screw out.
 

Fatjock

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thanks, I was wondering about that, but never tried it. I seem to recall there's a little ridge on the grey part, and I wasn't sure if there was enough clearance to pull it sideways. Next time I'm in there I'll leave the screw out.
My '91 didn't have them in when I got it. There is a ridge on the grey part. I found that if I loosen the upper retaining bolts on the cover, it gives enough room to get them out, and saves a bit of work.
 
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superdiver
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As an update, i tackled the job this last weekend in anticipation of a 2 week ride with my son coming up in July. I figured since I was in there and didn't want to be in there twice, i had a new thermostat and new radiator cap ready. I tore it apart, and replaced the thermo and the cap and removed the vacuum tube (which I am POSITIVE was the culprit as it was badly cracked and worn and even squished flat in a couple of places by the tupperware). I use ss hose clamps and a thicker walled fuel hose that should hold up better.

I used zip ties (not so tight as to squeeze the hose) to hold the hose out of the way of where the tupperware might pinch it, and I bought a hose about 2 inches longer so I wouldn't have to make such tight bends. I took pictures while taking it apart and still ended up with 4 extra little black phelps screws! I meant to leave out the two that hold the side box storage things in, but I don't know where the other two came from!

Either way, once it was reconnected I started it up, it took quite a while longer to warm up then it had prior to the repair, and once the temp gauge got to about 4/5ths of the way thru the middle temp range indicator the fan kicked on and cooled it down to about half way and then shut off and kicked back on again when it got about 3/4 of the way thru the temp range. It just stayed in that range sitting in the garage without over heating.

I put the tupperware back on and took it for a test drive. I was having trouble as soon as I hit town, especially if I had to stop at stop lights! It would over heat and start the clutch to slip by overheating the clutch fluid. It was almost 70 degrees (hot here) and it never over heated once! I ran it twice back and forth thru town (we have 3 stop lights) cuz it took me a while to hit all three stop lights and I wanted to see if it would go to the end of the middle temp range. it never did, and as soon as I got out of town it would cool all the way down to the very low end of the range.

I refer to the middle range as that area in the middle inside the white lines, with the cold and hot on either end.
 

ST1100Y

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So its OK in idle (low amounts of fuel burned), but goes havoc on road use (more fuel burned)...

- still air trapped in the system
- some clogging/restriction (either coolant or air sided)
- pump impeller corroded, causing insufficient coolant flow

That's all I got...
 
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So its OK in idle (low amounts of fuel burned), but goes havoc on road use (more fuel burned)...

- still air trapped in the system
- some clogging/restriction (either coolant or air sided)
- pump impeller corroded, causing insufficient coolant flow

That's all I got...
Like you Martin, I too was confused about the outcome of the work done by this line in his post, quoted below. Re-reading it, it seems all is well though.


I was having trouble as soon as I hit town, especially if I had to stop at stop lights! It would over heat and start the clutch to slip by overheating the clutch fluid.
 
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I think we all had to read that sentence twice to figure it out. The sentence should have started with "Before I did the latest fix, I was having trouble..."
 

ST1100Y

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Like you Martin, I too was confused about the outcome of the work done by this line in his post, quoted below. Re-reading it, it seems all is well though.
Seems like it indeed...
(sometimes hard to decipher the essays given ;-) )
 
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superdiver
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Yes, the over heating is fixed.... so I decided to see what would happen if I let it sit at idle for a long time, as if I was stuck in traffic... maybe that was stupid, but I can see it happening, right?

So I left it running in idle, out in an open area in about 60 degrees temp to see how it would react. I let it idle for about 30 minutes, the engine got up in the high 1/3 of the heat temp, which seems fine, but I loose the clutch. I had to let it cool down with the engine off for about an hour before the clutch cooled enough to work properly...

Any ideas other then "don't get stuck in 30 minutes of stop and go traffic"?
 
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