Urgent help!

I did my plugs and filter over the weekend, so had the tank mostly off (left the fuel hose attached as it was long enough to maneuver the tank around still). Got to work this morning and have noticed a couple of drops of clutch or brake fluid dripping from one of the drain hoses. Could I have possibly loosened something while I had the tank off? What should I be looking for? I'm 74km from my tools so I'm hoping it's a slow enough leak that I can make it home and fix it tonight

Are you sure it's hydraulic fluid...most likely fuel if its one of the drains under the bike.

Definitely hydraulic as it is blue

It appears to be coolant. Downgrade the alarm for now

More than likely just some coolant that was in the radiator expansion tank overflow drain pipe that had collected and was moved when you were fooling around with the plugs.

But if your bike is a 1200 you're in real trouble

Didn't realise the coolant was blue too, so I panicked a bit. It's also a little greazy, which I've never encountered before

Cardboard Tube Samurai wrote:Didn't realise the coolant was blue too, so I panicked a bit. It's also a little greazy, which I've never encountered before

I've never seen blue coolant either, how have you determined its coolant?

Feel and smell. At work so can't spend all day working on the bike. Unless the cooling system is full of hydraulic fluid... That would be bad...

Cardboard Tube Samurai wrote:Feel and smell. At work so can't spend all day working on the bike. Unless the cooling system is full of hydraulic fluid... That would be bad...

Had a look around online, there are Blue coolants around, Just not what you normally see in your local auto shop.

Due for a flush so I'll get onto it this weekend

madmax wrote:

Cardboard Tube Samurai wrote:Didn't realise the coolant was blue too, so I panicked a bit. It's also a little greazy, which I've never encountered before

I've never seen blue coolant either, how have you determined its coolant?

My Bandit was delivered new from Peter Steven with blue coolant

Alarm level rising again. Got to work this morning and it's dropping even more coolant. I had to move the cap assembly from where it's mounted to the frame in order to get to the plugs. What are the chances I've dislodged something which has caused a blockage? Or would I be barking up the wrong tree? I use it as my daily and can't really get time to flush it myself. There's a Team Moto about 200m from work but they'd be an absolute last resort

If everything was ok prior to moving the radiator cap assembly and your riding the same as before, just double check to make sure the cap is all the way closed, it can sometimes feel on but still has another ¼ turn.

My (07 1250) started leaking a fair bit out the overflow after some very heavy duty riding (well for me at least), was fixed by re-jigging the overflow reservoir plumbing (to that of a normal system) and changing to a new cap.

Ah, thanks I'll check. Might drop in to Team Nogo to grab some coolant on the way home though, just in case it doesn't solve the problem

Coolant will find its own level if you fill reserviour to the high level it will probably push out the overflow. Fill only to the lower level marking and there shouldn't be a problem. thats what my bike does anyway, never overheated in western sydney summer heat.
graham

But I didn't top it up. This problem has only presented since moving it. Admittedly, I took the cap off and may have put it back to front

Cardboard Tube Samurai wrote:But I didn't top it up. This problem has only presented since moving it. Admittedly, I took the cap off and may have put it back to front

you can't put a radiator cap on back to front, they are the same either way

Thought so. Hoping it's just loose then.

I doubt if this is the problem with Cardboard's bike but for general interest I'll add this here, sorry if this is a repeat for some of you.

For some unknown reason Suzuki designed the most complicated and virtually useless plumbing on the expansion tank for the early water cooled bikes.

Looking at the diagram below you can see there is a open pathway from the radiator to the overflow via tubes 42 - 44 - 36 - 37 - 38.  Overflow can actually be dumped out without going into the actual expansion recovery tank (30).  There is no reason I can find why pipe 44 was ever installed.  

Mine was dumping fluid at every stop, it would take 1.5 to 2lts of coolant to top it back up, and there was never any fluid in the expansion tank.  I believe the main problem was that the cap itself had lost its pressure sealing, but as part of the fix we re-jigged the system to act like a normal arrangement by disconnecting pipe 44 at the "T" join (39).  A plug was stuck at the disconnected end of the rubber pipe 44 along with a second small length of pipe (also plugged at one end) connected back to the open port on the "T" piece 39. This makes sure all overflow coolant is pushed into the expansion tank whilst still retaining providing the excess overflow through pipes 35 to 38.  There has been no fluid lost since doing these mods.  

You are exactly right Barry, went through this 2 years ago and could not understand why or who would design such a stupid recovery system, have not had to top up my coolant for over a year since removing the Y piece from the tube.

Thanks for that.  I HAD noticed the unusual plumbing.   It's like the cooling system engineers must've had a few cones and more parts than they quite knew what to do with, when they were finishing it off.  What were they thinking?  

I agree, it could be simplified quite a lot and would function more like one would expect, with just a plain hose to the bottom of the tank from the radiator and a plain hose from the top as an overflow. 

If someone can explain the logic of the way it is, please do.  It might make an interesting read.

I agree with the plumbing fix. Suzuki got it wrong. 
Another very important note. DO NOT ADD COOLANT!! Add only water. Demineralised is preferable.  
Mixing coolants can have catastrophic consequences.  Chemical reactions which can eat out alloy radiators and heads in a matter of days. 
13 years in the radiator game, I saw it frequently.  
If you want to add coolant.  Flush the cooling system very very well first.

Thanks guys. Bike made it home with no issue. I've checked the levels and it's fine, double checked that the lid is back on tight, and will just have to see how it goes tomorrow morning. I read about that Y piece and the magnificent engineering behind it. Definitely a possibility in this case. If the bike is dropping coolant tomorrow I'll see if any is making it up into the overflow reservoir.

I enquired at Team Nogo about coolant and they pointed out the decriminalised water thing too. Lucky too, because the largest size they had was 1.5L, where the Bandit requires 3.5L

Cardboard Tube Samurai wrote:... decriminalised water...

, got to remember that one.

Yes it's highway robbery the price they charge for a couple of drops of rain water.

Great morning to test this. 15km traffic jam down the highway meant lots of low speed filtering. Dropped a little bit of fluid and the reservoir was full. New radiator cap time?