K11 Owners Group

jhinds · Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:54 pm Post subject: On/off adjustment of cooling fan

On K11 radiator thread from 2009 regarding Hayden thermo switch I noted this in comment by dryheat:

"You are going to adjust the switch to turn the fan on according to the temp gauge on the bike."

Is that fan adjustment a standard feature of the K1100 or a feature of the Hayden switch? If standard how does one make said adjustments?

My fan ran continuously today. The ambient temp was about 80. I've searched for ways to adjust the fan on/off settings to no avail but did find these threads which were otherwise helpful. Hopefully I don't have a motronic issue. Threads:

http://k11og.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11685&highlight=fan+adjustment
http://k11og.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7529&highlight=fan+adjustment

The fan comes on when the gauge indicator is on the middle mark. Before a recent complete service (dealer) when I asked them to look at the cooling system the fan would come on when the indicator was near the red and go off an increment below, that is, I thought the bike might be running hot. Since then I've been on a 3000 mile journey (just returned) with no fan issues though I did find coolant in my oil at a layover in Gillette, Wyoming. I changed the oil, added Bars Copper Block Seal to the radiator overflow, ran the bike a half hour, changed the oil again and found no coolant in the oil. Then, back to Texas with no loss of coolant and no coolant in oil, and as I say, no fan issues till today, two weeks after returning home. I assume the Bars gunk isn't interfering with the sending unit that informs the motronix of the coolant temperature.

Thanks

1993 K1100, about 112,000 miles
one owner
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John
'76 BMW R90/6 >150K miles
'93 K1100LT >120K miles

hockeyshifter · Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:35 pm Post subject:

OH NO THE DREADED HEADGASKET strikes again ( maybe)
any time you find coolant and oil contaminated with each other its gonna cause issues..

what you have to diagnois is which way is the problem is traveling..
coolant in the oil is not good because coolant will break down the oil and you will lose lubrisicty; the engine will have premature wear and then failure.

oil in the coolant is better ( still not healthy) because the oil is being forced out of the combustion chamber and into the coolant jackets.
it sounds like to me like the head gasket is starting fail.. i had a subi legacy
with 250k miles .the engine fans would run constantly when the ambient temp was above 45 F and the engine temp was above 135 F . when i replaced what i thought was a stuck thermostat the H-gasket finally went. now it was a design flaw not a cheap OEM part..

also remember the engine cooling system is under pressure ( about 7 to 15 psi) when the engine is hot this allows a lower boil over point. this allowes the coolant to be much more efficent at shedding the heat . remove the pressure ( which you can do to prevent coolant lose in an emergancy) and the engine will run at a much higher temp .

hope this help and its just my 2 cents worth .
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Jim · Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:20 pm Post subject:

John,

The fan adjustment is on the Hayden fan switch - not the bike.
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1997 K1100LTSE 94,000 - still has gremlins!
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1992 K75RTP 46,000

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Scott_Anderson · Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:44 am Post subject:

As far as the coolant/oil mix..... Check the weep hole at the underside of the water/oil pump.
Make sure it's not plugged up.
Verrrry remote possibility you could have some cross contamination from bad shaft seals and a plugged weep/drain hole. More often then not you end up with oil in the coolant as the oil side should be at a higher pressure, but you never know......Once you shut off the bike the water side is still at 15lbs or more till it cools down.
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Flying Duck · Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 4:42 am Post subject:

The "good" part about getting coolant in the oil is that it is very easy to detect. If you check the oil sight glass right after riding and you see frothy bubbles...
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jhinds · Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 9:02 am Post subject:

Thank you hokyshifter, Jim, Scott, and Flying Duck.

hockeyshifter, So, headgasket leaks are not so uncommon. I should have thought to narrow my search to that. Further info: The same thing happened to me a year or so ago on a shorter trip, 600 miles of hard riding in one day. Coolant in the oil. Changed oil and had no recurrence UNTIL I TOOK ANOTHER LONG TRIP. Short daily/weekly rides of no more than 40/100 miles didn't produce the symptoms. Maybe this clue means something I'm missing.

Jim, I might look into the Hayden fan switch and do wonder what the main rationale is for installing it. Surely its not just to address the issue of continuously running fans.

Scott, The first thing I did was check the weep hole. It seems to be unclogged. My probe goes in about a .5 inch or so and I can feel what is probably some kind of felt like material.

Flying Duck, Right that. The sight glass shows foam and/or chocolate colored foamy oil. And, the antifreeze pools somewhat in the cover plate of the oil filter.

Thanks so much.
_________________
John
'76 BMW R90/6 >150K miles
'93 K1100LT >120K miles

jhinds · Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 2:09 pm Post subject: Incomplete resolution

I like to work on these bikes but since I don't do it often I tend to make expensive mistakes. Therefore, I took the bike in for service, Lone Star BMW, Austin, Texas where I've had good results.

They replaced the water/oil pump shaft, 3 seals, 3 O rings, thermostat, water temperature sensor, radiator cap, 2 spacer bushings, and a gasket ring. Bars Leak damages some of these components, e.g., the sensor, I'm told.

Before this service, when the fan was working the way I know as "normal", it would come on at the third indicator on the temp gauge and go off at the middle one. Now it is coming on at the edge of the red and goes off about the three quarter mark. Before the temperature gauge was running around the middle mark, now the third. Some others on other threads treat this as normal, I take it, but it seems abnormal to me since it is a remarkable change from before this service job.

I wonder if I have a bad gauge and have looked here but not found a definitive way of determining that; though, there are a great many ancillary discussions.

I'm aware that the motronic controls the fan and that it's sensor is at the engine block and that the gauge is connected to the dual purpose coolant drain plug/temperature sending unit.

Flying Duck, I looked at your web page and found a temperature gauge that I might want and would like to ask about via email.

Thanks.
_________________
John
'76 BMW R90/6 >150K miles
'93 K1100LT >120K miles

BobZ(IL) · Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:31 pm Post subject:

It might be of interest for you to know that temp gauges on American cars are "desensitized" to stay in the mid range except when engine is cold or extremely hot. This is because we would be very uncomfortable watching the gauge move with actual variations in operating temperatures.
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jhinds · Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:03 am Post subject:

yes. I'm concerned because of the change of behaviour of the gauge. These gauges. fail but I don't know how to test them. Does anyone know which VDO gauge will fit?
_________________
John
'76 BMW R90/6 >150K miles
'93 K1100LT >120K miles