Overheating

[John&Pat]

I have a 2004 Wing ABS model I bought brand new. At about 50,000 kms I noted the bike would overheat in heavy traffic. I pull a leesurelite lite trailer and figured that would contribute to it. Posts online seemed to indicate that overheating was "normal" iusing first gear slow speed control. It used to take a long time for the needle to climb up to the red. One time on a long hill climb in stop/go traffic needle went into red zone and bike began to boil over. You don't have to be a mechanic to know that is not good. Pulled over and let bike cool down. Added a little coolant and generally bike has been OK. I now have 185,000 Kim's on bike and problem seems to be getting worse. Five minutes in heavy traffic without the trailer and needle starts to climb. In 10 minutes The needle is in the red zone and beginning to boil over. As soon as Traffic moves and I can get into second gear temperature returns to normal. I have let this bike sit for 30+ minutes and needle does not move. Any suggestions out there??

[crabbywinger]

Just a thought, is this the original coolant or has it been changed and how many times? Another thing to check is to wash out the radiators and get the bugs out. Hydrogen Peroxide sprayed into the radiators back side ( behind the plastic) let set and then with a light stream from a hose (do not use pressure washer or hard stream from hose) and that should clean the rads out. Also another thing do you hear the fans come on? Not the greatest of Wing mechanics on this board but some simple stuff you can look for. By the way good idea to change coolant every two years or so, what you have in there, if original, is waaaaaay past it's sell by date. Hope this helps, Rocky is the guy on this board who will give you the best information, hopefully he will chime in soon. Good luck.

Crabby Bob

[Westdc]

Put some american water in it and it will run cooler - or change & flush your coolant system - It's winter up north already -put the bike away

[jmohme]

Just to add to what Crabby Bob said. When you check to make sure the fans are coming on, make sure that both of them are working.

[MMR]

John & Pat, this was typical of the 2001-2004 model year Wings. There was a recall...er...ECM ? change that was a fix for this, and some folks found that their cooling fans were turning backwards. I know that someone will come on here and # 1...correct me, and # 2...add info to this, so that it is complete, but from what I remember (and remember, I was struck by lightning), the cooling fans both turn the opposite direction when in first gear, and riding slow.....than they do when in 4th or 5th gear, and riding faster.

Agree with above, make sure the cooling fans are BOTH working.....change your coolant every year like Cruiseman does...and make every attempt to get into a higher gear...when possible. I have experienced this over-heating myself on my '03 and '04 bikes, but learned to work around it.

See if someone has the TSB for changing the ECM/ECU for that year, that is supposed to fix this issue.

[Kit Carson]

I would change the water pump, a new impeller will move more coolant and increase the circulation. An inspection inside the radiators will help too, drain it down and peek down in there, if the inside is coated with a white stuff a good chemical flush of the whole system is in order.

What was happening when the bike was new was normal, what you describe now is not normal.

[JohnK105]

The fans on Goldwings pull in from the side and blow out the front to reduce the amount of heat on the driver. The fans only run until about 18 mph (29 kph) and then shut off, allowing the incoming air from the front to flow through in a normal direction to extract the heat from the radiators. The problem is that in this low speed range when the fans are moving air inward AND the bike's movement is moving air in the opposite direction, we end up with sometimes zero air movement through the radiators.

Now if you take a Goldwing that has not had regular maintenance for the cooling system, that problem is compounded. As other have said bugs, leaves, debris coming in from the front will collect on the back side of the radiators. Every time you wash the bike it's a good idea to spray water through the radiators to flush loose debris off of the back side. And every so often it's a good idea to use spray cleaner on the back side of the radiators to remove the stubborn stuff. Regular flushing and fluid changes are a necessity.

So as the others have mentioned if the regular maintenance may be behind schedule, give it a good going over to clean, flush, and replace everything connected with the cooling. Then see if that helps, realizing that you will always have a potential to overheat when moving very slowly for extended periods of time.

John