1500 leaks

[wing maniac]

I have an 89 1500 with 52000 miles and after storing it for winter I saw a puddle under the bike. I recently check the coolant tank which looked to be low on coolant so I added a little. I started the bike and let it run till the fans cycled themselves twice. It does not overheat and it didn't leak (that I could tell) after a 15 mile ride. I parked the bike and came back and checked on it after about an hour and there was a small puddle under the bike that is when I noticed that it was coming from my overflow tube.
Has anyone seen this before? It only seems to leak after it sits and cools down. I don't want to spend any riding time working on it when I can do it now.
Thanks
Angel C
GWRRA #066448

[WingAdmin]

A dumb question, but just to be sure - you have coolant (antifreeze) in the bike, not water, right?

[wing maniac]

Yes I use the Honda Antifreeze

[WingAdmin]

Well if the coolant reservoir is at the cold "full" mark now, and the bike is cold, it should not leak any more. I'd make sure that is the case, and try it one more time to see if it's still leaking out the overflow.

[wing maniac]

Ok, I don't know why it leaked in the first place now. When I checked the coolant tank it was low (or looked low) so I added coolant to the tank. I went back and siphoned some out made sure it was at the correct level and ran it till the fans cycled twiced and shut it off. I let it sit and checked it after a couple of hours and then after a couple of days and there are no signs of puddles under the bike.

I wonder if running it after storing it while it was cold and not letting the fans cycle could have caused the problem? This happened once before (after owning it for two years) We were riding up north in MI for a color tour and it got cool overnight after pulling out of the parking lot at the motel someone noticed a puddle but after checking it over we found nothing and it hasn't done it till recently.
It had maybe 7500 miles then and now it has 52,000 Thanks for all your help

Angel Cancel
GWRRA
#066448

[WingAdmin]

My guess would be the water pump O-rings are shrinking from the cold temperature, just enough to let some coolant leak past, and out the weep hole. When things are warm, everything is fine, and there are no problems.

You could pull it apart and replace the O-rings to stop this behavior - but if it was my bike, and it was only happening when it's really cold out - I wouldn't bother.

[wing maniac]

That's what I thought might be happening but after removing the lower cowl to replace it with a chrome one I noticed that the leak was coming from the overflow tube. The water pump and everything in that area was dry.

I was wondering if it could be a bad radiator cap but for now I am going to keep an eye on it, my pressure tester is for cars and I don't have an adapter for the smaller radiator or cap openings

Thanks for everything

Angel
GWRRA #066448

[rayworx@comcast.net]

I had something similar happen to my 88 when I bought it. Being that old you have to expect some of the rubber or neoprene parts to start to corrode. That's what happened to the hose fitting that fits onto the top of the coolant reserve tank. It had small cracks in it and caused overflow through the reserve tank drain tube.
They were still available about 5 years ago. The part is actually from a V-4 like a VF750C
19108-MB0-000 should retail about $8.00 USD