| Author | Message | ||
     Xlcaferacer |
need help!!!! leaving for a 2,500 mile trip from crested butte, co to glacier natl park in 13 days and the nearest dealer is 160 miles away, so I don't want to go there. still under warranty but don't have time to go to dealer (and not that impressed with them). went for a ride today on my '07 uly and my butt was on fire. got to a stop light in the next town (30 miles away) and realized the fan wasn't working. so i had lunch to let her cool down and rode back home. pulled her into the garage and as soon as i turned her off the fan started working again. any ideas would be appreciated. she only has 3,000 miles (brand new last fall) so i have not bought a manual yet but will when i get home frome the trip. thanks in advance for your input. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Well, if the fan worked when you shut it off the fan is OK. I thought you'd get a "check engine" light any time the ECM called for fan but didn't get it. Anybody? Check wiring; pull and reinstall fuses and relays and check them. Maybe a relay just hung up and then started working again. They have been known to do that. (Message edited by Hughlysses on June 25, 2009) | ||
| Froggy |
Sometimes you will get a check engine light if the fan failed. From what you described it sounds like the engine was cool enough for the fan to not come on during the first trip, or you might have a problem with the head temp sensor reporting that the bike is colder than it is. When the fan is running, does it sound normal? No grinding noises, blender full of rocks? | ||
| Ulynut |
When mine was new, that fan was screaming all the time. Now with 20,000 miles it doesn't run as much. Sometimes it even shuts off when I'm cruising. You have 13 more days to ride around and check it out. Like Froggy said, it probably wasn't hot enough to run the fan. | ||
| Hughlysses |
How many miles on your bike now, and what was the outside temp when you noticed this? My bike's up to almost 19000 miles now. I can ride ~5 miles in 90 degree heat or ~10 miles at 70 degrees (at ~45-50 MPH) before the fan comes on. | ||
| Florida_lime |
When my first 2 fans went out, I got a 13 trouble code, with the engine light on, and the fuse blown. You could replace the fuse to get rid of the light, but as soon as the fan tried to come on again, it would pop the fuse. Neither fan made the "box of rocks" sounds before failure, so I don't think you can always go by that. | ||
| Xlcaferacer |
thanks for input. I noticed a big seat of the pants difference (they were hot) while riding today. I use the town 30 miles away as a reference because this is where i go for short trips and have done this ride the most. So even in cooler temps (down to 50 degrees), after i get to the other town the fan is usually running. today it was in the 70's and the fan did not kick on during the 60 mile round trip until i turned it off in the garage. and once it was off it started dripping gas out of the overflow, i think due to having a full tank (30 miles after fill up) and the tank being hot and expanding the fuel. oh, and the bike has just at 3,000 miles. please keep the ideas coming. | ||
| Hughlysses |
It sure seems like your fan should have come on under those conditions, especially on a bike with 3k miles. I'd look for obvious things, and ride it a lot and see if it happens again. (Message edited by Hughlysses on June 25, 2009) | ||
| Xlcaferacer |
oh yeah, no engine light and no unusual fan noise to speak of. | ||
| Trevd |
Xlcaferacer, did you recently get the new download? I'm asking, because I recently did, and since then, I don't think my fan has come on once when I've been riding. I haven't ridden it much, but did today a bit around town. My arse was hot, hot - hotter than it used to be I would say. Even the left side was starting to get hot at times. Fan didn't come on until I switched the kill switch to off... I don't know if my head temp sensor is broken or what. When I did stop a few times, it seemed that the fan stayed on longer if the engine was hotter (according to my seat of the pants impression), so that would indicate to me that it's staying on based on the temperature of the head. So I don't know what's going on... I even let the bike idle in the driveway for a while when I got home, hoping to get it hot enough to turn the fan on - nothing. I'm wondering if the latest download I got raised the temperature that the fan kicks on at, unless of course you shut the engine off, in which case the fan automatically kicks in. Anyone know? BTW, mine is an '08 XT, with only about 1800 miles on it. The temp was about 73F today. (Message edited by trevd on July 05, 2009) | ||
| Trevd |
OK, just took it for another ride - combo of highway and slow moving in town. Fan did not come on at all while riding. It came on when I stopped everytime, but now I'm wondering if it just does that, regardless of how hot the head is. At one point, while the fan was going after I had turned it off, I started it up and revved it a bit to see if I could get the fan on while the engine was running, but nothing. Now I'm concerned. I'm heading to Tennessee in 2 weeks, where it's sure to be hotter than here, and if that fan doesn't start running while the engine is running, I'm gonna roast my nuts, not to mention melt that rear cylinder... Is it possible that a couple of weeks ago when the dealer replaced the intake seals, they somehow disconnected the rear cylinder temperature sensor? Where is the rear cylinder heat sensor? Am I able to see it by removing the seat and/or airbox? | ||
| Portero72 |
I wouldn't worry about it-if your fan comes on at shutdown, its working. FWIW, my 09 got an updated map a few months after I'd had it and I noticed a significant difference in fan runtime-much less with the new map. On cool (TX) days, it would ONLY run at shutdown. If you start going into skip spark mode, THEN get worried. | ||
| Brown_e |
Just had the fan replaced on my 06 and now the fan runs twice as much as before. Quite often while out on the highway where as before mainly after shut off. Would the new fan change the sensor temp or does the new fan have a sensor on it? Any ideas why? | ||
| Buellhusker |
I to thought my fan had failed on my 2009 Uly however I found that the fan comes on more when the fuel level is low. I have noticed that when I come back into town from a long ride and low on fuel the fan is running while riding after I fill the tank the fan does not run untill I stop and shut the bike off. | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
You need to build yourself a Oil Temp Dipstick for your Uly's swingarm. If that swingarm oil is getting over 200F and that fan is not blowing then there is probably something amiss. Remember, it's not just rear head temp that you need to worry about but also the oil temp. In fact that is primarily why the fan comes on, to keep your engine from smoking the oil away because of too hot of engine. Here's my step by step guide to making yourself a oil temp dipstick. Well worth the little bit of effort and under 20 bucks if you already have the tools. http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/142 838/461500.html | ||
| Trevd |
Nice dipstick Electra... Might have to make one of those... | ||
| Treysmagna |
Ok, so now I have had bad wheel bearings and at just short of 21k miles my fan went out! Guess these are real inherent problems that Buell should have recalled | ||
| Hughlysses |
There are very specific criteria for a recall and if these items met them, they would have been recalled. ~21k miles for a ~$80 part that runs ~90% of the time isn't unreasonable life. | ||
| Treysmagna |
Perhaps it is not unreasonable, but I would think that there would a a fan made that could stand up to the duty. I love my Uly and wont get rid of it because of stuff like this, but you would think that Buell would look at mean time between failure and come up with something that would last at least 50k miles. | ||
| Hughlysses |
A couple of years ago, guys with early 06's had fans failing on a regular basis. One guy here bought a spare fan off of ebay, disassembled it so that he could see the exact parts used, and did an analysis. He actually measured the temperature of the air coming out of the fan on a hot Uly, and then analyzed the bearings used based on that environment. Basically, he determined that the seal material and type of grease were borderline suitable for the temperatures encountered which would eventually lead to the seals failing, grease oozing out and getting into the brushes, and fan failure either from bearing failure or electrical failure through contamination of the brushes. He also concluded that there were seal materials and suitable grease available, so that it wouldn't be that big of a deal for the factory to upgrade the fans on the production line (they're made in Italy IIRC). OTOH it would not be practical for an owner to disassemble his fan and replace the bearings due to some of the special tools required. It seems fan failures are less frequent on 07 Ulys and unknown on 08's and 09's, so hopefully Buell did work with the fan manufacturer to improve the fan, and hopefully your replacement fan will last the life of the bike. | ||
| Froggy |
The fans are up to the duty, there are many bikes out there with over 60k miles and have not had a single failure. | ||
| Florida_lime |
On the 3rd fan on my '07, currently at 33,000+ miles. Just sayin'. | ||
| Metalstorm |
I just had to replace my fan about a week ago (along with speed sensor) For the last year it sounded like there were rocks in it. Then a month ago it stopped working in high speed but would still run at low speed. Two weeks ago it degraded some more. It would only come on after shut down and only about 50% of the time at best. And it was a labored slooow speed. I started worrying what with the weather getting warmer and ordered a replacement from Al and now all is well again. I can be out riding and I'll hear it come on. I know we often bitch about how loud the fan is but boy was I happy to hear it! I like it loud. It lets me know that every thing is okie dokie  I'll admit that replacing the fan took some patience and some choice words. It was like trying to fit a square peg through a triangle shaped hole! | ||
| Pso |
What type of CEL is tossed out when the fan goes? My fan stopped on my trip to Upstate NY last weekend. It started about 2 weeks ago bad sound like a leaf blower full of leaves then last weekend only a very anemic low speed at shut down. I got the red CELlight on when the RPM and thus speed was down, but once I got up to about 3500 to 4000 RPM the light would go out. When I started the bike on Friday and Sat. and Sunday, I got the red light for the 4 sec then it would go out. As of today I get the red 4 sec and then the red light goes off and then comes on and stayes on. Also can someone give me some details ref how to replace the cooling fan? I will be doing that this weekend. | ||
| Metalstorm |
Advice on replacing fan: Take a course in advanced geometry.  It's in the shop book. For me it wasn't as easy as the book lead me to believe. But in the end it was doable and all is well. First you gotta lift the bike from the muffler so you can remove the shock and get it out of your way. It says after removal of screws to turn turn fan assembly clockwise (or was that counter clockwise?) to remove it then disconnect the connector. Install is reversal of above. I never got a CEL or code or anything when my fan started going bad. Though it didn't actually die completely. It still gurgled a little when I replaced it. On edit" Fan replacement took me about 40 minutes start to finish (not including the time it took to raise my bike which is a cg and requires my 'special tools' to raise). If I have to do it again in the future it will probably only take me 20 minutes. (Message edited by metalstorm on July 20, 2009) |
