Wouldnt start, now does but leaking hot fluid ...help

[Neosophist]

I wrote that post in a hurry

What i meant was

Temp sensor was faulty , so wasnt showin the bike overheating , so i didnt turn the fans on manually

Then why dont you have the fan connected to thermo switch to turn it on and off automatically?

[nazzurro_19]

Because its faulty, and i was told half the time when changing them it snaps the rad , and i cant afford a couple hundred on rads at the moment so i spent £0.99 and bought a switch as a temp measure

[speedy231278]

Depends on the condition of the rad and the fan housing. It's very true that the tabs on the rad can become very corroded and break off when you try and remove the fan. I put a very new secondhand bottom rad on my bike a while back and it still looked pretty good last time I had a good look. If you're pulling the rads off to clean them, it would be a very good idea to take a look at the state of the fan mounts and fan housing. The both turn to dust very easily. On my 35, the fan housing literally fell to bits and left the fan hanging by a thread! Very expensive new (I had no choice, no secondhand ones at the time) my new housing cost about £80. I hate to think what a new fan would be if you can find one. Well, I'm bored, I'll have a look.... CMS housing 73 Euro, fan motor 276, fan blades 45.50. DS £69.08, N/A, 32.28. Well, that's a frightening price for an electric motor! I think that's an example of someone finding something very rare and charging the earth as a result. The other fans with the same prefix on DSs website are mostly £35, with one about twice that. eBay is your friend. I picked up an almost mint fan and shroud last year for about £30. Not that I have a large collection of bits that I don't need but will one day be useful or anything... lol

Anyway, back to the tabs.... If they are badly corroded, you need to be very careful with them when removing the fan assembly. I'm pretty sure from memory that you can only remove the fan when the housing is off the rad, so if the fan is shot, it needs to come out. In fact, if the fan is dead, you are probably better off removing it anyway as it's simply obstructing the air flow for no benefit in my opinion. I'd clean the tabs up and give them a coat of paint. Anything you can do to delay the onset of rot is good. The first time I changed my bottom rad, the tabs were shot (it had a leak which is why I replaced it), and the replacement was in fair condition and I didn't bother doing anything with it. A few years later, the fan shroud which had been in a similar condition and ignored fell to bits, and the mounts came off with it despite the best care to support them. The brand new housing went on a rad that looked like it had done a few hundred miles in the summer. Everything still had a very good layer of paint on, no chips, and only a few slightly squidged fins. I think when I have a spare weekend I'll take it off and make last winter didn't kill it, and give it a coat of something protective. There are some nice rads out there in the aftermarket, but I'd rather be replacing because I want to, not that I have to!