I quickly got into SKF’s car park, jumped off the bike and did a little ouch dance.
I could see where the coolant had splashed on the side of the bike and when I blipped the throttle I could see some splashes, so I peered in a bit closer, blipped the throttle again and copped an eyeful of hot coolant.
After another slightly longer ouch dance, this time with added vocal accompaniment, I had at least identified the leak.
The bottom hose from the three-way round thingy had a small split where the clamp had cut the hose.
Fortunately where I was stopped there was an auto spares place right next door, so with the Aprilia toolkit I managed to remove the offending hose and get a car part that was somewhat similar. A bit of cutting and twisting saw it in place, quick top up with distilled water and I was back on the road.
All in all it took me an hour to fix, and it was a complete bastard of a job. I had to loosen the oil tank off to get enough access to get the new hose on and the toolkit doesn’t have a spanner that fits the top bolt, so I had to use the rear wheel nut spanned with another spanner wedged in to take up the slack.
Saturday was taken up with taking the proper hose off the spare Falco and putting it on mine with a full coolant change.
Went for a spirited run on Sunday that saw the temps hitting 105C at a stop (engine off and ignition on, but they dropped back quickly when I started the motor to circulate the water).
So happy enough for the moment, but I’ll be replacing all the hoses as soon as I can get a set, might have to try the RSV Samco setup.[/img]
