Coolant change gone wrong

[crussell92]

Firstly greetings all! A new fazer 1000 owner here, been browsing this forum since owning my fzs1000, and have to say found it very useful.

However, during todays routine maintenance (coolant and oil change) something alarming has happened. On undoing the coolant drain bolt it just snapped off, no problem thought I, ill just take the peice of pipe off and drill it out. So took off the hoses, undid the bolt that holds the pipe into the block and began to take the bit of pipe out. It came out without much of a fight so i assumed all was well.  However it was at this time (when the pipe was half way out) i saw coolant coming out of the sump.

I noticed that behind the gasket is like a brass type tube the bore size of the pipe which i wasn't expecting to be there, it looks like part of the pipe. Having not had a yamaha before im not sure if this is normal. I guess my question is when its all reassembled will it go back to normal?

Im hoping someone can shed some light on this situation, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[crussell92]

Here's a picture to help clarify what im on about, hopefully it works!

[Falcon 269]

Problem time.

I assume you didn't drain the coolant by any other means.  Is so, your old coolant is now in your sump.  This is because the coolant pipe you disturbed passes through the sump to connect with the combined oil/water pump.  The pipe is sealed at each end by O-rings.  Or, in the case of yours now, not sealed.  Ooops.

I think you'll need to remove the exhaust and the sump (after draining the oil ) to make sure that you get all the coolant out of the oil and also to ensure that you get the coolant pipe O-rings correctly refitted to the pump.  Sorry but you've got a bit of a longer job on than you expected.

Check out this thread which shows the procedure to replace the oil/water pump.  It's worth reading the whole thread but post #88 onwards is particularly good for you because it talks about the coolant pipe and has lots of great photos:

http://www.yamahafz1oa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37957&highlight=water+pump&page=9

Good luck!

[crussell92]

Thanks so much for that Falcon, very informative post.

Not that im trying to cut corners but it seems that if the black 'o' ring comes out with the pipe and doesn't drop into the sump the pipe could be put back through the hole and back in to the pump without sump pan removal?

Just ordered a new pipe so will be tacking this soon. Header bolts looking very rusty as well, not good! 😲

[Falcon 269]

If that O-ring drops off on the way back through, or fails to seat properly in the oil pump, you could wind up with coolant leaking into the oil again and then you'd have a nice frothy mix of oil and coolant being circulated through all the major bearings in the motor.  Like Dirty Harry said, 'are you feeling lucky?'

Besides, you need to drop the sump to ensure that all the coolant in there right now is completely removed and everything nicely cleaned and dried before you refill with fresh oil.

Look the positive side, by the time you've put this right you'll have sorted out the header nuts and studs, probably given the EXUP a thorough service and you'll be much more familiar with the motor to boot.

[crussell92]

Ok so completed (most of - exup!) this job earlier today, once all the bolts have been freed from a 16 year old bike the rest is plain sailing!

If anyone is thinking of doing this, id recommend you first buy some form of heat. Without it header nuts/studs would have snapped and made the job loads harder. I used a rothenberger torch with a mapp gas canister, gets bolts cherry red in no time and they all came off without much of a fight.
Getting the sump to seal properly was the next challenge so take plenty of time to get the mating surfaces shiney. I had an ever so slight rasied part just behind the dowel at the front of the engine which resulted in dropping the sump twice more because of a weep

Again, thanks Falcon for your advice and that useful thread. Although a ballache it could have potentially saved an engine!