Stevie Ray
New member
Hey I cant't figure this one out! My Viper got hot one day and I am not sure why. I thought that I should bleed the cooling system just to be sure I was not dealing with air in the system. By following the directions I raised the rear of the sled and opened the rear bleed and filled the tank. Now I was waiting for the coolant to flow out of the bleed hole but nothing happened. The coolant level would not drop either. The same with the engine bleeder, no fluid will come out. WHAT IS THE DEAL!!!! Please help
redsnake3
New member
you need to lower the rear. only raise it after you alredy filled and bleed the back, then refill and lift the sled to get any bubbles out.
bluewho
Active member
If it got hot what happened was it low snow or did the light come on?Could be the water pump or a bad thermostate would be the first place to check.
Stevie Ray
New member
Yes, there was low snow but I ran it hard last year on the same conditions and it ran perfect. I think I will start by checking that thermostat. Do you think these engines had any water pump issues it only has 3000 miles on it?
yamaholic22
Active member
the only real waterpump issues they had were leaky mechanical seals, will not cause the waterpump to stop operating though, as long as there is coolant in there it will still operate, it will just leak. Sounds like you overheated it due to low snow. Vipers dont have enough cooling to be ok in low snow situations if you are running them hard. Fluke that it didn't overheat last time you did it.
Concept Carbon
New member
had the same prob over the weekend, i overheated 3 times and it was -16c the light only came on once though, but i was driving across a town to the trail on pavement. the otyher times it just squirted som eprestone out of the over flow not much just lowered the level about 3/4 of a inch from the cold mark.
Im gona installl my rear heat exchange rthis week.
Im gona installl my rear heat exchange rthis week.
quebec#1
New member
I installed a rear heat exchanger this year and bleed the system as per the directions. My light has come on maybe 3 times in 500km of riding but goes off a short while after. I notice that on one ride it puked some prestone by the right had footwell. The same thing would happen last year. I kept filling it to the cold mark but it insist to go bellow that line and never seems to go lower once it pukes out a little pretone. This weekend i fiiled it up to the cold line again and it again went down again. On sunday i went out again and did not refill to the cold line and the level stayed put.
coyotekid
New member
My 02 Viper always overheats in marginal snow conditions if I'm leading, even with the rear heat exchanger. Some of this may be due to the higher ride height of the M-10. Generally, if I fall back in the pack it won't happen as frequently, but it's quite annoying to be constantly pulling off the trail to find snow or stopping to pack my running boards with snow. Kinda makes you appreciate past years when we had tons of snow.
this is a stupid question but was the sled running?
Stevie Ray
New member
Viper engine trouble solved, save this info
Thank you everyone for your help but I have just found my nasty little problem. Here is the whole story so you can save this one on your hard drive for future reference. ---- I was out for a ride with some buddy's last saturday we had just shot off the lake to hit the trails. The snow conditions were not that bad (about 6 inches or so). I got down the trail about 4 miles (estimated speed 40-50 mph) then the machine stopped dead. I proceeded to pull the plugs and they were nice and toasty brown. Then I grabbed the clutch to turn it over. It was a little stiff so I added some oil to the cylinders and kept turning. It seemed to free it up. I got the engine started to limp back to the trailer and it died again. When I got it home I pulled the cylinders and everything was perfect. As I would spin the engine over it would turn fine and then tighten until I would turn very hard then it would free up again. Well time to split the crankcase and there it was!!! The bearing between 1 and 2 connecting rods. I just checked on the price of the bearing and it looks like its 47 bucks. I wonder how much the labor will be to install it. Well there it is, the first time any Yamaha I have ever had, has had bearing failure. Anyone know why the engine would kill because of this bad bearing?????Maybe my Viper will be traded next year. Vector??????
Thank you everyone for your help but I have just found my nasty little problem. Here is the whole story so you can save this one on your hard drive for future reference. ---- I was out for a ride with some buddy's last saturday we had just shot off the lake to hit the trails. The snow conditions were not that bad (about 6 inches or so). I got down the trail about 4 miles (estimated speed 40-50 mph) then the machine stopped dead. I proceeded to pull the plugs and they were nice and toasty brown. Then I grabbed the clutch to turn it over. It was a little stiff so I added some oil to the cylinders and kept turning. It seemed to free it up. I got the engine started to limp back to the trailer and it died again. When I got it home I pulled the cylinders and everything was perfect. As I would spin the engine over it would turn fine and then tighten until I would turn very hard then it would free up again. Well time to split the crankcase and there it was!!! The bearing between 1 and 2 connecting rods. I just checked on the price of the bearing and it looks like its 47 bucks. I wonder how much the labor will be to install it. Well there it is, the first time any Yamaha I have ever had, has had bearing failure. Anyone know why the engine would kill because of this bad bearing?????Maybe my Viper will be traded next year. Vector??????
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