bearcatter
New member
Have any of you guys heard of problems with the cooling fans on the 485 and 540 fan cooled motors having issues with the plastic blades fatiguing and breaking off? I have an intimate familiarity with this phenomenon. I get a call from a buddy who I loaned my 2000 Phaser. "Dude, your Yamaha is dead". Not exactly words I like to hear, especially if I can't be the one to have the pleasure of croaking it.
Holy bleep, there isn't a blade left on that plastic cooling fan! This guy was somewhat of a newbie, so kept running it. No cooling = overheat = seize = stuff stop real quick = connecting rod out thru case = owner not a happy camper. I bet what happened was one blade broke off, caught on something, and cleaned them all out. Quite a sight seeing all these plastic fan blades laying in the belly pan of your sled.
So I take the sled to my dealer. He enlightens me, yea, we've had problems with those plastic cooling fans. WTF! Why didn't you tell me, so I could be keeping an eye on that fan, as obviously he wasn't. Part of the "if you didn't tell me to fix it. I'm not looking at it" attitude.
Have you guys ever heard of this? Is this another one of those little nuances that Yamaha knows about, but likes to keep under their hat?
Holy bleep, there isn't a blade left on that plastic cooling fan! This guy was somewhat of a newbie, so kept running it. No cooling = overheat = seize = stuff stop real quick = connecting rod out thru case = owner not a happy camper. I bet what happened was one blade broke off, caught on something, and cleaned them all out. Quite a sight seeing all these plastic fan blades laying in the belly pan of your sled.
So I take the sled to my dealer. He enlightens me, yea, we've had problems with those plastic cooling fans. WTF! Why didn't you tell me, so I could be keeping an eye on that fan, as obviously he wasn't. Part of the "if you didn't tell me to fix it. I'm not looking at it" attitude.
Have you guys ever heard of this? Is this another one of those little nuances that Yamaha knows about, but likes to keep under their hat?
YUP! Saw a 99 Phazer melt down in Muni 2 yr. ago. same deal. Of course it happened on a powerline about 60 miles from the hotel LOL. Little lady was NOT happy. Told her husband "I TOLD YOU IT WASN'T RUNNING RIGHT!!!". He was on an SRX. I'll be checking mine out before next season 
Dave
Dave