leaking running board cooler

S

srx4ever

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new brunswick
getting my srx tuned up for winter to sell. to my astonishement i found antifreeze underneath sled. while checking to see where leak was coming from i saw a drop of antifreeze still hanging on the front of running board cooler. filled sled with water (dont want to waste new antifreeze since i have a leak) fired her up and there it was just drippping away. theres an aluminum protector at the front of cooler it is bent contacting fins on cooler. i bent it slighty back down and the fins are worn slightly from protector rubing against fins on cooler. is it possible those fins actually have antifreeze running inside them , those fins are super thin i though they were just improve the effiency of the cooler. sled still in shed not enough room in shed to tip on its side.
just curious if anyone knows if the fins have an antifreeze passage inside them.
 

i dont think so, any chance it is leaking from the hose connection just above, i have a good coolers right and left available 40.00 each plus shipping if needed thanks
 
i checked the connection where the hose connects beneath the secondary clutch,trying to feel some antifreeze ,but it seemed dry . ill double check tommow
 
On my buddies '97 V-Max both coolers sprung leaks where the cooler rubs against the rear suspension bracket on the tunnel. There were hairline cracks not visible but under a pressure test...they showed up. Just a place for you to check out because if it leaks high it will run down the cooler to where you saw it. Good luck.

And why are you sellin' it? You gotta rip it!
 
No antifreeze are in them fins, there to improve the effiency of the cooler/
grab and hold snow..you got a leak somplace else..
 
guards are supposedly instaled from factory. ran the sled a while today not a drop of antifreeze , now im stumped . problems dont fix by themselves. the only thing i did different was where cooler's hose attaches beneath the secondary clutch, i removed factory hose clamp and installed a regular hose clamp one that you can actually tighen. but im not convinced thats were my problem is because the surface around that area shows no antifreeze. is it possible to test the cooler while still attached to the sled. cooler is riveted to sled one heck of job just to do a test. i need to properly fix sled before selling dont want to rip off next owner.

im selling my srx since i purchased an attack
because of back problem i need a sled with decent suspension and rider forward so i can easily stand when bumps get nasty. i figured that the attack with 136" track would also help. its an 06 with a whopping 56 miles, same as showroom for half the price. i hope i like my attack as much as my srx
 
if its below the secondary clutch, take a look and inspect the hose.... I caught mine in time, seems theres rivets there that yamaha didnt think of that would rub on the hose and eventually wear through it, doesnt take long to check just run your hand over it... I fixed mine by just putting some wire loom over it, works great.
 
Use antifreeze

The specific gravity of antifreeze is way different than water. You should not have put water in. Antifreeze will find a leak a LOT sooner than water will. Plus you can see it. I had a leak like this once too. Almost impossible to find it. I ended up charging the system with 10lbs of air. It was easy to find then.....unfortunately. My leak was on the bottom of the front heat exchanger. I have seen a lot of leaks like this where the hoses connect to the heat exchanger as mentioned above.

Madmatt
 
got some snow so took sled for a spin. let the motor run quite a while, a good 20 minutes just running around on a feild. the leak is gone, it has to be the clamp that i replaced with an ordinary hose clamp. its odd yamaha would put those clamps, you cant even tighten them. how much money would they actually save, a dime a peice, pathetic.
 
the factory clamps actually work pretty good, its usually that after some time you begin to get a little oxidation buildup, white flaky buildup, and this gets in between the hose and the aluminum heat exchanger hose end, the heating and colling expands and contracts and this is how the leaks develope, it can happen with a screw type clamp as well, its the ingrediants in the antifreeze/water mixture that do it to the aluminum. I know they all say anti corrosive but they will all eventually corrode aluminum to some extent, its a very porus and soft metal.
 
thanks mr viper, that makes a lot of sense, when i unplugged hose i noticed that flake buildup like you mentioned. it actually looks like dried up salt only in green color.
 
srx4ever said:
got some snow so took sled for a spin. let the motor run quite a while, a good 20 minutes just running around on a feild. the leak is gone, it has to be the clamp that i replaced with an ordinary hose clamp. its odd yamaha would put those clamps, you cant even tighten them. how much money would they actually save, a dime a peice, pathetic.
Click to expand...

Mr. Viper is correct. Normally the spring clamps work well until the corrosion builds up and creates a leak path. The spring clamps installed by the factory actually serve two purposes. First, they are quick in production. Second, they continually apply an even amount of clamp pressure as the rubber material in the hose slowly collapses over time. If they used the single position screw type clamps, you would see more leaks occur as the machine ages.....
 
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