Metal flakes when checking coolant

Hager85

Hager85

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Joined
Feb 10, 2014
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42
Location
Oshkosh, WI
I have a 2001 SXR 700 that is my first sled that I purchased from a friend almost exactly one year ago. I was out in the garage tinkering and took the cap off of the coolant hose after squeezing it and it feeling spongy. On the rim of the filler opening there was a small amount of coolant that had what appeared to be aluminum shavings speckled in it. Seeing this got me rather worried as I am not very familiar with 2 strokes but common sense says metal shavings in any kind of system is not good.

1.) What would cause this to be happening?

2.) How much of a problem do I have on my hands?

3.) How difficult would it be to fix what the issue would be?

Also I could see coolant in the line when I opened it but it definitely was not FULL. I assume this line should be full and ideally shouldn't have air in it, correct?

Thanks for any help and for bearing with me on this as I am new to the sport and 2 strokes overall.
 
i would have to think somethings going on inside the coolant pump. correct full with no air. i sure wouldn't run it before further inspection as its not going to get any better.
 
It hasn't been ridden since last winter due to lack off snow around here so far this season but did summer time start ups monthly. I did do a decent amount of riding late last season and never had any overheating issues.
 
Thanks for giving me an idea of where to troubleshoot my problem. I do have a Clymer shop manual for the sled and the water pump diagram leads me to believe it may be the impeller breaking down.

My next question would be are there any good websites to purchase replacement parts?

Also are there any DO's or DONT'S to draining the system and pulling the water pump to change out the impeller?
 
First just try flushing the coolant and replacing it. I've done the WP on my sx once, but messed up the mechanical seal and it ended up needing to be taken back apart again. The parts are probably a new impeller, mech seal, the gasket around the perimeter of the pump cover, maybe new impeller bolt... but this all depends on whats wrong and causing the metal shavings in the coolant. My guess would be its the impeller stripping around the pump shaft that is connected to the crank. Youll first have to pull the entire exhaust (can, pipe, manifold) and I loosened the one motor mount so I could tilt the whole motor to get at all bots to the pump cover. Its that or pulling the whole motor I think.
 
Well, I contacted the previous owner (old highschool buddy that I trust) of the machine this morning. Says he never added any type of sealer to the coolant system so I'm crossing that one off the list. Good thinking on that being in there tho, I wouldn't have thought about that being an option.
 
Did you ever figure out where the metal flakes were coming from? I found some small aluminum flakes in mine too, nothing leaking and the pump is seems to be working fine.
 
drained coolant, flushed system with distilled water and strained it, got some very small pieces of aluminum and some red specks, looks like red paint. Not really as much junk in there as I thought. Pulled pump cover and everything looks good so not sure where that junk came from but oh well...glad to see nothing is broke. I'm going to fill with honda HP coolant, supposed to be good stuff. Uses high-tech organic corrosion inhibitors instead of more commonly used silicate corrosion inhibitors. Unlike silicates, HP Coolant’s organic corrosion inhibitors won’t gel and cause radiator plugging. also more stable for a longer shelf life and don’t act as abrasives to mechanical water-pump seals, which may cause leaky seals.
 
I'm sure it's not unusual because after all it does flow thru aluminum. I'm sure it's ok, after reading this I checked my vmax and it looked good, you could see a little sparkle here and there but nothing I'd worry about. You also get rust in a car, they need to be flushed periodically as well to keep everything clean.
 
My mountain max 600 triple had red paint flakes in it when I painted my head. There was read paint inside the head they must come like that from the factory. I sprayed air in the head when it was off the sled and it just flaked off.
 
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