Commander running temp and water additives

[andygbsmith]

What temp are your commanders running at during this warm weather?My radiator is 19 years old and has lost a lot of the cooling fins.Yesterday with the ambiant temp at 24 oC on the motorway at 4500RPM the temp was 95-97 oC how does that compare?I think a new Radiator is over due anyway so who's do you go for. Has anyone tried a product called Water Wetter? It's an american product that breaks down the surface tension and therefore allows the water to get in to all the surface imperfections. A friend uses it on his Ducati and has seen a small improvement, but his friend uses it in his race bike and has seen a 10-15 oC change in running temp. I will be trying it as anything that helps the running temp can't be a bad thing, but what else is worth considering?I have asked before about workshop manuals but were is the best place to get this type of info?I have bought a disc off the internet but would like more info.Andy

[Ian]

Hi there.Well, I can only say what mine is like. I've had mine since 1995 and it has always done like this: in normal use at this time of year the needle sits at 95. It doesn't need much provocation, like a red light, to rise rapidly to 105 with the fan running furiously. However, after half a mile or so, it's back to 95.In cold weather (and I mean winter) it runs at about 85-90. Again, litle provocation has it shooting up. They run hot, these rotaries.That said, I did a run to Spain, where the fan was on almost constantly but with no apparent harm or ill effects and I used it for five years in and around Brussells, which has traffic that makes the M25 look free flowing, again with no apparent ill effects.I do sometimes wonder what would happen if the fan packed up though...Ian

[Dell Boy]

I run two Commanders. One has done 90,000 mls. the other 14,000. Both have been moly`d once at 29,000 & 2,000 respectively. Both run around 87 to 89 degrees & the fans rarely come on except when engine stopped. On the run up to Stanford last w/e cruising in the upper speeds the high miler ran at 95 degrees. The fan came on whilst waiting in the long queue to get in. Everything in the cooling system is bog standard. I have only run high temperatures when there was an excessive gap between water pump impeller & pump body. I have never changed or flushed the radiators on any of my rotaries. Derek.

[andygbsmith]

I have posted a pic of the 19 year old radiator, it's not hard to see why the bike was running warm.I have just fitted an exchange rad from Graham at Startright so it will be interesting to see the difference in running temp.Andy

[andygbsmith]

Just got home from work and the good news is the running temp is now 87-89oCso the new rad is worth about 10oC and that is on a very warm day. I will leave it a few days to get a reference point and then try the water wetter. The other good news is I think I might have got to the bottom of the throttle surge and poor tick over.The rubber bung that goes over the vac takeoff on the left side was rotten and fell apart when I touched it.I can now set a good tickover so see how it runs in the morning.I am going to go through all the rubber bits and pieces and change them I think.Andy

[Dell Boy]

On my high miler the tickover went to pot a few weeks ago & that rubber bung was in ribbons & was the cause of the poor tickover. Now back to ticking over at 200 revs. Derek.