Aloha, so i have a quick question. I was riding around for an hour or so and i had to brake so i held in my clutch and started shifting gears down without releasing my clutch till i got to like third gear i think it was where the bike just shut off. I turned it on and tried to shift down to second then first and for some reason it wouldnt switch gears,so i pulled to the side of the road and kept trying till it went down to first and rode fine all the way home. This was the first time this has happened, but anyways my real concern is that when i got home i parked the bike in the garage. Came back around an hour and half or two later to still find the engine terribly hot, even the muffler had cooled down already. so my question is, is this normal? Does it have anything to do with the gear shifting? Maybe oil change? I ride a 2007 KLX 250. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and any help you guys will be able to provide (:


~Virus

 

No, sometimes, dirty oil will do it, any bike will get to a place while shifting that takes more effort than usual to get the gear your after. But as long as it shifts normal now all is fine and that shouldn't cause heat issues either. your bike was just slow to cool that day, If the bike was really hot you might notice your fan running but on my 09 even in 90-100 degree heat my fan has never ran as far as I know.

 

Still "terribly" hot after sitting 1 1/2 - 2 hours? Never heard of that before. Have you checked the coolant level?

 

"Came back around an hour and half or two later to still find the engine terribly hot, even the muffler had cooled down already."

Even though the muffler and header pipe might be substantially hotter than the engine while running, they will cool off "faster" since they're basically hollow steel / aluminum tubes with relatively low mass.

The engine, on the other hand, is more or less a solid block of steel and aluminum, which will retain its heat far longer, even if its starting temperature is somewhat lower.

So, it would be normal for the engine to be hotter than the exhaust system after just a short time.

 

Orlando, Florida?...June? Does the engine ever really cool down?

But seriously, I think if you had an overheating problem you would have pushed fluid out of the overflow/reservoir tank, and you would probably know it happened. This sounds more like a "perception" thing than an overheating thing, and I don't mean that in a negative personal way. I'll also ask if you have a long standing relationship with water-cooled motorcycles. Depending on where you park/store the bike, how hot it was when you stopped the engine, and some other environmental factors, these engines can remain quite warm for some time. Heat soaking is a fairly natural thing, and the perception of how hot or how warm an engine remains for how long can sometimes be a matter of perception. If you can get or borrow one of those temp sensors that you point at a given spot, you can actually test this and even compare it to other's bikes.

Obviously check your bike to see that it still has a full radiator and about a half full reservoir tank at the rear fender...check it at full cold, of course. If the rad is full and coolant still remains in the reservoir, it has not overheated, nor is it running too hot.

 

So i checked the coolant this morning while it was cold , and the coolant up front on the radiator was full to the top. i did realize that some of the coolant was missing from the reservoir but there its still about a quarter full. I do think its time for an oil change tho, i bought it when it had about 8,435 miles and the dude man had changed oil and filter and what not. At the moment im at 8,997 miles. Also noticed that when holding in my clutch and trying to shift down to first gear while in motion, it will go to neutral then when i try to shift down to first the pedal rattles and bounces back without engaging into first sometimes. When im at a complete stop it engages into first without a problem. Every how many miles do you guys do your oil changes on your KLX's im just curious, ive been told 3500 but im sure thats not right, and i do not own a manual yet but ill be buying one very soon. Again thanks for your feedback guys


~Virus

 

You can get an owner's manual free online from Kaw.

I do an oil change every 1,000 to 1,500 miles and a filter every other oil change.
Running Rotella 15w 40, so oil is cheap and I don't put on too many miles a year, but the miles put on aren't easy ones.
If I were commuting, around 3,000 or more miles and a good synthetic may make sense.

Not sure what to tell you about the shifting as that doesn't sound normal.
Change the oil and see if it makes a difference.

 

HottER, sure, but he indicated that it was VERY hot. And I would not consider 1 1/2-2 hours to be "just a short time." After that length of time to cool off I could lay my hand on the cylinder of my notoriously-hot-running Vulcan 1600 for which I had to install a manual fan switch. Maybe the OP could define "terribly hot" for us. I took that to mean he can't touch it. Anything else is just warm, not hot.

 

Gracias anciano i couldnt of said it better, i mean it just doesnt seem right. my garage is not that hot during the night either it might just be more than a few degrees hotter than room temperature. Does anybody else with a KLX have the same problem or is this just me? I also found 5 lose hoses which i will be posting about in a new thread since idk what they are and im not sure if its normal or either. Again thanks everyone for your feedback!(:

 

I'm having a issue that sounds similar to this
Last week I went for a 70+ mile trip without any problems

Since then my klx seems to running extremely hot.
I rode around 15 minutes today on my commute and 90 minutes later the engine is still warm. This is unusual I'm sure.

There is enough oil, but it's due to be changed.
What else should I start looking out for, radiator coolant level?

Thanks guys