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Coolant in the Spark Plug Well

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parthuman

parthuman

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Jan 20, 2013
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Greetings. I'm a noob as a member but longtime lurker, and own a 2007 Bandit 1250S with about 16,000. This is the best bike I've had since the '04 Yamaha F! (first gen) in three decades. I'm an eager DIYer but a pitiful mechanic, and on a whim decided to swap out the plugs for a set of NGK Iridiums.

Never had a bike with such close-quarters plug replacement, and I cracked at least one ignition coil and spilt some coolant into two plug wells (though I think I syringed most of the liquid out before pulling and replacing the plugs.)

Long story longer, the bike turns over and occasionally wants to start, but I'm wondering if moisture, the cracked coil and/or muscling the plug caps might require going into the cylinders.

Mods include only a K&N air filter and Yoshi R77 (if I recall) can. Like I said, I'm not the brightest bulb on the drag-racing tree and have been using the shop manual to prop up the semi-rermoved gas tank.

Should I have drained the coolant before starting my meatball plug swap?
 
Oops. See I posted this in the general member introduction section rather than the Bandit-specific section. Help...Mod?
 
Cracked coil is defiantly a problem. And yes the coils need a ton of force to make them "snap in" when reinstalling. Die electric grease helps as I found out AFTER I put it all together! :doh:
 
Holy moly , I was curious about the going rate of a coil!:eek2: Bikebandit 105 USD! Looks like your going to the same school as me!
On my Voyager( which just has deep wells and long spark plug caps) I fashioned a tool from a weeder, I made it to reach down into the well and slide into the groove that the factory has in the cap to grap it and pull it loose from the spark plug. You may need such a tool,
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To remove the stick coils on the 1250, I use a piece of 3/16" thick x 1" wide x 12" long piece of aluminum and place it between the neck of the electrical connector on the coils and the top of the valve cover, and it pops the coils out very easily.

You should always apply a thin coating of dielectric grease to the inside and outside of the rubber seal on the coils. You also need to watch that you don't loose the square orange colored silicone seals that fit into each of the coils electrical connectors, as they can easily fall out if your not paying attention, and they are not sold individually and only come with the main wiring harness which is very expensive.
 
Annoying arnt they .You put it all back together and then find one next to the bike .:giveup:
 
MetrickMetal said:
To remove the stick coils on the 1250, I use a piece of 3/16" thick x 1" wide x 12" long piece of aluminum and place it between the neck of the electrical connector on the coils and the top of the valve cover, and it pops the coils out very easily.

You should always apply a thin coating of dielectric grease to the inside and outside of the rubber seal on the coils. You also need to watch that you don't loose the square orange colored silicone seals that fit into each of the coils electrical connectors, as they can easily fall out if your not paying attention, and they are not sold individually and only come with the main wiring harness which is very expensive.
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That is not an image I can create in my head, have you videoed it? Can you post it? Even if I don't have the Zook I still like to see solutions to these challenges.
 
DaveC said:
That is not an image I can create in my head, have you videoed it? Can you post it? Even if I don't have the Zook I still like to see solutions to these challenges.
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I actually just got finished checking my valves again even while I have my valve cover off to powder coat it, and their all still in spec. So when I'm putting it back together I'll take some pictures on how I pop out the coils, but it won't be until next Tuesday as I am waiting on a new valve cover gasket.

Another tip that can save you a lot of headache is to shove a clean rag down in and around the cam chain opening in the head so as to keep any feeler gauge your using from falling down into the bottom of the engine, which easily happen and which can cause you a lot of trouble if you can't pull it back out with a magnet. Another option is to punch a hole in the end of the feeler gauge so that to can tie a string to it so that if it does fall down into the cam chain opening you can pull it back out, or use feeler gauges out of the fold out sets that have a hole already in the end of them.
 
MM have you had to adjust it at all yet!? How many miles on the bike!?
 
Tazman, so far, I've not read of anyone having to adjust the valves on the 1250 Bandit engine. Maybe someone, some where has, but, I've not heard or read of it . So far, and I'm going against the grain here, I've not even considered doing it on my bike and it has pretty near 70,000 miles if you correct the ometer for the speedohealer I've been running since new.
Of course, the way I ride has much to do with that decision also. Very very seldom ever am at wide open throttle or above 6000 rpm. Try to keep it above 2000 rpm unless in 1st gear as to not lug it. Kinda hard to lug the engine unless you really get on it at very low rpm in a tall gear.
Now the DL1000 Vstorm I had before the Bandit, I did an adjustment on it as they were know to be tight darn near from the factory. That was a 12 hour job, plus waiting for the new shims to come in. Yep, I felt like the need to change 2 of them as they were about a thousandth from too tight.
My KLR required a shim change also at about 10K miles. When I checked it again at 25K , was okay.
 
Tazman2 said:
MM have you had to adjust it at all yet!? How many miles on the bike!?
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I have a little over 46k on it and all the valves are all still within spec, with all of the intakes ranging from .007 to tight .008, and all the exhaust ranging from .011 to tight .012, which is what they were when I first checked them at 15k.

The clearance on my valves is perfect for me, as I have always set my valve clearance at the upper limit of the range anyway, as typically setting the valve clearance at the upper end of the clearance range tends to make an engine produce more low and mid range power, where as setting the clearance at the bottom of the clearance range tends to makes more power on the top end, plus with running the valve clearance range at or near the lower limits you risk burning a valve from the valves not fully seating.

I inspected the cam lobes again and they all look great, and my engine sounds and runs great with the valve clearances all set towards the upper limits. I actually wasn’t due for a valve inspection for another 5k, but since it has been raining the last couple of days I decided to pull the valve cover off so that I could powder coat it, which I have been wanting to do and which I’m doing today, but given the fact that the valve clearances are staying the same, and should only get tighter as I put more miles on the bike from the valves wearing into the valve seat more, I probably wont check the valves for at least another 20k.
 
I think one or two people on max-zuk adjusted theirs but they were only slightly off so I guess being at 20k and the chances of the stupid rubber thing falling in I'll wait a bit till I have too much rain and a lot more patience, etc.! ;)
 
Tazman2 said:
I think one or two people on max-zuk adjusted theirs but they were only slightly off so I guess being at 20k and the chances of the stupid rubber thing falling in I'll wait a bit till I have too much rain and a lot more patience, etc.! ;)
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The whole valve clearance checking procedure is pretty straight forward to perform, and the hardest part of it is removing the valve cover, as there is a very narrow band of where it has to be placed to get it to slide out, but once you find it, it comes out easily, but it can be frustrating the first time you go to remove it.

The difficulty with the valve cover also exists when installing it, but even more so, as your trying to slid it back into position within that very narrow area while trying to keep the gasket in place in the valve cover without it falling out of the groove on the valve cover, and while trying to wipe off the Suzuki bond sealant from the half circle cam cutouts on the gasket, which Suzuki says to apply to those areas on the gasket before installing the valve cover. So sliding the valve cover back in place without which letting the valve cover gasket fall out, and while trying to not get the sealant wipe all over everything can be a real pain.

So what I came up with to make the installation of the valve cover easier for my second valve inspection was to make up a set of 3/8" x 1/2" aluminum blocks that I lay across the top of the cylinder head on the head gasket surface on each end of the head. These blocks allow me to rest the valve cover on after I have slid it into place, and hold the valve cover up off of the head enough to allow me to apply the Suzuki bond sealant to the areas on the gasket that fit into the half circle cam cutouts in the head. There is a 1/8” roll pin on each end of the blocks that keep the from sliding off the head.

Then once I have a applied the sealant, I simply slide the aluminum blocks out and drop the valve cover to onto the head. I’ll take some picture latter today when I install the valve cover showing how these aluminum block work.
 
MetrickMetal said:
The whole valve clearance checking procedure is pretty straight forward to perform, and the hardest part of it is removing the valve cover, as there is a very narrow band of where it has to be placed to get it to slide out, but once you find it, it comes out easily, but it can be frustrating the first time you go to remove it.

The difficulty with the valve cover also exists when installing it, but even more so, as your trying to slid it back into position within that very narrow area while trying to keep the gasket in place in the valve cover without it falling out of the groove on the valve cover, and while trying to wipe off the Suzuki bond sealant from the half circle cam cutouts on the gasket, which Suzuki says to apply to those areas on the gasket before installing the valve cover. So sliding the valve cover back in place without which letting the valve cover gasket fall out, and while trying to not get the sealant wipe all over everything can be a real ****.

So what I came up with to make the installation of the valve cover easier for my second valve inspection was to make up a set of 3/8" x 1/2" aluminum blocks that I lay across the top of the cylinder head on the head gasket surface on each end of the head. These blocks allow me to rest the valve cover on after I have slid it into place, and hold the valve cover up off of the head enough to allow me to apply the Suzuki bond sealant to the areas on the gasket that fit into the half circle cam cutouts in the head. There is a 1/8” roll pin on each end of the blocks that keep the from sliding off the head.

Then once I have a applied the sealant, I simply slide the aluminum blocks out and drop the valve cover to onto the head. I’ll take some picture latter today when I install the valve cover showing how these aluminum block work.
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Thanks for all the insight it is much appreciated!!
 
Well my engine back together, and the valve cover went back on very easily, as I know now after installing it for the 3rd time just exactly where it has to be placed to slid right on in, and the silver sparkle metallic powder on the valve cover looks awesome.

Here's the pictures of the supports I made to rest the valve cover on so that I can apply the Suzuki bond sealant to the half cam cut outs after I install the valve cover so as not to smear the sealant as I'm sliding the cover into position, and they work great. You can see in the picture that I have applied the Suzuki bond sealant to the cam cut outs, and I use a q-tip with the head cut off to apply the sealant.

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Tazman2 said:
Simple but effective always thinking MM! :D
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Thanks Taz.

I made mine out of aluminum, but they can just as easily be made out of strips of wood also with a wood screw in place of the pins to keep them from sliding forward.

After using them again I decided that to make them work even better, I drilled another hole on the other end and inserted another pin opposite to the back pin with it only sticking out about 1/8" to keep the valve cover from sliding forward as well as keeping it centered over the cam cut outs, and so its still easy to slid out when I remove them.

So now neither the supports nor the valve cover can slide forward. ;-)
 
We gotta see a picture of your bike in the sunshine with that new metallic silver paint! looks great!
 
whitesands said:
We gotta see a picture of your bike in the sunshine with that new metallic silver paint! looks great!
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I've changed a few things around since the naked conversion, and I'm planning on taking some new pictures of my bike and posting them up.

The silver sparkle mettalic I sprayed on the valve cover looks great and really pops in the sunlight, and it's the same color I first applied to my rims and then my handle bars, and after seeing how much better it looks than the polished valve cover did, I'm thinking that I am going to powder coat the 3 polished engine covers with it as well.
 
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