Fz6 Cooling Fan solutions for rock problems

[man@venture]

Hello all.
I know this topic has been covered many times, however if there are still people buying fz6's out there like me then this might come in handy. I wanted to start a thread with solutions for the rock/fan problem that seems to burden this bike. I know a few members have shared their mods, however pictures are hard to find and I figure we can get all the ideas in one place for anyone with this problem.

Background: I bought a new to me 2007 fz6 late 2015 for the 2016 season. A couple of hours away form the seller I got an email to the effect of "oh i forgot to tell you last time I was on the bike it was over heating". After some probing questions on my side I found out the guy was out riding and got stuck in traffic, when he noticed the temp on his bike going up to 200F
he freaked out, got out of traffic and got some air moving to cool the bike which worked. Thanks. He did offer some money back if I found the problem to be significant.

Thats when I found this website and all the amazing advice. Thank you all that have and are posting here. I started reading, learning, troubleshooting.
Thanks to all the info here I started the fixin...

First off WTF were the engineers thinking when they ran the wire from the fan, let alone the poor fan design. I finally got the wire out (and the air box and the battery) duh.. and got the rad and fan off the bike. Damn if i have to do this more than once.

Anyway I found the problem just as described here. Yes a rock F@&#3D me. Pics to follow.

So got a new fan, but i did not want to just put it back on and hope for the best. Out came the drawing board sorta. After hours of staring and measuring and browsing this forum and more staring at the fan and rad and both(assembled) I came up with the following idea. I waned to share this with everyone in hopes to give back to this wonderful side that has helped me so much over the last few months.

I would like to encourage everyone else that has come up with a mod to post some pictures here, hopefully we can all learn from each other and give anyone else thats buying this amazing machine we call the fz6 options for this annoying and potentially expensive problem. Fan was 245$CDN from Yamaha

To explain my design, I believe the rocks are actually bouncing straight into the fan blades and not so much in-between the fan and rad from the bottom. At least that is what I assessed from the damage to the rad fins. This lead me to believe that the deflector some people have made are good, but not 100% bulletproof. So I came up with this. If you guys see any problems, flaws, or anything else please let me know. Also if you have any questions I will do my best to answer. :thumbup:

Honestly if this post helps at least one person I will be happy. Also please post pictures of your design if you have one, like I said pics are hard to find as all post on this topic are fairly old and missing attachments.
Thank you all.
John

 

[Andar]

How do you get it to stay on the fan itself?
Just curious what you'd think would hold better.

Doesn't seem that hard to do. Great idea!

 

[man@venture]

How do you get it to stay on the fan itself?
Just curious what you'd think would hold better.

Doesn't seem that hard to do. Great idea!

Thanks Andar. I am planing on drilling a small hole in the three brackets that hold the fan onto the rad and using a small nut&bolt with lots of locktight. Also I am planning to cut a small hole in the middle of the mesh and routing the wire through there. I figure this will give it a better seat (instead of being pressed against the steel part on the back of the fan the mesh will sit flush with the three brackets. I will also route the wire through there. I figure if for some reason the back of the cover comes off (not sure if I should weld it or something else, its being held on by wire now) the fan wire-harness will stop it from falling off and **maybe possibly ending up under the back tire and shredding it (READ > paranoid)**. As soon as I do this I will post more pics. Good thing is I have lots of this mesh and a broken fan I can mess with until the design is finalised. PS I used Stainless steel mesh so to avoid corrosion. I will still paint it black tho. If any of this is confusing please ask more questions, sometime i suck at putting my thought in words. Hopefully I will get some more pics up and talk less.

 

[man@venture]

Andar. Previously I said I was planning to drill some small holes in the three brackets to hold everything together

Well in my attempt to make the mesh flush with the top of those brackets I had cut out a section of the mesh. here is a pic of the aftermath. Big hole in the middle for the back of the fan motor and wire, smaller holes for the three screws that hold the fan together, and one hole for the wire holder thingy. sorry no pic of the mesh only but there it is all assembled.

I am not going to replace those three screws with longer ones and fix the grid on the fan that way, with a washer and nut. I think this will hold up nicely.

 

[man@venture]

Thank you for the post TownsendsFJR1300, I know you have posted this before so thanks for taking the time again. In my time researching the fz6 on this site your posts have been of great help.
I think the pics you posted of this bracket are one of the only ones still up online and I have thought of using it big time.
However when I took the fan off and assessed the damage it look like the stone or whatever went directly in the fan blades from the back of the fan.
I believe something had to be made to cover the whole back of the fan also.
Yes however you are right, my design is not bulletproof and so I plan on using a combination of ideas, by placing a guard like you did under the guard i have made. Something like this..
mounted here
The good thing is that this mesh is relatively light (7.7oz or 220g) or what I consider light anyway.
In retrospect if I will do this again for the next coolant flush/change I think I will make the walls of the mesh cage taller and cut out around the brackets for a nice finish. something like this to give everyone an idea.
This will eliminate the need for the additional guard and make it look more professional. However I think once its all painted black no one will ever notice it.
I also put some rubber car door re-seal thingy on the edges that I think give it a more finished look.

anyway thats it for now until I get to a welder and have this finished up...

 

[man@venture]

I guess my post isn't visible?

You encouraged input and other solutions, ????

Un-subscribed.........

Im sorry it took some time to reply to you TownsendsFJR1300, Your post is well received. I wanted to take some pictures and explain why I chose to go with the extra guard on the back of the fan.
As for the Fender extender, I was considering this also and I do believe it would be a huge factor in solving this problem, however I am not a big fan on the way it looks, as silly at that may be. I have the time to and I enjoy coming up with ideas and things to do so I set out to cheaply make something that solves the problem while still keeping the ascetic attributes I wanted. I dont think the guard will be easily visible so I am not worried about adding it to the bike.

 

[man@venture]

Its been some time. I was away. For anyone still looking, here is all I did. It turned out awesome in my opinion.
Here it is after welding. I took a grinder to it an then paint and trim on
Larger bolts on the fan motor.
Here it is assembled
and all together now

So after all that everything went back on the bike no problem, if you don't count getting the fan wire back into the frame and hooked up, I filled up with coolant and tested.
Everything worked well, although the fan came on a little early? Around 210ish i think, it was a while ago but i remember thinking it did not reach 217. Anyway the fan came on the engine cooled properly and all is so far so good. Just got to figure out how to get the display back to klm haha. crap!
Anyhow now only time will tell.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Thanks for looking.