Maxim X overheats

The dude that bought my max-X let it sit with choke on for ~8 mins. then he said he saw smoke from the front area I guess by the radiator and overflow area. now the bike starts and idling and runs fine, but within 2-3 mins of riding the temp guage gets pegged to the red zone, and there after stays there and gets even hotter.
Anyone know what might've happened.
Cool.
Srinath.

 

Did he check the coolant level? Overheating that quick could be low coolant, thermostat stuck closed or a bad water pump.. I would lean towards low coolant or stuck thermostat

 

Yeah, what he said.

Mine has never overheated. The only time I have ever seen smoke is from oil on the exhaust header after a change, or coolant dribbling down after refilling. Even if mine sits still, it won't overheat because of the fan kicking on.

Coolant level is very easy to check. Just look at the reservoir.

You can check the thermostat open by sticking your hand on the radiator. If it is hot, the thermostat is open!

I would highly doubt the pump would go bad. The impeller would have to eat itself, which is unlikely. It is gear driven, so this would also be unlikely to fail.

Does the fan come on?

One other thing to check is the ground wire on the thermostat housing. It is a seperate wire from the other wiring connectors running to the thermostat. Mine came off and I got weird readings on the thermo gauge.

 

my x did the same thing back at the begining of the summer, started and idled fine but after about 5-10 mins of riding it would get real hot just like you said it would peg the the temp gauge

so what i ended up doing was i flushed the coolant and replaced with new and while i was there i replaced the thermostat and rad cap ever since that its been fine no problems, keeps its cool

turned out to be a stuck thermostat ,i think the cap was a bit crappy too, also remember to bleed the rad so theres no air pockets in the lines. hope this helps

 

Thanks for all the ideas guy. I will check it. BTW I unplugged the fan cos it was running all the time, like turn the key and it will run.
Now I should probably fix that as well. he's bringing it to my house sometime and I'll check it all.
Cool.
Srinath.

 

there probably nothing wrong with the fan it was running all the time because it was hot all the time my did the same, i unpluged it and then when i was finished doing the jobs as i posted before i hooked up the fan again and now it comes on when its supposed too.

good luck with the work.

 

There is a seperate thermostat for the fan in the thermostat body. At least this is what I remember from the electric diagrams. Are you sure that the ground wire is not just removed? This sounds like it could be an electrical problem.