I'm looking more closely at the coolant line that exploded on my ride Sunday. It's the hose that comes out of the top of the water pump and crosses to the right side of the bike behind the radiator. WAY too close to the radiator it seems. It looks like the hose might have rubbed against the fins and the thumper vibration could have worn a weak spot in the hose. I'll be able to look the hose over more closely when i get it out. Whether there's abrasion there or not I'm still thinking that's too close for peace of mind and I'll put some braiding or heat-tape on that section of hose when I re-install the new one. Got to call around and see how quickly i can even get a new one first. Has anyone else looked closely at this section of hose and think it's vulnerable too ?
It is close and I suppose surrounding it w/ something wouldn't hurt, but I don't recall any instances where the marginal rubbing has caused one to explode. I suspect yours is more of an isolated incident. Given your previous description (previous thread) it may have been a flawed hose to begin with (I think you said the bike has a little over 2K miles on it.) I'm at 9500K w/ original hoses. What may work well would be to cut a hair off of the end that mates to the water pump. I'm talking about 2mm. Doing this should pull that section (that does rub) backwards and away from the radiator- enough to clear it and not so much that it would strain connections. Whatever you do make sure you get rid of all of the little crimp clamps- they suck. It sounds like your bike has been set up pretty well so those have probably already been replaced.
Cutting a couple mm off isn't a bad idea either - might just do both that and heat tape. Yeah I've already taken note of the crimp clamps and plan to swap them all out for real screw clamps. Hall's said ~5 days for them to get the hose and then another 3 to get to me.
I have a hose that rubs up against the fins on my radiator. I cut a section of larger hose and tied it onto the outside at the rub point. I don't think I've touched it in a couple of years, still all good.
