Loose Radiator Hose Clamps

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Drogue Chucker

Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
20
Location
Australia
Boys,

Check ya radiator hose clamps. All 4 of mine were way loose. My bike has 1100kms and has just come back from its first service. Pull the left hand side faring off and get on them with a 7 mm. Mine were not touched since factory and were almost finger tight. I'm prety sure all of our bikes will be the same.

Checking them is not down as part of the 1st service or recall checks. Bloody happy I chekced them because it was only a matter of time before a leak.
 
Drogue Chucker said:
Boys,

Check ya radiator hose clamps. All 4 of mine were way loose. My bike has 1100kms and has just come back from its first service. Pull the left hand side faring off and get on them with a 7 mm. Mine were not touched since factory and were almost finger tight. I'm prety sure all of our bikes will be the same.

Checking them is not down as part of the 1st service or recall checks. Bloody happy I chekced them because it was only a matter of time before a leak.
Click to expand...


thanks DC
 
Drogue Chucker said:
Boys,

Check ya radiator hose clamps. All 4 of mine were way loose. My bike has 1100kms and has just come back from its first service. Pull the left hand side faring off and get on them with a 7 mm. Mine were not touched since factory and were almost finger tight. I'm prety sure all of our bikes will be the same.

Checking them is not down as part of the 1st service or recall checks. Bloody happy I chekced them because it was only a matter of time before a leak.
Click to expand...

DC might be worth a mention to your dealer, might save some poor guy who cant drive a spanner the headache to make sure its made part of the first service(I'm looking at myself in the mirror about the spanner skills :D)
....I know triumph re torque check all their bolts at 1st service. Well they did on my mates 675r recently...
 
Thanks for the tip! Starting to think all of these were built on a Friday afternoon before cappuccino hour!
 
Yep,

Notified my dealer this morning. I suspect as the bike heats up, cools down and generally beds in, there is a little movement (slackning) in the clamp tension. No biggie but nice info to share around.

My tech did state however that although he could not find the torque specs in the manual, he believes they should not be set too tight. He reckons they should have still been ok and would not leak as they were. I nipped mine up a bit but nowhere near as much as I would on my cars. Just be sensible about it.
 
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I've got over 1000 miles on mine now. I checked a number of things when I took delivery of my bike, the hose clamps being one of them because of things mentioned on this site. They were tight when new. I've checked them once since (at about 900 miles) and they were still tight.
 
Mine is back at the dealer for the 2nd time getting a coolant leak fixed. Dare say that it would be a loose clamp. Could do it myself but thought I would get the dealer to do it under warranty.
 
Found one tonight, broken clamp, not the screw type but the barb type, no idea on what to put on it.
 
Thanks for the Info DC ... unfortunately i have read your post too late .... mine has just blown a hose on the way home for the dealer after an ECU update and an obvious coolant leak which showed up the first day i took it home ... i must say the bikes shipped here to AUS have bad pre delivery issues ....
 
Checked mine recently after applying loctite to other bolts on the bike.

Found the 4 hose clamps were between 1/2 turn and 2 turns loose. Does loctite work on hose clamps?
 
Well, Well, Well, This must be what the pink oily type substance is leaking after i ride. I asked this question int he forums before and others said it must be overflow. So does my tool kit include everything i need to check these clamps? I really dont feel like dragging my bike all the way to the dealer for something i could maybe do in 10 minutes. Someone let me know what tools, and where to get them please, this must be the issue on my bike as well. ........, one thing after another..... :mad:
 
figured out how to get the side fairing off, but not the bottom yet. Help anyone? Looking for this hose as well....
 
Take it to the dealer. Mine started with a few drips and became a major blowout. Dealers reasoning was a supposed airlock in the tube which eventually lets go under heat and pressure and dumps all the coolant. This from what they tell me has been an issue with a heap of the bikes they have been getting back in for checks.
 
Boy oh boy, coolant leaking on fat hose, found a drop on my garage floor after 80 mile ride through Bakersfield and the Grapevine in 95+ degrees. I hope they can see me this Saturday. 8500 miles on the odometer.
 
hose clamps loose as well

Took the left fairing off and discovered loos hose clamps as well, The one that I had to tighten because of slow leak was the hardest to reach one. Had to create a tool using box wrench and the proper sized driver bit to turn it. Gave it a full turn in increments and idled the bike to fan active temperature, no more seeping out the end of the hose. I guess there are many things which can loosen over time on these bikes. I'm surprised that during the 7K service they don't check these relatively known faults.
 
The torque specs for the clamps are only 2.5Nm which is not that tight. You only need to be careful of the ones that connect to the plastic water distributor, as if you are heavy handed, you can end up cracking the connection pipe. I always tighten mine up until you can no longer turn them on the hose, then a full turn after that. You don't need to go overboard. The weak point on the Panigale are the Oetiker clamps used on the inter cylinder hoses. These are at best poor and if your hoses leak from these points, you cannot tighten them. I replaced all mine with conventional clips and positioned them such that you can tighten them if need be in the future, should any weeping be evident. They are a pig to access, which is why I changed mine when the airbox was removed during the initial stages of the build.
 
Thanks, Where is the plastic distributor? I am tightening the one going directly to a metal adaptor part off the engine where it have bee seeping very very slowly for some time now as I have some stains.
Mine weeped a little bit more after tightening. I called three dealers and the good one actually advised me to go some more on it. The other two wanted to take my bike in. Since my first attempt at correcting this was met with improvement, I have no doubt that going a little more- 3/4 turn will do it this time. Thanks for the information.

The smaller hoses with tension clamps are good in my opinion if installed correctly as they maintain tension with a little give even in movement (springy). I'd imagine they would fail if installed incorrectly along the connecting joint.

I want less time servicing and more time riding :)
 
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The water distributor/thermostat sits between both cylinders. By metal adaptor, I assume you mean where these inter cylinder hoses connect to the cylinder heads and not at the distributor. If it's the vertical head from where yours is leaking, at least access is a bit easier. If it is from the horizontal head, then as you have doubtless discovered, it's quite awkward to access. If it is that one, my advice would to remove the Oetiker clamp at that end of the hose and replace it with a conventional clamp. When you put the hose back on, make sure it is seated tight up to end of the metal pipe and that the clamp is inboard of lip/ridge of this pipe. The Oetiker clamps as I mentioned cannot be tightened once fitted, so if they are allowing water to weep past you have no choice but to change them or the hose, if that is your problem.
 

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