i think i have some serious problems with my banshee right now. i'm not sure whether or not its the cold or what. but today i was riding it the snow and everything, and when i came to a stop i heard a really loud gurgling sound. i checked everything out, and it sounds like its coming from the radiator and the back where you put in the coolant. i opened up the lil coolant box and smoke/steam whatever you want to call it was coming out. i haven't touched it since, i don't want to mess with anything until i have some ideas with whats wrong. what do you all think? thanks.

 

You could have just over heated your banshee. You may have leaked out some coolant, check the level and refill as needed. If this happens continously, there could be a few halfway major problems.


#1 your water impellor may be warn out and is restricting sufficient flow through your coolant system. To fix this, you will need to carefully need to remove your side cover. On the backside of your cover will be your water impellor, seals, and bearings. You will need to CAREFULLY remove these and inspect your water impellor. If there is any cracks, or it just looks very warn, you will need to replace it. Genuine Yamaha price is around 40 and billet impellor is around 80-100. When you replace your impellor, you should also replace the impellor bearing and the seal. If you saw a white-ish looking oil leaking out the over flow, it was because the seal for your impellor is shot and is letting coolant getting into the case, thus making the oil white and very uneffictive. To see if the oil is white, just look at your dip stick. If the oil is white, you will need the new seal and to drain your banshee of oil and then put the normal 1.5 quarts back in. If the oil is normal honey colored, your lucky. Now to do all of this, you will need to have a Clymer banshee manual. They are very extensive and have pictures for nearly everything you need to do to a banshee. If you dont own one, I highly recommend you buy one. This is pretty much worst case scenerio. It wouldnt take but one days work, few good tools, garage, and confidance.

#2 Something is blocking the flow of coolant to your motor. For this, you will need to completely flush out your coolant system. Check all the hoses to see if there is anything in the way of the flow of coolant. If theres a block, replace the hose, if not, let it go. Then put the right kind of coolant in it. You will need 100% coolant, not the mixed. Then you will need to buy distilled water also. You need distilled because normal tap water is corossive, and can corrode coolant spaces in the cylinder. Now mix the coolant and the distilled water to a 50 50 mix. Reconnect any hoses, and refill your coolant system with the 50 50 mix. Start it up, let it circulate, then recheck the level, and fill as needed.


Alot to type, took me about a half hour, but these scenerios happened to me, so I know what to do.


-nick

 

Well, you're obviously overheating. Read the post above but also remember it's winter time and you could simply be lean. Did you rejet for the cold weather???

 

thanks for the reply, i appreciate it. i'll check out everything, im guessing it's blocked, hopefully. i didn't rejet for the winter, since i have no mods, so that could also be the problem. anyways, thanks for the help.

 

Im hoping everything turns out ok with your Banshee. Is there any chance that you were just sitting spinning the tires, or doing doughnuts? The same thing happened to me this winter. I was doing doughnuts, for a long time in a high gear on the ice, and I saw steam coming from the over flowing coolant hitting the ice. So I immediatly turned it off, and heard the same noise you are describing..


-nick

 

perserverence, if it overheats quickly - 5 or 10 minutes max then you have a cooling issue the most common being a stripped water pump impeller gear. If it overheats over a longer period of time then it may simply be jetting. You DEFINATELY need to rejet for winter since the air is so much denser you will run lean. It doesn't matter if it's stock or modified - you still need to rejet.

Also, like 87banshee said, not moving forward like doing donuts for a while will do it too since there is no airflow over the radiator.

 

If you let the machine sit and idle for an extended period of time....this will cause overheating. Take a new one off the showroom floor, let it sit and idle long enough, and it will melt down.

 

it took a while for it to overheat. i was riding around my neighborhood since the streets were all snow, and i was in about 5th gear most of the time. it was revving pretty high, and i was doing a lot of donuts. i didnt know that about the jetting though, thought since it was stock it wouldn't matter. thanks for the info guys, im gonna look at it today and see wahts up with it.

 

I say dont worry about it, I had an inclination that you were doing doughnuts or something like that. At one time or another, it was bound to over heat. Nothing should have been hurt by this, unless you were running it for a very extended amount of time during which it was over heated.

But as wyo was saying, you should may want to rejet it. Keep a close look at the plugs between weather changes. My banshee was jetted fat for the summer, but perfect for the winter. I was told by the man I bought it from (banshee expert) that the plug should be a nice dark honey brown. If its significantly darker, you need to jet it a bit leaner. If its white, rejet so its more rich.

This site helped me a bit to learn more about jetting carbs..


-nick