I'm hoping someone can throw some ideas at me.

The last time I rode my ninja, I had just finished putting her back together and I made sure all of the fluids were topped off. That was maybe 2 weeks ago, give or take a day or two. Well today I went out to see if I could mod the front turn signals and after removing the right fairing I noticed the coolant in the reserve tank is below the L level :eek: I looked for leaks. I check all the hoses, but everything appears kosher. Is there anything else I should check??

Please help. :(

While there is a chance there is a leak, it's also possible that over a few rides that bubbles and other airspaces worked their way out of your radiator and were replaced with coolant from the overflow tank. Check at the radiator cap itself to make sure that it is full to the top, and then fill up the overflow tank to between the H/L marks, and go for another ride or two to see if it drops again.

Thanks. I'll check that now....

While there is a chance there is a leak, it's also possible that over a few rides that bubbles and other airspaces worked their way out of your radiator and were replaced with coolant from the overflow tank. Check at the radiator cap itself to make sure that it is full to the top, and then fill up the overflow tank to between the H/L marks, and go for another ride or two to see if it drops again.

When you say full to the top, that means I should see the coolant as soon as the radiator cap is removed?
I don't see any.

That's an issue. The radiator should be full with fluid, right up to the top. Do you see any fluid in there, or it just low? Typically streetbike radiators are filled with 1/2 distilled water / 1/2 antifreeze, but here in Cali we can get away with 99% distilled water and just a spritz of Redline water wetter or similar. If it's just a little low, you can just add distilled water to get it to full; don't add straight antifreeze to refill.

have you been doing a lot of low speed riding? :D

That's an issue. The radiator should be full with fluid, right up to the top. Do you see any fluid in there, or it just low? Typically streetbike radiators are filled with 1/2 distilled water / 1/2 antifreeze, but here in Cali we can get away with 99% distilled water and just a spritz of Redline water wetter or similar. If it's just a little low, you can just add distilled water to get it to full; don't add straight antifreeze to refill.

I don't see any fluid in there at all. :confused:

have you been doing a lot of low speed riding? :D

I rode it once the other day around my neighborhood...so yeah it was slow speeds. Between 25-40mph.

I don't see any fluid in there at all. :confused:

That can indicate a very large problem. You need to refill it. Get some distilled water and fill it to the top, and worry about getting some redline water wetter later. If you ran the bike any distance with no fluid in the radiator, it's possible to damage the engine as it quickly overheats. The real gotcha in this case is that the engine temp is measured from the radiator fluid. If there is zero fluid, the engine temp never appears to get hot enough to activate the warning light on the dash, even though the engine temp itself can be way into the red zone, hot enough to do some damage.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

yeah, fill with distilled water. try to keep track roughly how much goes in to fill it. Be sure to fill the reservoir tank to the top fill line while you're at it. Stand the bike close top vertical to get an accurate measurement when filling the reservoir.

I would at the very least check your oil level sight glass. If you have no coolant in there I would worry. That's assuming there are no visible external leaks.

Any suggestions on type of coolant to use?

Too much oil maybe? I've overfilled mine one time and it burned through a whole tank of coolant in a day and started overheating. Drained out some of the oil and it was fine after that.

Did you find the problem?