Good idea. I will do that very thing before I head to Big Bend next week. It will probably be pretty toasty there.

 

"Like"

 

Just curious . . . is the water pressure of a car wash nozzle sufficient to bend or otherwise damage radiator fins?

 

Probably, if you placed the washer head against the aluminum fins.

Reality though, is that you are using a sweeping motion some inches away from the fins.

You would be amazed at how brown the water was falling from the radiator.

 

When I do this to my K1600, there will be a two step process:

1) Paint safe solvent when the engine is hot. Pressure wash with soap cycle.

2) Strong paint safe detergent cleaner. 2nd wash.

 

I noticed my bike running pretty hot in 88 degree weather a couple of weeks ago. I will give this a try

Thanks!

 

Auto Zone - Walmart - all over the place.

GUNK® Heavy Duty Gel, Our Best Engine Degreaser, is specially formulated to remove baked on grease and oil from hotter-running engines. GUNK® Heavy Duty Gel clings to the engine surface being sprayed and does not run off. Since the product stays where it’s sprayed, it has more time to penetrate baked on engine soils.

Our most aggressive engine degreaser
Specially formulated to remove baked on grease and oil from hotter-running engines
Clings where it s sprayed
Deep penetrating action
No scrubbing required

 

RL
Good call
One caution, don't get it near painted surfaces's

 

Looks OK to me: http://econtent.autozone.com:24999/znetcs/msds/en/US/819591

 

Here is the deal, you need to melt those little tar balls. Tar like those stuck to the inside of your rear wheel, hard and glued to the rim.

Some strong solvent seems to be the way to do it, without removing the radiator and taking it to a radiator shop.

After the solvent spray and power wash, I would spray the radiator down with a strong detergent. Whether the soap setting at the carwash, or a mix of your own.

Then, a very good rinse, from both sides. Get down on your knees with a flashlight to see where the stream should be directed on both sides of the engine. There are small openings where the wash wand can be directed right at the radiator.

This has worked. Adding the soap step should make it even better.

As you may recall, my dirty radiator even had algae growing on it.

 

http://www.k1600forum.com/forum/bmw...self/40585-radiator-after-40-000-miles-all-weather-riding-not-pretty-sight.html

 

As many add the miles to their K1600, we will see more overheating because of debris collecting in the radiator.

It appears that BMW has yet to add the cleaning of the radiator during the valve adjustment service. So, it important for us to ask for this separate cleaning and inspection.

If you don't want to see the coolant temperature go into the red, it is important for you to have a look yourself.

I used a camera that allows very close photos to take photos thru the radiator guard. Take a lot as many won't focus on the right place, but some do.

This is what could be lurking in your radiator:

 

Wow!

Great to have the heads up RL

 

RL, I must say, "You are the man"!:k16:

 

Does anyone use Extreme Aircraft Simple Green? It is the blue one that is aluminum safe?

 

The easiest cleaner appears to be A/C condenser coil cleaner as it must be aluminum safe.

 

Cameras are better than my eyes at getting up close and personal with my radiator. A few photos and I can see which have the right focus, then zoom in to see if all is well, or needs cleaning.

This photo shows the aluminum window screen I also added.

 

The red zone on coolant temperature isn't part of the K1600 design. The radiator and fan work fine, so long as your radiator is clean.

When in stop & go traffic or construction zone, your K1600 needs every bit of the radiator cooling area. Including all those parts of the radiator covered by plastic. Areas impossible to clean without removing the plastic.

The best advise I can offer is to have your radiator professionally cleaned at each 18,000 mile valve adjustment. Make your dealer fully remove the radiator during that service. Either a radiator shop, like top drawer dealerships do, or a very thorough cleaning at the dealership.

Trust me here, those of us who have had our coolant temperature go into the red zone experience a level of panic that you don't want to experience. The K1600 is too expensive to let be ruined by overheating.

The car wash stop is a temporary fix to allow you to continue the ride.

 

Appreciate the advice here, very helpful. My bike had a lot of mud caked to it including the radiator when I got it. Been cleaning it as I find it all over & I'll make sure to clean out the radiator thoroughly as I can see some covering up the lower fins.

 

I just cleaned my radiator at 30k miles. Incredible how much crap was in there, and how much remains. I didn't remove the radiator, just stuff around it so I could get some degreaser on there and spray it out a few times. If I take the radiator out next time, is there a good way to clean it at home, or does it need to go to a radiator shop to be cleaned fully?