Overfilled coolant - possible problems?

pretty much i feel like an idiot....checked my coolant level and as far as i could tell the expansion bottle was empty, couldnt see a drop of anything in there, so i though oh ill fill that up went to fill it and after about 200ml coolant starts pouring out the filler, now one thing, why cant i see the coolant in the bottle, and two, what do i do now??? i need to use the bike soon so am pretty annoyed at myself....

cheers

[Viney]

Personaly, dont owrry about it. There probablyw as water in the expanson tank its just a funny shaped bottle. The excess water will come out the over flow. Or you could just get a length of tube and syphon it out

so just put the filler cap back on and it will sort itself out??? i thought if it was over the max mark it could mess things up???

[Viney]

Personaly, that what i would do, however, its my bike and if it goes pop then its my fault. Get a length of house and syphon some out

[timwilky]

this time of year I would make sure there was some antifreeze in there, that also tends to colour enough to see it through the most opaque of header tanks.

I tend to use distilled water and about 30% antifreeze.

Do you actually have any anti-freeze in there?

The excess should find it's way out of the brether, you might find you leave an impressive trail of steam behind you though!
If you take the rad cap off, all the coolant from the bottle will poor out, then you can replace the rad cap and fill the bottle to correct level. I would recomend useing anti freeze though.
Also if you decide to do it this way, when you remove the rad cap you will prob have to remove the bung in the filler to let it breath.

ah, this may be where i messed up, i had been filling via the radiator......where is the actual filler cap then if not the same thing??

oh and no idea whats in there as i only just had the bike a month!

cheers

If you do the the level will be too low. If you look just under the rad cap you'll find a small hose that goes up to a small tank. What happens is the rad should be full, and as the coolant gets hotter it expands via the small hose into the tank (or expansion tank). The expansion tank has the Max and Min mark you should work from.
If you lift up the fuel tank, on the right hand side of the air box you find a filler neck with a little rubber bund in the top, that allows you fill the expansion bottle.
If you want to drain the coolant as I said before, you could take the small hose of under the rad cap. It will be a lot less messy than if just take the cap off.

ahh ok i will sort that out then cheers!!!