I went for a ride two days ago and had some weird experiences. First, I saw my tach go to 0 and stay there. Hmmm. 5 miles later, I watched the Speedo bounce to 0 and back up to 50-70 mph and the odo blanked out. Electrical gremlins I am guessing. I assume this may be what caused my previous problem of dead battery after running perfectly for 20 miles then stopping for gas. I just never noticed this occurance. I am guessing there is a loose connection somewhere or the R/R is going south. The problem went away when I stopped to turn around and go home (to avoid being stranded), and all indicators returned to their normal status. So yesterday I start looking around the bike for anything obvious, and the very first thing I notice is a little white residue on the outside of the clutch cover (as if I may have splashed through a puddle or something, but I had not) and checked more closesly. I notice what appears to be a hole just in board of the water pump on the clutch cover and confirm it is a hole by probing it. There is residue/corrosion surrounding this hole, and what appears to be some splash marks coming from that area. When started, the hole doesn't appear to leak anything, but maybe after it warms up a bit, or at speed the air flow past it causes some water/coolant to weep. The questions are as follows:

1. Is this an indicator of much bigger problems? (Bad seal in water pump, fluid leaks, hole corrodes in case cover)
2. Is there any possible connection between this issue and the electrical gremlins I experienced.

This is the first time I noticed the white residue, and I know that it was not there prior to two days ago.

 

Its the water pump weep hole. It function is to alert you when the water pump seal has blown and thus allowing fluid to leak past the impeller shaft.

The early model VTR's had just the hole and the later model had a nice little fitting placed in the hole and a line runnig down toward the ground.

Mine is a 98 model. She weeps sometimes and sometimes she doesn't. I run Distilled water and the Red Line additive instead of Anti-Freeze (disclaimer - Water and Water wetter will freeze during the winter) and it seems to help mine.

Alot of the original owners went to the trouble of replacing the seal only to have mixed results. Some it fixed it for good, some it didn't.

Personally, i just wash mine off when i clean the bike and i keep an eye on the fluid level in the overflow bottle. If the cooling system looses excessive coolant it will suck needed replacement fluid from the overfloe bottle to replenish as needed.

I still have the original seal and around 28k on mine and she is going strong.

So you either replace the seal and hope if fixes it for good ore just monitor.

PErsonally i feek it is another characteristic of the SuperHawk for it to weep occasionally, which is why Honda added a fitting and drain tube to later model VTR's

 

Sounds like good news to me. I am glad that the hole is in deed the weep hole that is referenced in the manual. I could not find the hole that the manual talks about, but this makes sense. Mine is a '98, and I have certainly not seen this before, nor is it consuming lots fluid. Thank you for the input. Does anyone else have experience with this issue?

 

For your electrical gremlins... I had the same thing happen once. I jump started my bike on a completely dead battery. I had left the lights on all night. For about 5 minutes of the bike running, I had no idications on my display. At about 10 minutes, I started to get what you had with the speedo bouncing around, and the display going off and on. Finally at about 15 minutes, everything was working fine. At any rate, everything worked fine after that.

For you white residue... I still get this sometimes too. I used to get a lot more, but I found that the hose clamps for the hose that connects the 2 radiators, was not completely snug and would leak when the bike got over 200 degrees. On both sides, leaving white residue. I tightened them up a while ago and it completely went away on one side, but still does get some on the right side very lightly. Maybe need to tighten the one on that side some more.
(edit) Looked at your pic again. My white residue looked more like droplets dried onto the case covers. It was running down the bottom edge of the fairings, and then dripping onto the case covers.

 

replace the R/R it is a known trouble spot on Hawks. Get a finned one, or a yamaha one in there.

 

the dash & tack - speedo was the exact situation i had right before my R/R died.

tim

 

+3 on R/R....