Overheated

[Airlordd1]

Yesterday I was out for a ride when I found myself in a construction area with Concrete barriers on either side of the travel lanes. The traffic had come to a stop and we sat for about 20 minutes. not knowing how long we would sit there I let the bike idle . when the traffic finally started to move the bike died and would not restart. After about an hour of sittiong along the interstate with trucks going by only inches away and 60 mph the bike finally started back up. Bike runs fine now but have i incurred any damage to the engine from it overheating ?

[Airlordd1]

The reason I ask is In June I'm riding from South Carolina to Wyoming and dont want to be sitting along the road because of something that took place yesterday

[Duke]

If your bike's running fine now, just go for it, don't worry and enjoy the ride. Like Mort said, it probably flooded due to fuel boiling off.
I do the same as Shores, kill the engine when having to stop for construction.

[roadiemort]

The reason I ask is In June I'm riding from South Carolina to Wyoming and dont want to be sitting along the road because of something that took place yesterday

If you would have turned and held the throttle wide open while trying to start it it probably would have started.

[Shores]

I doubt you did it any damage. I seem to remember something about at least the fuel injected bikes shutting off if they reach a particular temperature. Don't do that again, just kill the engine at the beginning of the traffic stall and you'll be glad you did.

[roadiemort]

His bike is 2001.

[EnergyGuy]

are you sure you overheated? What year is your Star?

I have a '12 and my owner's manual says this:

an engine auto-stop system. The
engine stops automatically if left
idling for 20 minutes. In this case,
the multi-function meter unit indi-
cates error code 70, but this is not
a malfunction. Push the start
switch to clear the error code and
to restart the engine

It's a safety thing. I had this happen a couple of weeks ago when I was dialing in my headlight. I left it idling (because I don't have 25' of flat driveway at home), so as not to run the battery down while not at home, and after, I'd say about 20 mins, it shut off. Wouldn't start back up. I freaked the fuck out. Didn't wait nearly as long as you did before I started googling and pushing buttons. Found this answer, cleared the code, fired her up and drove home.

[roadiemort]

His profile says 2001 R*

[EnergyGuy]

swing and a miss!!

[Doc_V]

Could have been a number of things but I'd be *really* surprised if you actually overheated. When these bikes get too hot about the only thing that happens is knocking at low RPMs, like when taking off, or whacking the throttle open under a heavy load. During hot summer days I switch to premium if if the motor starts knocking a lot. That usually takes care of it. Just go easy when you hear knocking; it can damage the motor if you push it too hard.

As for your bike not starting, any chance there was a strong smell of gas while you were idling or shortly after turning the bike off? You may have just boiled off the fuel in the carb bowl and the float needle got stuck. [a.k.a. Carb Puke] Have you ever turned your bike off after a long ride and could hear percolating? That's the fuel in the flaot bowl boiling over. BTW, do you still have your AIS installed with a hose attached to the carb vent? If so, you may not have smelt the gas puking out the carb vent.

It could also be your the rollover valve on your tank vent is sticking or the gas cap isn't venting well enough. If that happens again, turn the bike off and open the gas cap, if you hear air rushing in your roll over valve may be sticking. Also, turn the key all they way off, then back on and listen for the fuel pump *clicking*. It should do for a couple seconds. That's your float bowl filling up. Make sure you hear that noise. Then try to start the bike. If you don't hear the clicking the first time, turn the key of, take it out, and put it back in and try again until you do.

Best of luck.

[catnaper2]

I doubt you really hurt anything either.
I made the boneheaded choice of trying to ride around Cades Cove in The Smokies...in June...on a Sunday afternoon...with the temp in the 90's. Took almost 4 hours to cover the 12 miles! My '04 got hot enough to cause the steel enricher cable to melt into the polyethylene inner liner. When the engine cooled down, I liked to never got it pulled out. I actually had to use pliers and a hammer to get it loose! I never had a moments trouble over the next 30K+ miles. These motors are pretty much bullet proof!

PS. I did have to replace the cable

[Brad_G]

That's a good looking bike catnaper2. Not sure if you'd share a pic of it before. I'd like to find another R* and set it up as a solo rider similar to that. I really like the look.

[catnaper2]

Thanks Brad. Took me several years to get it where I wanted it...and 10 months later, we traded it in on Karen's 2015 Victory Magnum. Nearly every time I get on this site, a part of me still wishes that we had done the deal differently and I still had it...Just didn't have the room for 3 bikes in our garage...

[Airlordd1]

I did try to start the bike several times it would start but after about 4-6 seconds it shut back off. One time when I did get it fired up and it shut back off I had flame coming from one of my exhaust pipes. Someone behind me started beeping their horn and when I turned around I saw the flames. got off bike and put my hand over the pipe and flame went out. The clutch cover was toooo hot to touch. But thankfully after about an hour it cooled down enough and it fired right up and off I went. Back Home. evidently some one had wrecked a couple miles up and it stopped traffic. Couldnt tell that from where I was. Thats the reason I let it idle as i didnt think we would be waiting that long.

[davej]

I seem to remember reading that these bikes will shut off after 20 minutes of idling to keep it from overheating and doing any damage. If it runs OK now it is OK. About the only damage that I can see possible from happening from overheating would be the heads warping and if they did it wouldn't run right now because it would likely have blown the head gaskets.

[Bikerron]

The fuel injected ones do.

[Moser39]

Hopefully you are using regular gas, not high test

[brianmac]

I overheated once in Daytona when I had the carb set up wrong and I was running too lean. I swapped an air jet by mistake when I was green with road stars. What's your carb setup what's your exhaust what's your air filter. Mine just shut off and I waited a few minutes and it started back up and I turn around and got the f*** out of there. If you have flames coming out of your exhaust you definitely flooded some. You may have benefited by just opening throttle to correct flooding. Maybe not , sounds like you're lucky you didn't have a fire. If you're going to do that a lot you should make sure you're running on the rich side and or get a parade fan and relocate the fuel pump so it breathes better

[Airlordd1]

I might be running on the rich side. I have Vance and Hines BIG SHOTS and a K&N air filter in the stock filter holder. I put the jets in that V&H said to but with the K&N in the stock holder it may not have needed the bigger jets. But i rode it this past weekend for about 200+ miles and all was well . It may have just been the sitting for 20 minutes idling that made it shut off. the heat coming off the clutch case was enough to almost burn my leg. But as I said i let it sit for about an hour and it started right up and ran fine. plus the 200+ mile trip this past weekend was proof that it wasnt damaged. actually it seemed to run better.

[brianmac]

What's your mpg? That'll tell you if it's rich

[Bikerron]

Letting an air cooled engine simmer in its own juices without air flow for 20 minutes will heat them up. Bunches.

shut it down if you’re going to be sitting for awhile. That’s what the starter is for.

[DEEPHATE]

He wasn't aware that it was going to be so long.

[Bikerron]

Smoked breakfast?