Hello Everyone! As the title suggests, I'm the recent owner of a 2006 Fireblade. Love the bike, but after some routine maintenance and a thorough inspection, I have some concerns and would love to get some input on how to move forward. After purchasing the bike, I did a handful of maintenance items. New oil and filter (10W-40 oil and K&N Oil Filter), new air filters, new spark plugs, fresh brake fluid and clutch fluid. I also installed new OEM brake pads all around, put a new OEM chain and sprocket kit, and cleaned out the throttle bodies a bit since they were gummed up a little. After all the maintenance items above, I discovered a handful of issues that I am trying to tackle. Any and all info is appreciated!! 1. The bike started smoking. Turns out, the bike has some aftermarket Chinese fairings, and the lower fairings, once installed, were sitting on top of the headers, and they had melted and that was causing the smoke. Okay, no problem. So I take the fairings off, scrub the headers with a razor blade to remove all the melted plastic, and start the bike up. Now the "check engine" light (or whatever it is called...it's a red light on the right side of the dash) is on, and the oil icon is lit. As the bike is warming up, I hear a squealing sound, like in a car when the belt squeals, and a minute or two after that, it develops a loud knocking sound. Since the oil light is on, as well as the 'check engine' light, I can only assume that the oil pump is failing. The knocking sound is probably the top end of the engine as it is depleted of oil, but again, I'd love any input! 2. The radiator appears to be soaking wet, like it is leaking from the left side. The bike has plenty of coolant. As it runs and warms up, the radiator get wetter and wetter starting from the bottom left, working it's way up. The liquid inside the radiator eventually will burn off, turn into steam. It smells like water vapor. I'm not sure if this is normal or not? 3.. Oil in the air box. When I take apart the airbox, I discover oil in top of the air filters, in the baffles of the air filters, and on the top portion of the airbox. The old air filters were completely blackened, likely coated in oil, and the old spark plugs were very dark, suggesting the air filters were clogged. This all makes sense, except how much oil should be entering the airbox? I've owned half a dozen bikes, none have ever had oil in the airbox. Is it coming in from the valved/PAIR system? It's not a lot of oil, but it is enough that it will quickly clog my brand new air filters.
Welcome to the forum. You need to wrap your headers if they are touching the fairings and ideally get some heat shield on the inside of the fairings. I have Chinese fairings on my 09 with no issues and I've wrapped and heat shielded. Reading the rest of your post though it seems the fairing issue is the least of your worries. I wouldn't imagine the melted fairings and check light are connected in any way, just coincidence. Engine knocking sounds are never good. If the oil pump is knackered then oil depletion can cause damage to the cams, journals etc. I would be inclined to drain the oil and look in the sump for any metal. It's common to get some oil in the air box but there should not be enough to cause issues with the air filter. You may well have issue with piston or rings resulting in oil being blown up the crankcase breather. Your radiator clearly has a issue, probably a pin hole and needs repairing or replacing. I would refrain from starting the bike until the engine is looked at as you may cause a lot more damage. I'm no expert btw and don't claim to be, the above is just from personal experience. Let us know how you get on.
Thank you for the reply Blake. The fairings don't have any heat shielding, nor do my headers. I'm likely going to be getting a new set of fairings, so I'll be sure to protect them this time around. I did pull the oil filter out. Dumped the oil out of the filter and let some oil pour out of the block. Inspected it with a flashlight, did not appear to be any metallic flakes, so that's good news. I heard the knocking sound for only a few seconds before I shut the bike down. I didn't hear anything that sounded like "ohhhh shit", you know? I don't intend to run it at all until I get it to a shop. As for the airbox, your comment is in line with others I've read. Most say a little oil in the airbox is normal. I don't have an excessive amount, I'm just not used to seeing oil in there. I've owned 2 Ninjas and a Busa, none of them ever had any signs of oil in the airbox, so this took me by surprise. If I look under the airbox lid I can see a smearing/smudge of oil, and there are little droplet marks on parts of the air filters. Its not a lot, but it seems that over time it could cause an issue. The piston rings were the first thing I considered. The airbos on the '06 has 2 hoses that connect, I believe they are breather hoses for the valves. So maybe the valves/seats are bent and the seal is bad. This would explain the rough idle too. Regardless, I'm going to have to do a compression test to see how the rings are holding up. Bike has only 7500 miles, so you would think they are still in great shape, but you never know. And the radiator..this one has me really confused. The thing is clearly soaked, but it's only water. No green coolant to be seen. And it steams up / evaporates, so I don't see how it COULD be coolant. Plus if you smell it, it just smells like water vapor. Regardless, there definitely appears to be a leak of some sort. Right now it looks like I'm just going to be out a lot of money. I have to get the bike towed to the shop (dude quoted me $40.00 to tow). I'm guessing the radiator will need repairs or replaced, oil pump likely needs to be replaced, and depending on the results of the compression test, I may even need new piston rings. Possibly looking at a valve job too, but we'll see what happens. Thanks again for the reply, Shaun
