Doing some work on my 93' K1100 and found a significant amount of green-blue residue on my engine - don't know if this is coolant or fuel or what - looking for some help identifying the fluid before searching out the cause.

As always...Thank you for the help,

Thomas

Sounds like coolant. Is it under the radiator (unlucky) or one of the hose unions (sigh of relief) ?

If its on top of the engine...check rad cap spring and seal/thermostat/top hose/expansion hose at the radiator connection, if there is an issue here it can drip on to the engine. 2 of my Ks had issues up here and cheap fixes. The coolant reservoir sight glass can also do it, replacement is cheap.

A pinhole leak in rad can also leak back on to the top of the engine.

Under the engine, probability is water pump. Not the end of the world but costs a few quid as often you need shaft and impeller and the seal is easily broken if you do it yourself.

"significant amount" = "how long has it been standing?". If the answer is 'quite a while' and you can't actually see where it's leaking, a bottle of Radweld may very well stop it leaking. BTDT when I got a pinhole in the front of the radiator.

Thank you for the input and suggestions - sounds like I have an adventurous weekend ahead of me!

Thomas

A 93' long K1100 must be an amazing sight! A really stretched out bike.

89.9 degrees of rake should do it....

Two Wheels Better wrote:A 93' long K1100 must be an amazing sight! A really stretched out bike.

 The minds eye went crazy with this. Made me laugh. 

fishboy316 wrote:

Two Wheels Better wrote:A 93' long K1100 must be an amazing sight! A really stretched out bike.

 The minds eye went crazy with this. Made me laugh. 

The misplaced apostrophe is quite common. I'm a believer in the adage "If you're in doubt, leave it out."

Years ago, riding east of Toowoomba (Queensland) with Charlie, RickG & others, we stopped at a local pub which was having a bit of a vintage/classic bike show. Up front was a sweet, fully restored 1938 Scott Flying Squirrel, in a lovely BRG livery with pinstriping. The front mudguard had a UK-like number plate which had been pinstriped and with the year highlighted. The unknown pinstripe artist had written it as 38'. 

I couldn't help myself and sidled up to the person displaying the bike, enquiring quietly if he'd realised the minor error, distracting as it was to anyone who gives a sh*t about such things. He had no idea. I saw that bike a coupla years later in Brisbane. It was redone as '38. 

The former proofreader/editor in me can't help it.

Two Wheels Better wrote:

fishboy316 wrote:

Two Wheels Better wrote:A 93' long K1100 must be an amazing sight! A really stretched out bike.

 The minds eye went crazy with this. Made me laugh. 

The misplaced apostrophe is quite common. I'm a believer in the adage "If you're in doubt, leave it out."

Years ago, riding east of Toowoomba (Queensland) with Charlie, RickG & others, we stopped at a local pub which was having a bit of a vintage/classic bike show. Up front was a sweet, fully restored 1938 Scott Flying Squirrel, in a lovely BRG livery with pinstriping. The front mudguard had a UK-like number plate which had been pinstriped and with the year highlighted. The unknown pinstripe artist had written it as 38'. 

I couldn't help myself and sidled up to the person displaying the bike, enquiring quietly if he'd realised the minor error, distracting as it was to anyone who gives a sh*t about such things. He had no idea. I saw that bike a coupla years later in Brisbane. It was redone as '38. 

The former proofreader/editor in me can't help it.

Worked as a tech writer for a few years.  The way people spell and punctuate today is annoying.  Even with spell check many still can't write coherently.

Don't they teach English in schools anymore?  Some of the writing I've seen done by alleged "college graduates" is spelled and punctuated so badly the meaning is impenetrable. Does anybody proof read anything they write anymore?  Or are they so illiterate they can't see their mistakes.  The Copy/Paste and Delete editing functions certainly don't help, allowing people to splice a non-sequitur into the middle of a sentence or delete important words.

I was told long ago that precise communication inspires confidence in the communicator.  Sloppy writing indicates sloppy thinking, workmanship, and attention to detail.  Indicative of someone who cannot to be counted on to do important things properly.  Saw that to be true when I worked in industry.

Rant off.

I "get" the frustration one can have about all of that. On the other hand, I know a fair few whose abilities far exceed mine in terms of mechanical & electrical diagnostic ability, etc., even tho' they might struggle with which letter goes after another. My longtime partner can't spell if she tries. However, she just finished her Masters' degree in '21 with honours.

I haven't got the grey matter for maths. I'm terrible at it. I reach for the calculator, straight away! I kicked my grade three teacher in the knee back in about 1967 because she hauled me up front of the class to do the sums on the blackboard, because I hadn't completed my homework the night before. She embarrassed me, so I put my stubborn head down in shame, then struck out and belted her as hard as I could. Got sent to the headmaster and had a right ol' whacking on the arse across his knees. Can I blame that incident for my subpar maths ability? Not really. It's that I'm not disciplined enough to overcome my lack of ability in addition, subtraction and multiplication, not to mention calculus, off the top of my head.

But I've had the knack to be able to see words once, or proper sentence structure, and then generally write it out afterwards without too much drama. Now, if I could only just wince, then keep it to myself, not embarrass myself while embarrassing the person I'm pointing out. Sorry for that, mate.

S l i g h t l y off topic (I can rant with the best about grammer BTW) but I have this comforting daydream where I get a job in Starbucks/Costa/Wherever, just so's I can listen to the customer who asks "Can I get a skinny/soya/hazlenut/macchiata/do-dah/yawnyawnyawn.." and I say ".....but yes!".
And twenty minutes later Mr/Mrs/Ms/Non-Binary/Who The Hell Cares Anyway sandal-wearing metrosexual pulls me and asks where their drink is, and I say "Oh, I thought YOU were going to get it".
Then I get sacked on the spot and go home a satisfied, mission accomplished, world-put-to-rights, man-slash-person.

Tea snort through nose...

Mother must not have replied to their demand with, "I don't know, can you?" Or they weren't listening.

'Course, the biggest grammarcrime of all is the FlashingLightsIdiot trend of prefixing a narrative with the phrase "I was like.." which then allows the person talking to re-enact how they actually reacted/behaved/spoke back whenever the mindlessly tedious event that they are (trying to) talk about took place. This precludes them from the awful, demanding task of formulating a narrative in the correct, past tense. What with all those terribly difficult verb formulations, and demanding verbal ability and whatever.
"I was like....wow!" (I was surprised)
"He was like...yeeeurgh!" (I don't think he liked it)
"I was like....dooooh!" (I really am a non-verbal moron)
Difficult isn't it?

Yes.

Educated in the 1950s being Left handed and dyslectic ( unknown at the time so just thick) Buggered before i even started. .

Cripes, sinistre, iliiterate, and sexually abused. Just exactly which public school was it that you went to? And which recent government did you serve in?

Seriously, I am lucky enough to have friends - some of the smartest and most competent people I know - who had exactly the same sort of schooling that you describe.

Didn't everyone grow up in class seated in rows with hands folded on desktops, learning by rote repitition, awaiting stern taskmasters slamming sharpened edges of rulers across tender kinder knuckle, often 'til they bled, the left-handers forced to write right, 'evil' left tied behind backs? That's what I knew, or what I recall, but this was Tasmania in the '60s.

The general direction of this post means it's now come round full circle to the original title. Leaking something.