Oil light and temp light stay on vulcan 800
I bought a 2003 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 with 3000 miles. 7 year old bike,
but running good. Had the guy I bought it from ride it 10 miles to my
storage garage, then I started learning to ride for the first time. I
was doing some practice and tipped it over. Not hard, but I had
to pick it up off the ground. Rode for a few more minutes and put it
away.
When I showed up to practice again, both the coolant temperature and
oil pressure lights stayed on after starting. They were probably on
while I was putting the bike away after I dropped it, but I was probably
too shaken to notice. Thought it was purely electrical since both
came on at the same time. I was thinking it was a shorted temp
sensor wire. I rode it for a few minutes since it sounded ok and the
engine felt hotter than it should have, so I shut down and looked for
more info online. People talked about oil system airlocks, but no one
explained why both lights would be on. One person alluded to the idea
that both lights would go off if the oil system was fixed, but I
couldn't find explanation or confirmation. That was enough to get me to
accept that problem as a possibilty.
That's when I saw a trick involving unscrewing the oil filter.
Some people on the forum said it wasn't a great idea, but most thought
it was fine. i couldn't see any harm in it myself, since I was full on
oil and there was from my previous ride, obviously enough oil in the
heads to run the engine for another minute or so at least.
So after marking it to make sure of how much to re-tighten, I loosened
up the filter using both hands until I could turn it with one, then
leveled my bike a tad with a piece of wood under the kickstand (no
center stand on these), chocked the rear tire and started the bike,
putting it into neutral. I held the handlebar with my left hand to be
sure the bike wouldn't tip over on me and loosened the filter
until I was pretty sure that the gasket was just separated from the
engine and waited for a few seconds. No oil came out immediately so at
that point I pretty much figured I was on the right track. Trickle,
trickle, GLUG, GLUG. oil comes out into my drain pan. Screwed
filter back tight, engine sound changed from smooth to really
smooth. I looked back up and both lights were now off. Problem
solved.
Apparently this air locking is an occasional problem during oil changes
as well as with dropped bikes. People that I read said to fill the oil
filter before installing to minimize the chances of this.
Like the previous poster, I really want to know is why the temp light
and oil light seem to be connected. Both lights coming on at the same
time really tripped up my troubleshooting and almost led to me
dismissing the warning. When I get the repair manual I ordered in the
mail, I'm going to try intentionally tripping the temp sensor, probably
by pulling a wire to see if the warning light for the oil will come on
when there is a problem with overheating. Can anyone speculate on why
the temp light came on too even though it was an oil problem?
Sorry for the long post, but I looked all over for a solution and had to
piece it together from several places and guess a little. Hopefully
this is detailed enough to help people with this common (apparently with
Kawasakis) problem.