The bike in these photos is a year 2000 ZX-6R.
Warning
I am not a mechanic or a representative of any motorcycle or tool manufacturer or anything else official. This page is only my notes on doing this procedure myself. Although I believe what I have documented here is correct, I make no promises and you do this at your own risk.
Objective
Changing your antifreeze is one of the regular maintenance tasks specified in your service manual. (My manual says every 2 years or 24,000 Km.) Also, if you attend a track day, you may be required to replace your coolant with water to avoid spilling the slippery glycol on the track. The procedure is the same.
Required
Tools Required
- Rear stand (recommended)
- Phillips screwdrivers
- Hex wrenches (metric)
- Socket set (metric)
- Container to catch old coolant
- Funnel
Parts Required
- Antifreeze of appropriate kind
- Distilled water — a couple of 4-litre jugs
Difficulties
Some difficulties could be:
- Under-tightening (so it falls out) or over-tightening (stripping threads) the water pump drain plug. That’s why a torque wrench is highly recommended.
- Handling spilled coolant. It’s slippery. It’s very poisonous. Worse, it has a sweet scent that can attract household pets to lap up a spill.
- Disposal of your used coolant. Your city may have regulations on how to do this.
- Danger of burns if you remove the radiator cap from a hot engine (don’t).
- Danger of leaving an air bubble trapped in the system, lowering cooling efficiency.
Procedure
Remove the upper and lower fairings
You need to remove the lower fairing to access the drain point. Although it’s possible to reach the radiator fill point without removing the upper fairing (if you have a very long-necked funnel and small hands) it’s much easier to do this job if you also remove the upper fairing.
Drain the old coolant
I usually put a spare pail under the filler cap to catch drips, as liquid will spill out.
Warning: Coolant is very poisonous. The glycol makes it taste sweet, so if it’s spilled on the floor, your household pet may lick it up.
Flush the system
Add new coolant
Tighten the water pump drain plug properly now. It isn’t very tight (a soft metal screw, it will strip easily).
Mix coolant as specified on the jug. On mine, it calls for a 50-50 mix of coolant and distilled water. (If you’re setting up for a track day, you’ll be putting in pure distilled water, possibly mixed with “Water Wetter” if the organizers allow it.)
I’ve done this about 3 times and is now cleaned out. But as everything is drained , there is still distilled water sitting in my rad at the bottom. Should I remove my rad to completely empty it , I’m using engine ice and says not to mix. It’s already pre mixed. Last thing I want to do is add the engine ice and have to flush it out all over again and spend more $$$
Great read! Thanks. I might add for reference, the torque spec in manual for the drain plug is 1kg.m
Thanks a lot man, made this a lot easier. Missed only the part about having snap the plastic peice underbelly apart by the radiator
hey first I must say I love ur site. its very helpful and I use it as reference all the time! anyway sumhow the hose that comes from the overflow tank got to close to my exhast where it connects to the headers and of course burned a hole in it and it has bn leaking everywhere. so im trying to remove the hose to change it but I dont know wer it leads or how to get to it. so do you know where it leads or maybe an alternative to changing just the bottom (visible) part of the hose? thx!
Sure, the other end just connects to the radiator fill point – nothing fancy. It just runs up the inside of the radiator and connects at the top – it’s just barely visible in the last radiator photo above (the photo before the photo of the tach and temperature gauge).