>After I ride the bike the around for a short time the cooling fan comes on,
>even when the weather is cool. I have heard several people say
>that the fan hardly ever comes on on their bike. As of yet I
>have not been able to go to an event and see what the other
>bikes are doing.  (I've had the bike for a week.)

Don't worry about it. At least it comes on!

>The real problem came when I rode up a trail into the hills, I
>was in 4th and 5th gear for just a few minutes, not revving the
>bike much when I noticed it smelled hot. It was smoking quite a
>bit and the cylinder was very hot. I shut it off and let it
>cool for several minutes, it started right back up but I could
>hear it pinging slightly so I parked it until it was completely
>cool. After that it ran fine. I was running pump premium at 70-
>1. The cooling system looked fine upon inspection, and there
>was plenty of coolant, which I replaced anyway.

If your bike was truly overheating, spit will sizzle aggressively on the
head, it will ping a lot at partial throttle, and the coolant may even
boil over.  Check fluid level.  If you have proper fluid level and your
fan is coming on, pumping hot air out, your cooling system shoudl be fine
and dandy.

It is possible you are experiencing nothing more than the bike starting
to burn out accumulated oil.  If you are running too much oil in the gas,
say below 100:1 (how many times do I have to write it?  Trials bikes
don't need more than 100:1 mix?), and if most of the way the bike was
ridden recently was to putz around, then you will light a fire in the
header pipe when you ride aggressively uphill.  The fire will burn slowly
back through the center muffler if you continue to ride hard.  The bike
will smoke like hell and run blubblery (sometimes).  This is entirely
normal and good.  Accumulated oils are bad for performance.  The only
thing you want to watch during burn-out of built-up pipe oil is getting
the pipe so hot it melts something near it.

I once worked on a `92 G-G 250 ridden with 60:1 for 2 years in a mellow
fashion.  I literally poured a pint of oil out of the muffler!  Yuk!  You
may want to check this.  Pour out any oil and find yourself a hill and
burn that baby out...  carefully.  You may have to let it cool and do it
in a few steps.  I once melted my rear brake line because it was touching
the center muffler during a major burnout.


Chris (CJ) Johnson
Director of Engineering,
College Park Industries, Inc.     http://www.college-park.com
(810) 294-7950 (at CPI), (616) 664-4173 (home office)
papazit "at" juno.com