As a motorcycle owner, you want to ensure that your bike stays pristine throughout your time using it. Even if you tend to spend less on a motorcycle than you would on a car, a motorcycle requires more maintenance.
And one of the most neglected parts of your car are the motorcycle engine fins, which are an essential part of any engine as they dissipate heat.
If you’re not careful with your motorcycle engine fins, you could see your performance reduce significantly, and it can even lead to long-term damage to your engine.
Therefore, it is essential that you focus on cleaning engine fins occasionally.
So, here is a quick guide that will teach you everything that you need to know about cleaning your motorcycle engine fins.
What are motorcycle engine fins?
Engine fins are metal vanes you can even see at the side of your engine that are responsible for helping the engine properly dissipate heat. Its sole purpose is to ensure that the engine doesn’t overheat, which it is able to do by transferring the heat away from the engine.
You should also understand that the larger fins allow for better cooling. It’s why most people who have a motorcycle will replace the engine fins for bigger ones or will just add new cooling fins.
You can experiment with the different types of motorcycle fins, but you just have to make sure that path to the oil cooler or the radiator is not blocked, since that could also cause the engine to overheat.
How to Clean motorcycle engine fins
One of the biggest problems that people can face with their engines over time is overheating. More specifically, their engines can stat to overheat while they’re riding, which leads to long term damage.
The engine will usually start overheating as a result of the fins inside the motorcycle engine not working properly.
And one of the most common reasons why a fan can stop working properly is because dirt gets stuck in the fins. As a result, you need to clean motorcycle engine fins, which you can do with a range of household supplies.
Here are the different ways that you can clean dirt out of motorcycle fins.
Using regular household supplies
Start by using a soft brush to take off all the loose debris on the fins. Now that you have most of the dirt off your fins, you can focus on the remaining dirt that might require a little bit of elbow grease.
Make a cleaning solution with water and soap, which you can then use to scrub away the more stubborn dirt stuck on your fins.
Crevices in the fins can easily trap dirt, which you can take out using a cannister of compressed air.
You can also rinse out the soapy solution, which is usually a god solution. you might want to avoid a pressure washer or power washer for the fins, since they might do more harm than good.
If the stains are a little too difficult to clean off, then you should also consider adding baking soda to your solution or us a more potent cleaner like a degreaser.
Cleaning with kerosine
Along with cleaning with regular household appliances, you can also clean your motorcycle engine fins with kerosine, since it is a lot more effective at removing al sorts of build up.
You can use a steam cleaner to clean the air filter, but for the actual fin area, you want to use a solution of kerosine and soap.
Both of these combined can easily clean aluminum, and you don’t even have to use wire brushes. You can use an old toothbrush instead. The best thing about this brush is that it doesn’t scratch the surface area of the fins.
Cleaning the fins with vinegar
If you’ve run out of dish soap or can’t seem to find it, you can even use some vinegar to properly clean your motorcycle engine fins.
Simply mix equal parts vinegar and water and add it to a spray bottle. When you add it to a spray bottle, you can now apply it generously on your fins to properly clean them. You will want to thoroughly rinse the fins with clean water when you’re done.
Do you need to replace your motorcycle engine fins
The most important thing that you need to understand about your fins is that they can wear out with time, just like every part of your motorcycle.
Therefore, you need to know when is the right time to switch out your fins entirely and when you can just get away with cleaning them.
Some of the signs that you should look for when finding out for when looking to change your motorcycle engine fins include
The condition of the fins
the first thing that you want to be looking at is the overall condition of your fins. check for any cracks, or dents, or if it is bending from somewhere. If you see that your fins are in this shape, you need to replace them.
Check overall cooling engine
When you ride your motorcycle, you can usually tell when something isn’t right. So you need to check if your cooling fins are doing their job right and not letting the engine overheat.
If the engine is running hotter than usual, it is likely that the fins are not working right. They could be broken, or they could just need a little bit of cleaning. Either way, you can find that out when you take out the fin.
Listen to your bike
You can usually find out if your bike has an issue just by listening to it. If your engine is making a strange noise or it sounds like it is struggling considerably, then you might want to check the cooling fins.
When your engine starts to overheat, you can usually tell just by its sound. And if that happens, you should check your fins for signs of damage.