Oil in coolant ?!

Originally Posted by fatneck

PS - the oil through the sight glass isn't milky at all - does that mean the head gasket is probably allright then? Fingers crossed!!

Could be you are OK. If you can get to the plugs easily you could try and borrow a compression tester from someone and do a quick test to put your mind at rest.

Put an appeal out on this forum, you may find someone who lives near you that has a tester.

Tim.

No idea what a compression tester is, or how to use one, but if anyone lives in Cheltenham then say hello!

[yorkie_chris]

Look at the bottom of the oil filler cap, does it look like there's a blob of yoghurt under there?

Also look in the rad cap for bits of oil floating about.

When you say the leak "looked like oil" does that mean it was doing the rainbow thing on the floor?

Can coolant do that on its own?

It wasnt doing the rainbow thing, but it was a browny oil colour. But according to the Haynes manual old coolant can come out that colour. Will check the oil filler cap later on.

[yorkie_chris]

I've never seen used oil look brown before, sounds more like a coolant change is in order than anything else

[jambo]

By happy co-incidence I have a 2001 ZX6R, and my guess would be that the long coolant pipe connects the radiator to the expansion tank, and is supposed to go across the top of the engine and be held in place above the radiator, was routed poorly, has dropped down and killed itself on the down pipes.

The good news about this is this is not part of the coolant flow while the bike is running, simply a way of letting the coolant move from the rad to the expansion bottle as it gets pressurised and heated. This means it's very unlikely the bike will have run out of coolant and done itself any damage.

If it's going back to the garage that sold it to you, repair the hose, cable tie it out of the way along the top of the radiator, and fill the radiator and expansion bottle up to the specified levels with water, take it to them, and let them sort it out.

If this fix is coming out of your pocket, buy a new hose to replace it, take the side panels, tank and air box off, route the new pipe properly and change the coolant.

Just my thoughts, feel free to drop me a PM.

Jambo

Originally Posted by fatneck

No idea what a compression tester is, or how to use one, but if anyone lives in Cheltenham then say hello!

Cheapest I found on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...%3D4%26ps%3D42

if you have 10mm spark plugs you will also need one of these:
http://concepttools.co.uk/Products/V...359&RangeNo=23

or if you have 12mm spark plugs you will also need one of these:
http://concepttools.co.uk/Products/V...360&RangeNo=23

Tim