my 99 banshee(not to souped up just piped jetted K&N and boost bottle) runs great and i love it, but every time i ride i have to fill up the overflow with antifreeze. over time it just leaks out of a hose in the front, but it never drains the radiator or overheats, what is going on? sometimes when its warm it gurgles at the head, but my friends does the same thing. Please help

 

You are gonna want to fix that hose problem, and to fix any other leak that could be anywhere, you could use Bars Leak stop leak. What you should do is put in an area and let it run and rev it and let it run and rev as if you were somewhat riding it, and then look on the ground for any leakage. And im not sure if it has a dummy light on it, but if it does, the sensor may be bad, and it may not be picking up the immense heat, it also could be a fuse that needs changed. Try doing those things before the stop leak, then get back to us before you use anything on it besides fixing the hose.

 

the hose does not appear to be damaged, it is only about a 1/4 inch in diameter and is hooked to nothing

 

That is the overflow hose, im sorry. I thought you were talking about a hose connected to the radiator or motor, i was about to say, in that case change tho mo fo...lol...But it is gettin way too hot and puking coolant...hmm...that used to happen on my z400...does the banshee have a fan by any chance? If it does, the fan is not comeing on due to a heat sensor or a fuse to the heat sensor and it will not come on, or the fan motor is blown and it is not regulating temperatures like it should be. That is what happened to my Z so that is my theory.

 

The coolant puking is a common problem with a Banshee with miles on it, the water pump impeller is plastic, and wears out over time, resulting in poor coolant flow, and hot spots in the motor, so running at speed is fine, but as soon as you slow down, the extra heat catches up and boils out some coolant. You can get a replacement aluminum impeller kit that flows a lot better that the stock unit, for about 75 bucks.After my friend did that for his Banshee, it never lost coolant again, and ran better because the engine temps stayed more even.

 

The same thing used to happen to my banshee but i got one of the aluminum impellers and it works fine now.

 

since 88 weve had several banshees and only 1 had this problem - the 88 model. i dont think it was the model but it would boil over alot - even when it wasnt that old. i think it was a faulty impeller and was replaced when it got a rebuild due to the engine sucking in sand on a riding trip we took..i think after all that was fine. id replace the impeller if i was you.

 

how hard is it to change out?

 

That overflow bottle is just a catch can, it can't return water to the radiator {unlike modern bikes} Imo, get rid of it. Just run the radiator over flow tube strait down between pipes [where they come out of the cylinders], and let it hang an inch below the frame.