I am in the process of rebuilding my 02 yamaha kodiak. The reason I am rebuilding is that it started burning oil like crazy. It sat up for around 6 months or so and when I started it, it was smoking. The smoke was black/ blue and it would loose massive amounts of oil. So i thought the rings must be stuck or broken. I rode if for a solid week with it smoking, adding oil literally every 15-20 min of riding. I expected the rings to finally loosen up and stop the smoking, but it never happened. Oil also got into the cooling system which I assumed was from a bad water pump. I didn't think that it ever got hot so I didn't really expect the head gasket to be a problem. This weekend a friend and I got the motor out and pulled apart. Head gasket was blown, badly. And the rings and piston looked good. I'm now thinking that it could be a valve/ valve guide problem. So now I am going to bring the head and jug and maybe piston to a machine shop that works on bikes. My plan is to have them do a valve job and check the jug and piston. I also plan on replacing the water pump and radiator/fan as needed. Is there anything else that I should look at replacing while I have the motor out? Also what about over torquing the head bolts in hopes of preventing another gasket failure? I think they are supposed to be around 40 lbs. Seems like they could handle more. And is there a gasket that would work better than the metal one that comes from yamaha? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Nobody even has an opinion on a decent gasket set?