I just returned from a week at Glamis. The first four days were awesome, then suddenly my DS turned into a milkshake machine. I was riding at night and noticed the red light had come on. I stopped the bike, let it cool, and got it back to camp.

In the morning I checked the oil, fine, the coolant reservoir, also fine. Then I removed the front shroud and checked the radiator level, it was half empty! I refilled the radiator and attempted to start the bike, it was very hard to start. When it finally started (almost killed the battery) I let it warm up until the fan came on, it did and the light was still out, so far so good. I shut it off and removed the thermostat to make sure that it was opening, it was. I let the thermostat cool to be sure that it closed, it did. Reinstalled it and refilled the coolant, ran it and rechecked coolant, it was down about two inches. At this point I checked the breather tube, to my horror it looked as if someone had squirted whipped cream in the breather hose. Upon further inspection I found small specks of oil in the coolant and a light film on the inner walls of the oil reservoir. I had apparently blown a head gasket.

It’s going to the dealer tomorrow for repair, I will know more soon. But for now, I am pissed off. For this thing to have internal engine problems at only 80 hours of use is BS!

I have read posts in the past about similar problems on DS’s and would like to know if this is a known problem in their design. Does anyone have any insight as to why this might have occurred?

 

If it is a 2000 model, the head was probably not torqued properly - this has been a problem reported. They will cover under warranty. There are other possible causes. I was told my head was cracked but they never found any cracks.

 

Thanks Scooby,
It is a 2000 and I hope your right. It's not as much about the cost of the repair as a concern of a reoccurrence.