On a trip to Glamis last week, I noticed a little bit of oil puddling up at the rear of the motor (near the oil sensor, and near where the main oil hose goes from the tank into the motor, my bike is an 04 Baja X). The oil looked to be dripping down from the head gasket area. I did not lose any coolant, and there were no signs of coolant in the oil. I torqued all of the head bolts (they did seem to be a bit loose), and the leak seemed to at least slow way down from then on. The bike is stock bore, and the head has never been off. It ran perfectly the entire three days at Glamis.

Took the bike to the dealership for a different issue, and had them check to see if they could figure out where it was leaking oil from. They used some kind of Leak Dectector powder, and said that they did find a slight bit of oil weeping from the gasket. They strongly recommended just leaving it alone and keeping an eye on it. I have read all the posts about head gaskets that I could find, and they seem to all discuss coolant leaking out, and not oil. Should I be worried about this, and commit to a head gasket change? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Head gasket leaks can manifest themselves in different ways depending on where the leak is. Either an oil or coolant leak is a possiblity. I am currenlty dealing with cylinder pressure escaping into my cooling system and forcing coolant out of the overflow at high RPM. Your leak sounds different but is definately possible Tighening down the bolts will probably only provide a temporary solution. To get a good seal you really need to intall the gasket on a clean dry surface. What TQ spec did you tighen them to? Overtightening is not good either. Main head studs should be torqued to 37ft/lbs and smaller waterjacket bolts to 20-22ft/lbs.

 

This was a "camp repair" done at Roadrunner campground, so it wasn't the best of conditions. Used a Harbor Freight clicker type torque wrench, and didn't have an extension to get to all of the bolts, so I had to do the best I could on a couple of them. I got the torque specs from the shop manual, and the ones you quote sound familiar. At least two of the main bolts were a bit loose, as well as a couple of the water jacket ones as well (these are the Allen headed ones, correct?)

 

there is only 1 small oil port coming up through the cylinder to the head that the head gasket seals around, and it is outside the water jacket. this oil port is what supplies oil from the pump to the cams. leaks here are very rare, and almost never result in oil in the coolant or vise versa.
almost all head gasket leaks are as DSEngineer describes - combustion pressure getting forced into the coolant system which then causes expansion tank overflows.
almost all cases of water in oil are from leaking water pump seals, rather than head gaskets.

I use the term almost above, anything can happen, its up to you if you want to address it, head gaskets are $50, plus oil and coolant, if you do it yourself. have the dealer do it and it'll probably be a couple hundred.

 

I have had a simular leak after installing my 730 kit. I did not have time to fix it right away. My leak was small enough that dirt or sand would stick to the oil around the head gasket. I rode it that way for a year keeping a close eye on it.

I went back in to do the head last summer and fixed the problem with a new head gasket.

 

Thanks guys. Based on what you've said, I think I am going to run with it as is for the time being, and keep and eye on it.