When I ride my O4 Banshee it seems to just drink coolant. I can ride maybe 5 miles and have to totally refill it. It spits it out of the overflow tube for the resivoir usually.

I figured if it had a cracked head or somthing it would smoke more, but thats not the case. I have overheated it once before all this trouble began to the point that it boild over and popped the resivoir cap off. I know I'm rough on it lol.

So what do you guys think? Could it be a cracked/warped head? A Head gasket lor maybe worse? I'm wanting to just put a cool head on it and be done, but I'm not sure if this will solve the problem.

Give me some opinions guys.

Thanks

 

Sounds like it's over heating.... What do your plugs look like?

 

Totally refill the radiator after 5 miles you say. You might have a head gasket leak where one of your cylinders combustion pressure on each compression stroke is pressurizing the water jacket on one of the cylinders, which then pushes the water out of the systyem. Does the water smell like gas, or have an oily look to it? Or like enforcer said you could have over heating probs. Maybe impellar? Either way, you're losing water fast.

 

Yea if I ride five miles or so it goes bone dry. It's like the system is pressurized and the coolant just gets pushed out of the resivoir overflow tube. The water seems to look clear however no odd tint to it. Engine still seems to run strong and starts easily.

This all started about 3 rides after I overheated it badly one day (doing stand still burnouts on asphalt) it was steaming out of the radiator, stupid me I'll never do that again!

Most people locally are telling me it's a warped head or blow head gasket.

 

Fter you fill it back up leave cap off radiator and look for air bubbles. You can also put a pressure guage on it. They make them for cars, I don't know about wheelers. You put it on in place of radiator cap for testing purposes. If your cap was bad it might dump before it builds pressure but you say it completely dumps? Is it wet near weephole on pump? Doesn't really sound like a head gasket to me, no excess smoke, dumping all fluid in 5 miles but still running good, and clean fluid. Sound like an external leak to me.
Maybe this leak isn't developing until it's warmed up. Warm it up and start looking for leaks.

 

HEAD GASKET.... I guarrantee it. I've had the exact thing happen to me.

 

Thanks for the help guys I guess I will try a head gasket first, then go from there.

 

I've also seen what they call "high compression" head gaskets. I know Cometic makes them, can I just use one of those with the stock head? Figure if I'm in there I might as well try to improve the power. Seems like the Cometic kits on ebay though have several gaskets. If I buy one of those sets can I just use the head gasket itself to achieve the higher compression or must I use the other gaskets as well?

 

I would also check the impeller for the water pump, my buddy drove a Banshee years back, and if you didn't keep it moving good, it would get hot and spit coolant out the overflow. Turned out the plastic impeller had partially melted from overheating, and wasn't moving much through the radiator, so if you didn't keep the air moving across the motor and the radiator, it got hot and overflowed. Put in an aftermarket aluminum impeller, they move a lot more coolant, and last forever.

 

The banshee head gasket is already paper thin,getting a thinner gasket probably won't make any noticable difference.While you have the head off take it to the local machine shop and get .30 shaved off ,it usually runs about 40 bones to get it done.