Leaking head gasket?

Any pepper looking flaks in the coolant?

Smell inside the radiator, does it smell like exhaust at all?

Are you loosing coolant out of the reservoir? Is the radiator low on coolant when you take the cap off? I ask because it's normal for coolant to run back and forth between the reservoir and radiator as the system heats up and cools off. It's not normal to loose coolant from the reservoir though.

Also Hoser has a great trick of extending the reservoir over flow hose up to the front of the buggy so you can see if it's puking coolant out while your riding. That way you are not guessing if your over heating or lost a head gasket. You can visually see if coolant is puking out.

Are you loosing coolant out of the reservoir? Is the radiator low on coolant when you take the cap off? I ask because it's normal for coolant to run back and forth between the reservoir and radiator as the system heats up and cools off. It's not normal to loose coolant from the reservoir though.

Swapped radiator caps and still had same problem. We can rule out the cap.

Sounds like the head gasket is bad. It's letting compression into the coolant system and forcing the coolant out.

Man you didn't waste any time on that job. Any photos of the failed gasket?


I had a Ford Van that the head gasket failed on - similar to your problem. the damn gasket was acting like a check valve, letting pressure into the cooling system but no coolant was leaking into the cylinder. I was out of state on vacation when it failed. If I could have come up with a way to run the van with a open cooling system I could have kept driving. Problem with a open system - no pressure and the coolant will boil. The pressure raises the boiling point. anyway, glad you figured it out.