Coolant in crankcase. Help!

A couple weeks ago I went on to the garage and noticed a significant oil puddle under my bike (86 750). My buddy and I tried to find the leak with no success. Today I pulled the tank and plastics off to try and get a better look but still couldn't locate anything.

I went to look at the dipstick and immediately upon pulling it out a solid stream of water began exiting from the dipstick hole. I'm thinking head gasket. What do you guys think.

The bike sat for a very long time. I just recently got it running again and did a couple hundred miles on it before this mishap.

Thanks?

 

One way to tell if it's a blown head gasket is to refill the coolant, close the cap and wait tomorrow and recheck the coolant level. Has it gone down? if so that means coolant is leaking into the engine. If you do not see any leaky hoses or any type of external leaks then yes it's a blown head gasket.

 

Water or coolant? I would have thought the radiator system should contain a glycol-based coolant with a dye (usually green or pink). If the "water" that exited the crankcase was clear, I think you might be looking at rain water rather than a leak in the cooling system.

The scary part of this is that water is heavier than oil, so if you ran the bike the oil pickup would be pumping water not oil, which wouldn't be great for bearings.

 

I

Coolant. Last time I had the bike out it ran fine.

 

As far as I know there are only two ways for coolant to get into the oil, either a head gasket or I have heard one instance where the water pump failed and dumped the coolant straight into the crankcase. I recall this happened to a later VFR model, but maybe it could happen to a 1986 model. That at least would be a much easier fix than a head gasket.

I know on my 5th gen I can extract the water pump out of the cases with all the hoses etc in place, but I guess you don't need to worry about draining the coolant first anyway!

 

You could perform a leak-down test on the cylinders ... it may show leakage due to a blown head gasket.

Either way, I'd get on draining it and tearing down the motor as quick as possible or you'll be into it for a LOT of work. Don't try to start or turn the engine over with the spark plugs in, it could hydro-lock and then you're potentially into it for a bent con-rod or worse ...