[1down5up06]

Hoping some of you guys that have great knowledge on these bikes can give me a hand. I’ve posted before and got some great info to go off of but hoping to get some more eyes on it. And now I’ve also done a test on the oil cooler that I believe is bad. This post might be a bit long but I want to give a back round and full understanding on what I’m experiencing and what I’ve done so far.

The bike is a 2006 GSXR 600. I bought it with 13k miles it now has around 25k miles. Last year it was towards the end of the season when I started to experience the bike overheating on the way home ( highway run) as I was trying to slow down I noticed my back brake wasn’t working good and the tire felt extremely slick. I finally pulled over shut the bike off and noticed there was coolant and oil blown all over the side of the bikes plastics. I let the bike cool completely down for an hour and then drove the 5 min highway run back home before it could overheat again. During that time I was running water wetter. It was towards the end of the season here in New England where it’s still warm during the day but at night gets slightly cool.

I decide to start digging into the bike to try and find out what the issue is. First thing that comes to my mind as well as I’m sure many others is the head gasket has gone bad. At the time I did not notice any white smoke coming from the exhaust , not to say that it couldn’t still be a bad HG but just wanted to note that..

After digging through the forums on here I did some reading and wanted to check some other things before I jumped right into tearing the engine down. From my reading I found out there’s a few other ways that oil and coolant can mix. Being the freeze plugs can pop ( possible since it did get cold at night where I was storing the bike and didn’t change over to coolant yet) , the mechanical seal on the water pump can go bad and also the oil cooler can go bad. I saw alot of posts about the oil cooler.

I drained the oil and it was like a milkshake consistency. There was oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil.

From there I decided to do a compression test to see what kind of readings I got. On a cold engine I got around 135psi on all 4 cylinders. Prior to this happening about a month before I was getting around 155psi on a warm engine when I did the test.

Next I decided to do a leak down test. I used a harbor freight tester so I’m sure it wasn’t the best but it seemed the bike was able to hold the pressure I induced into each cylinders with very little leakage. I did only do the test for a minute or so on each cylinder and was told it could be a slow leak and to leave it hooked up overnight to see if there’s any leakage but I haven’t done that yet.

Next I inspected the freeze plugs. I can see 3 out of 4 of them without having to remove the camshaft. Didn’t want to do that yet until I ruled everything else out.

From there I removed the water pump and inspected the seal it looked to be in fine condition with no issues.

lastly today I removed the oil cooler and ran a test on it by submerging it in a bucket of water , clamping off one of the nipples and inducing air into the other side. From there I saw lots of bubbles in the bucket. From my understanding I believe that means the oil cooler is no good ? I’ve attached a video.

With all of this said do you guys think I should take a chance grab a new oil cooler , throw it back on the bike , put everything back together and see if it fixes the issue or do you think I still have bigger issues like a bad head gasket even with the results I got on the compression and leak down test ? Any help is greatly appreciated. Money is tight right now so I’m trying my best to narrow things down and figure out the issue on my own if possible. I’ve spent countless hours reading forums and trying to teach myself as I go on how to rule each part out , instead of just throwing money at the bike uselessly. I’ve attached some pictures and videos for you to get a better idea .

Oil cooler test 2006 GSXR 600 ( oil cooler test video )

 

[TwistedMister]

considering its been bathing in a water oil solution it needs a total tear down and cleaning anyways somay as well get on it..

find your culprit(s) on the way down.. you might have to Xray block and head so forth if its not apparent, inspect all components and spec out per manual..

best thing to do in this situation honestly unless its something obvious and external, then it's a matter of flushing the engine real good..

is oil getting in the coolant?

 

[BillV]

"lastly today I removed the oil cooler and ran a test on it by submerging it in a bucket of water , clamping off one of the nipples and inducing air into the other side. From there I saw lots of bubbles in the bucket. From my understanding I believe that means the oil cooler is no good ? I’ve attached a video."

I just noticed this thread. Problems like it are commonly associated with improper coolant, winter storage, and popped frost plugs. But in your case I think that you're onto something with the intercooler. Leaking will allow oil & water to mix, which is bad news. That might be your entire problem. However it raises the issue of why it failed, i.e. was coolant without sufficient anticorrosion properties being used.

P.S. Beware of how much air pressure you apply with that air gun.

 

[TwistedMister]

you're still chasing this?

you're not talking about the external oil cooler that looks like a radiator are you? pretty sure if that leaked there is no way to introduce oil into the coolant, might mess up your garage floor or take a rider out on the streets but no way to get in the coolant from there..

you must be referring to another component?

 

[1down5up06]

you're still chasing this?

you're not talking about the external oil cooler that looks like a radiator are you? pretty sure if that leaked there is no way to introduce oil into the coolant, might mess up your garage floor or take a rider out on the streets but no way to get in the coolant from there..

you must be referring to another component?

Hey there take a look at the video and pics I posted above of the oil cooler - supposedly if the passages on the inside of it crack they can mix oil and coolant. There has been a ton of posts on here that I’ve seen with mixing of the two and the oil cooler being the culprit.

 

[1down5up06]

"lastly today I removed the oil cooler and ran a test on it by submerging it in a bucket of water , clamping off one of the nipples and inducing air into the other side. From there I saw lots of bubbles in the bucket. From my understanding I believe that means the oil cooler is no good ? I’ve attached a video."

I just noticed this thread. Problems like it are commonly associated with improper coolant, winter storage, and popped frost plugs. But in your case I think that you're onto something with the intercooler. Leaking will allow oil & water to mix, which is bad news. That might be your entire problem. However it raises the issue of why it failed, i.e. was coolant without sufficient anticorrosion properties being used.

P.S. Beware of how much air pressure you apply with that air gun.

Thank you for the comment - I was very easy with the air gun. I should have hooked a regulator up to it or used my leak down tester gauges but I did it the easy way I guess - with the tiniest bit of air induced into the oil cooler I could immediately see air bubbles everywhere. I ordered a replacement on eBay and going to see if I get luckily after doing a few flushes first of the oil and cooling system.

 

[TwistedMister]

yea I get it, it's not a typical gsxr oil cooler, bizzare, does it cool the oil as good as the radiator style?

I can see where it could leak into coolant as they circulate coolant in it to cool the oil, funky, they must be pretty hard up for space if they're cooling the oil like this..

this how they're doing all the newer gsxr's now?

 

[1down5up06]

yea I get it, it's not a typical gsxr oil cooler, bizzare, does it cool the oil as good as the radiator style?

I can see where it could leak into coolant as they circulate coolant in it to cool the oil, funky, they must be pretty hard up for space if they're cooling the oil like this..

this how they're doing all the newer gsxr's now?

This is actually on an older GSXR - it’s an 06. I’m not sure if they have updated it or not.