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Well thanks for all of the input guys... I'm not too happy with the fact that I may have a bad head gasket, but I never even thought of the 'steel wool effect' either! I've got the bike stripped down so I'll take a closer look at both the head AND the battery wires.
Blast, just when I thought buying a NEWER bike would buy me a few years of not dealing with this kind of non-sense.
I'll post what the fix is when I figure it out
If you are replacing the exhaust/header pipe gasket(s) be sure and use the SE version, not the stock version.
The stock gasket is # 65324-83A. The SE version is # 17048-98.
I'm not sure if a compression check will find out anything. Hold a feather duster back there and fire that ***** up. You can guess what will happen if it's leaking anything when cold. Don't try this with it hot, unless it's real feathers. Synthetics melt: ask me how I know.
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