I went into the garage to get the snow blower out after the big snow storm and discovered a big puddle of anti-freeze under my bike! WTF!!! I put the bike up for the winter back in NOVEMBER and have been in the garage many times since then and there was no sign of any leak until now. WHAT GIVES!!!!!!!!!!

Guess you have to take it to a mechanic, or find out for yourself, by checking all system.
Take all plastics out. Check for ruptures in all rubbers. If can´t find any start engine, after checking if there´s some cooling in radiator. Still can´t see from where it comes the leak. call for professional.

Maybe your bike was attacked by rats or some kind of animal. Or simple rubbers cracked with low temperatures.

Good luck

Yeah, possible rodent. Do not start until you check the radiator. Pull the cap, see if there is fluid up to the neck. No fluid? Then take and fill it up with distilled water. Say if there was a lot on the ground, you do not want to add all water.

What you are trying to do is fill to see if the line chewed or crack, whatever, will come out once you raise back up to that level of the leak. Get it?

Looks like the anti-freeze is dripping off of the belly fairing then onto the oil pan than on to the floor. the overflow jug is still on the low line, so its a fairly small leak. I stuck my fingers inside the lower fairing and the insulating foam is wet towards the bottom.

the overflow jug is still on the low line, so its a fairly small leak.

That wouldn't change while the bike was sitting unless the leak was in the overflow tank, itself. If you remove the radiator cap, the fluid level should be up to the filler neck. If you check the radiator for level, you might as well check the antifreeze strength with a cheap float ball tester ---if you have not done that. My stock fluid floated 4 balls.

If you fluid in the cooling system is not up to snuff, you may have had some part of it freeze. Hopefully one of the small hoses to the overflow reservoir. Hard to say though.

Sort of off the subject, but some wrote last year that Engine Ice isn't good to low temps. Well, I have it in mine, and it got down to 0 F here the other night. There is still a little left in the plastic jug it came in, and it is showing no signs of viscosity change at all. So it isn't freezing. Would it freeze at -20 F ? Dunno, unlikely to find out in this part of the world. What with global warming and all. LOL.

I took the lower left fairing off to get a better look. It looks like its leaking out of where the lower gooseneck bolts on to( I'm assuming thats the water pump?). the overflow tank seems to be ok as well as the hoses. fluid level is down in the radiator.I wonder if this has been leaking right along all summer with the antifreeze either being burned off or evaporating and me just not noticing? It makes me more than a little nervous to think that that could have been spraying on to the back tire. YIKES!!!

It's called, check hardware and walk around bike. Like a seasonal thing. Just check what you can get at. It's not to tighten things. It's to see that they are. You do not walk your car and the bolts fall off kind of engine is going to fall out near grandpa's house you just left.

I mean, you would see the obvious like it's showing you now if you left things alone. So, you can approach it two ways. Tighten before it leaks or tighten once you see the leak. No biggie. You caught it without triple A's help.

For what you say, it´s at the conection from tube to the water pump? If so and if it wasn´t damage by some teeths, then it was from material stress, because of temperature variations, no big problem, since you still have some water in radiator. Glad you caught it!
Just replace the tube, refill the radiator, and restart the engine. Check for the function of it parked until you get it to 5 heat bars. Check if pump is working and if cooling is traveling on circuit, by toutching the tubes with caution to not get burned. (Cheap and fun way)
Or go to a professional garage to have it fix. (Expensive but better for inexperience people)

This was a 'must have' tool in the drawer. To the job site I go with box; working with wet bike or car. I found a lot of leaks with this puppy. I used to ring it up into the red and walk away for 10 minutes. If you can't find a leak @ 18psI fell for ya, pal. LOL

You take a good known [new] cap and test against your blow-off. That's the first step since you are going to check leaks, check for 15psi blow off.

Still blowing off at 15psi, she is rubber flapping a whistle like the gas tank cap has the same psi blow off ((sound)). I could almost have two musical instruments playing in the garage.

I'd have to run half a tank and now wait for the tank to whistle for seconds as I pump the radiator cap we have a one hit wonder what the fuck you're doing with your time I don't wanna know!

Radiator pressure tester! I've seen this tool before, wish I had one! but on a positive note my 14 is still under warranty untill feb 15th. The bad part is trying to get it to the dealership 50 miles away when there is 15 inches of snow on the ground ! I just cant beleive I didnt notice this way before now, I do all my own maintainance and always check chain slack, oil is filled, tire pressure, ect... before I ride.

Has anyone experienced coolant "weeping" from around the lower part of the water pump? The first time I rode my new 09 ZX-14, I got a whiff of coolant. Then after about 300 miles on the bike, I left it on the side stand in my garage...four days later, I noticed a puddle (about the size of a quarter) just in front of the stand...right under the shifter and the water pump. I took the bike in for a check at the dealership...the hoses and clamps on the coolant system were OK...but a small trace of coolant was around the gasket area of the water pump. We checked the torque on the bolts and buttoned 'er back up. After nearly 800 miles, and another trip to the dealership to have the water pump bolts torqued a "tad" more...the bike still "weeps" coolant around the gasket on the water pump. The techs and mechs at the dealership conferred with the regional Kawasaki warranty person and he told them this was normal...that many times new bikes on the showroom floor experence similar symptoms until the ceramic bearing in the water pump "sets" itself properly. Mmmm! I had my '07 ZX-14 for 22 months and NEVER had this problem...nor have I ever had this problem on other liquid cooled bikes. Any comments from my fellow 14 riders...and BTW, the same water pump has been on the ZX-14 since day one...all year models, '06, '07, '08, and '09.

I just found this post on zx forums.com Hmmm... sounds strangely coinceidental...zxdogo actually commented on this also.

Coolant "weeping" from lower water pump gasket area

Looks like that guy got things sorted having the water pump replaced, under warranty. Same bike as you, dd.

* Last updated by: DogoZX on 2/16/2011 @ 2:23 PM *

Yeah, get covered under warranty. Might not be that simple a fix. The unit may be just a bad batch. You might fall in line with that pump run on the assembly line if you are close to the same engine numbers [I'd look for].

That's what I figure, maybe kawi got a bad batch of pumps from a supplier. Dealer called yesterday and said bikes all fixed, fully covered under warranty. makes you wonder how many times a motorcycle company has to warranty parts on a bike that it didn't even build!

I know how you feel about having to take a bike in for warranty work. I recently had the fuel line to the throttle bodies open up next to the quick-connect while putting things back together from a 15K service. Obviously, this should not happen. The part costs about $75 from Bikebandit.com which is enough to make me cringe a bit when I still have a warranty I paid for. But the bike is blown apart on my stand in my shop and there's feets of snow and road salt and about 100 miles to the original dealer. At gas prices of $3.40 I'm not putting it all back together and taking it down there like they want me too so they can say, 'yup it's sure leaking!' and then waiting prolly into the spring to get it back and all the while I've still not installed all goodies I've ordered for it. And to top it off I wouldn't be surprised if they still didn't want to fix it.
Thank the gods, a nice person from another site offered a used line to me for free and I can now get back to business.
Just sucks when I know I'm saving the people who f'ed it up the trouble because I can fix it more efficiently.
Glad you got your pump fixed, too.

Thanks Edge, I felt the same way. Luckily I have a riding buddy who also runs his own repair shop. I was able to borrow his enclosed Trailer to take it down to the dealer. Otherwise I would have had to load the big girl in the back of my truck...in the snow...using an ice covered ramp... NOT GOOD.