It would be premature to say "Blown head gasket", but that is where you need to begin looking.
***"I just let it run long enough to get the oil warmed up and then shut it off because i dont have any water in the radiator."***
And just how long would that be if translated into "minutes"?

I would say maybe 2 minutes max. Thank You Mark

Mark, considering that the engine has been operated for an unknown length of time with coolant contaminated lube oil in the crankcase, I suggest a complete teardown and inspection of the engine. Operating a liquid cooled engine for any length of time without coolant in the "water jacket" is not good (and I don't just mean the two minute? period). This engine has suffered two operating conditions that can cause serious damage, (1) overheat with little or no coolant present, (2) coolant contaminated lube oil in the lubrication system. If you plan to do the repairs yourself, you will need to obtain the technical manual.
After removing the cylinder heads, you will need to carefully inspect the block and head surfaces to make certain neither has been "etched" by combustion escaping through the breach in the head gasket. You also need to get the pistons to BDC and inspect the cylinder bore for signs of piston galling on the cylinder walls. Galling will leave obvious grooves, scrapes, and might even show metal transferred from the pistons in/on the cylinder walls that run the same way the piston moves. Because coolant and water can cause engine bearing damage, the crankshaft bearings and connecting rod bearings need to be inspected.

Here is a link that might be useful: DeereMan

I pulled the heads and how do i tell if the gasket is blown ? They dont look to bad I did notice that one side the intake valve was very light in color like maybe it was hot .Thanks Mark

Do you "know how, or are you equipped" to take some photos and post them into this thread?? That would be the best way to handle the ? of blown HG. The valve that you suppose may have been hot, might be showing the effects of coolant in the combustion chamber. Look into the exhaust port of the head (with the ? valve) and compare the inside of that exhaust port to the exhaust port of the other head. Does the inside of the exhaust port/passage resemble the color of the valve face? If you can't get some photos up here, you may need to take the heads and gaskets to a small engine shop or the dealer and let their best tech see them. Be sure you mark the heads as to which cylinder they came from. Don't clean anything up until a determination has been made about head gasket failure. You might think you would be doing the right thing by cleaning it up, but the parts need to be viewed just like they were when you took them off. Any cleaning could spoil the evidence. If you do some photos, take pictures of the head, cylinder deck, and the head gasket. You can cleverly arrange the head and gasket around the cylinder cylinder they came from if you like, but we need good close-ups too. For your own sake and sanity, I hope you have been taking photos before and during the tear down.

I will get some good pics Thanks

Could i send the pics to u email i cant figure out how to put them in the form Thanks Mark

Send them & I will post. But click the link below and read wally's method for posting to the 'net and into the forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: post script

Can i get your email address mine is msil@aol.com

I believe these 4 photos graphically point out the area of the head gasket (the right bank of engine) that has begun leaking compression/combustion into the water jacket. This may have led to the radiator cap venting to relieve the subsequent pressure in the cooling system. What I DO NOT see, is an obvious failure of the head gasket directly into either of the pushrod galleries of the head, and that would be the most likely path by which coolant could enter the lube oil sump (but without the "hot fire effect" to act on the gasket at the edge of the galleries, visible damage to the gasket might not occur, even though it is leaking). There are two ways to explain how coolant may have gotten into the lube oil as a result of this leaking head gasket pressurizing the cooling system.
(1) The leaking head gasket may have been caused by under-torqued headbolts, which also allowed the pressurized coolant to leak into the pushrod galleries.
(2) As a result of enough coolant being expelled from the coolant recovery jug (there is one on the tractor, right?) over time, the cooling system finally reached a point where it could no longer handle the heat load under all conditions. This would mean that the engine was operating hotter than normal at times, and heading for eventual "total cavitation", or "catestrophic boilover" of the cooling system. The repeated overheated events could have allowed the head and/or cylinder to warp or bend, and during that phase, the high pressure in the cooling system could have forced coolant under the head gasket, and into the pushrod galleries.
I sort of have a problem believing that the pressurized coolant would ONLY leak into the pushrod galleries, and not also leak to the external surfaces somewhere else around the outside perimeter of the cylinder head gasket. But, I have a "theory" on that too. As a consequence of design, the clamping force of the head bolts is less on the portion of the head gasket at the pushrod galleries. Consider this fact. The clamping force provided by the one head bolt in this sector is spread over a greater area (the entire gallery in addition the edge of the water jacket) and therefore, would be somewhat less at any given point in this sector than the rest of the gasket perimeter. The clamping force may be just enough less, that it can allow high pressure coolant to force its way into the pushrod galleries, but still not be able to escape at other sectors of the perimeter where the clamping force of the head bolts is more concentrated due to the smaller surface area the gasket rests on in those places. ???
If anybody has some insider info to support or rebut my opinion, please give a big shout. loys would certainly appreciate the info.

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Mownie thank you very much for the info . Should i get the head resurfaced and replace the gaskets and put it back together? What do you think? Mark

Try cleaning it up by hand being very careful not to gouge the aluminum, use scraping tools made of brass or bronze, they are much kinder to the soft aluminum than steel. Clean the traces of gasket completely away using small pieces of emery cloth backed up with a popscicle stick, craft stick, or paint paddle. Emery grit about 240 or 320 will produce good results. Work a very small section at a time and use light pressure. Make all your cleaning strokes follow a circular pattern. Example: the cylinder deck is round/circular. Follow the circle with your cleaning motions. This is called "concentric cleaning". It does not have to be perfectly circular but never clean using strokes that are perpendicular to an arc. And don't use the emery cloth on a finger tip or other type of soft backer. Doing so will round off the edges of surfaces such as the cylinder deck in this Kaw. I doubt you would get much benefit from a full scale resurfacing (other than pristine looking gasket surfaces). If, after you get into the cleaning and discover pits that have been etched into the surface where the gasket has been, then you will need some resurfacing work. Minimum removal of material is the key here, don't remove more than about .003" to .005" in any case. Removing more than that will increase your compression ratio and that is not always a good thing. The engine has been run for an indeterminate amount of time with water and anti-freeze contaminated lube oil. Both water and anti-freeze can cause damage to the surfaces of plain engine bearing. I recommend inspecting the crank and rod bearings before returning the engine to service. A factor you can consider in making the decision to run it as is (after new head gasket) would be the age of the oil that was first emptied out of the engine after confronting the overheat and subsequent discovery of "gray mud" in the crankcase. I mention the age of the oil for two reasons. First being that if the oil was very new (say, a month or less since it was poured in), you would have noticed something wrong with the oil when you changed it and you would have at least an idea that the contaminated oil had something less than a month to damage the engine bearings.
And, if the oil was very new, it would provide somewhat better protection when contaminated than oil that was 3 months old. So, if the oil had already been in the engine for two or 3 months, you really don't know whether the contamination began 2.5 months ago, or last week. Rods and crankshafts are very expensive compared to plain bearings.

loys,

While you're at it check the bolts on the front of the engine where the muffler attaches. On the 425, they like to work loose and coolant will leak through them.

Cheers

JDFANATIC

Thanks i will check those frt bolts . Does anyone know the torque specs on the heads of the 425 ? Thanks Mark