All sorts of trouble on my 07 fe550.

Sounds like your due for a valve adjustment. This will be a perfect time to adjust the valves.
The valve adjustment is critical for ease of starting.
Also for what its worth, I always use the manual decompression lever on the first couple of revolutions to get the motor spinning easier. after 2 or 3 revolutions just release the lever.I believe this helps the longevity and durability of the sprage clutch (the thing making the whirring noise when it wont turn over).

Blowing a head gasket is symptomatic of over heating.

Have you had the bike from new?

Have you overheated the bike, or boiled it over often?

Do you bleed the cooling system with the little screw next to the spark plug?

IMHO you should be kick starting the bike from cold and using the e starter once it's warm. I take it the e starter works fine when it's warm?

Sorry about the b/o head gasket, that's not going to be cheap either.

Let us know a bit more about you and your bike so we can help you.

Do all of it. Thats not right.

My 06 won't leave me alone. It calls to me. It's calling me now.

Hey Scotty
When you've got it apart doin the head gasket it's a great time to check that the decomp lobe, spring etc is all in good shape and giving you the right amount of lift.
Does your sprague slip all the time or just some?
Running oil that's too thick when cold can make them slip when cold.
If it's always doing it even when hot then you can replace the sprague or if you wanna save $120 you can shorten the spring on the 1 you've got. There's several other posts on how to do it - I've done it to mine and it works a treat.
If you ride slow singles and always boil it then I'd recommend running an overflow tank. If it boils you don't lose all the coolant.
Go to a bike wrecker and get 1 from a WR. You can mount it on the right rear and it fits better than OEM. All you gotta do is drill 2 holes and run a bit of tube.
I've just recently filled mine with a coolant called "Liquid Intelligence". A bit pricey but it does stop it boiling over or at least I haven't been able to make it do it yet in places where it probably would have with normal coolant.

If you are using Liquid Intelligence you wont have to use the over flow bottle because you cant boil it! it has a boil point of 190deg C your motor will probably stop first? We have had more problems with the friction clutch gear than the sprague, you can check this in a vice and set your torque wrench at 13nm if the gear turns and the wrench has not clicked get a new friction gear.
Regards
Sutto

Hi Sutto
Yeah I had the overflow bottle b4 I put the Liquid Intelligence in there.
It still lets you have a complete fill with no air pockets and expands into the bottle.