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My journey of putting a K5 1000 back on the road after years of storage.

2K views 11 replies 4 participants last post by  HiSPL 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all.

This will be a story/resto/I have questions thread for my K5 Vee.

My wife and I came in to a small amount of money back in '05 and we decided to buy a new car for her and a new/used bike for me. The V Strom was what I was lusting after at the time and I happened upon an incredible deal. A guy posted an ad on ADVrider for this bike. It was a K5 which he bought at the end of '04. He put about 5000 miles on it. He then decided that since his kid was going to college he would sell all his bikes and consolidate down to one BMW. He sold his other bikes and this one was still for sale for 4500 bucks. When I called him he said "I just traded it in this morning!".

He told me to call Lone Star BMW and see what they say. So I did. And they honored his price! I couldn't believe it! Since they had it less than a day they hadn't detailed it and put it out for sale. So they gave it to me for 4500 plus TTL. I gave them 500 bucks to hold it for me and I showed up the next day and rode it home. Austin is about 100 miles from my house.

Here she is on the first day home, and you can see why 4500 was SUCH a great deal! HT rack and Targhees, Givi bar, Motech bash plate and center stand, and a Givi windsheild. About 2 grand worth of farkles!


I rode her to the Texas Hill Country a few times, took her to South By Southwest, did some offroading, and generally just had a great time.
Hill Country


Taking a break


Exploring


During this time I discovered a few things. The SW Motech center stand is not worth the steel its made from. It shook itself apart so many times and lost hardware it became a thing to check everytime I stopped for fuel. It also bent. Just lifting the bike like it's supposed to. The foot lever bent so far it would hit the ground before the actual stand pad hit. It had to go, so it went.

Also the Motech skid plate is not a serious piece. It's for looks only. The rear mount can not handle any sort of contact with the ground. I lost it too.

The Givi bars had the broken bit in the middle. Fixable, but meh. I didn't really like them that much anyway.

So what's a Strom to do?


PAT WALSH BABY!


This solves everything. The crash bars are as hard as Superman's elbow. The bash plate would've kept the Titanic afloat. These things are the business. Who needs a center stand? I can jack this thing up with a floor jack straight under the pan. No worries. I have swingarm spools and rest those on two jackstands. Solid as a rock.



Thats pretty much how I left it. I did do a chopped windscreen for summer and tuned it with a loaner Yosh box. I just put a bunch of miles on. The Strom was pretty much my sole transportation for this period of life.

More to come.......
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Sometimes I even drove it to work! lol This is parked at the FOH area at a festival. It makes a great barricade and I get to keep an eye on her!


This was one of the last times it was ridden I think. Clutch chudder was getting serious by then.


When I bought the Strom I was working at Texas A&M university as a sound engineer. At first it was great. By 2008 I had 2 kids, a house, and my raises had not kept up with the cost of inflation. I was broke as a joke.

I quit Texas A&M in August of 2008. I had no prospects of work so I started calling all my old production friends. Iff you don't know, August in Texas is not the time to be looking for work if you are a soundguy. It's too hot for festivals. It's too hot for anything really. I ended up working at an Icehouse for very little money, but at least it was something.

This little icehouse on the lakeside had big plans and started booking bigger and bigger acts. I started filling in the gaps by renting them equipment, and pretty soon I had a full sound system purchased and working. Then comes winter and this mostly outdoor venue closed for the season and I had to make my little PA company work. So starts several years of just humping it and trying to make money.

During this entire time I basically neglected the Strom. It had a bad clutch basket and needed tires, not to mention insurance and registration. I held on to it, but I just couldn't afford to ride it.

Fast forward a few years. I owned my own sound company, helped my wife start our photography studio (www.danielaweaver.com), I started touring with a larger local artist, then got a full time salary job at a larger church. Thats where I am today.

So now that my financial life is getting back in order, and I have a little time for recreational things again I'm getting this beast back on the road.

This is her resurrection story.....
 
#4 ·
Since she had sat for at LEAST 5 years. I of course had a rusty fuel tank. I took it off and tried a few methods to derust. Started with vinegar, then Evapo-rust, then Electrolysis (which really worked well), but then I just ended up buying a Kreem kit and Kreeming the tank. The Electrolysis worked pretty well after about 36 hours, but it was flash rusting anywhere the bare steel was showing. If you are going through this, I would recommend the Electrolysis but have some kind of tank coating available to put in there fast. I didn't. One of my local bike shops had a Kreem kit, so I did that. I've used it on an older bike in the earlyy 2000's and that tank is still in good shape.

The Kreem kit is basically phosphoric acid to convert the rust, strong alcohol to absorb the rinse water, and the coating which is some kind of fuel safe paint. My suggestion is to skip the Kreem and order some POR15. Electrolysis will remove all the rust, then you can do an alcohol rinse to dry it, then pour in some POR15 to coat it. Much cheaper if you just prepare ahead of time.

So now the tank is clean and coated. The next challenge is the stuck fuel pump....
 
#5 ·
This is the story of my fuel pump.

So this should work for all the "K" bikes. K2 through K9 I believe. I don't know anything about the "L" series as I don't have one. As I'm going through the bike fixing this and flushing that, I found out that the fuel pump was thoroughly stuck due to sitting. I called Suzuki, and the price they gave me was just unreal! $660.00 for a fuel pump assembly!

Not having that kind of money for this project I tore the pump assembly down until I had the bare pump sitting in my hand, and guess what! It has a Mitsubishi logo stamped right into the top. Much googling insued. Turns out this is the same fuel pump that is used in the same years Mitsubishi Lancer. I strutted on down to Napa with my old fuel pump and told them to look for a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer. They came back with a Napa Branded pump, part number B-0069-E.


Now doing a side by side comparison these pumps are very similar, but not exact. They are, however, close enough.



So the Napa pump has a little nubbin on the bottom that needs to be cut off. It's very tough plastic. A decent sized pair of sidecutters will do, but I broke the tip off a small pair of Exelite cutters! :doh:


Now that I have my good pump and I've done the nubbin-ectomy it's time to get power to it. The Napa pump has the + and - pins in opposite places than the Mitsu pump. It also has a shroud around it for some unknown connector. I simply Dremel-ed off the shroud and soldered straight to the pins.


Now the pick-up filter or filter sock or whatever you want to call it. The stock suzuki one doesn't fit. Mine was extremely crusty anyways.


I bought a generic one from Napa that fits this pump. It's meant for a car, so it's way too big for us.


So I cut it in half! The white plastic is there to help it keep it's shape, but we are cramming it into a tiny space so just take that out too.


I clamped it into some needle nose vice-grips and used my soldering iron to melt the cut end shut. Worked great.



Now there's a rubber cushion and a plastic clip that holds the bottom of the pump. This doesn't fit the larger outlet of the napa pump. So out comes the cutters again!



Ok, time for re-assembly!

New O-rings because the old ones swelled so bad they wouldn't fit anymore.


Pump and housing and filter sock shoved into place.


Routing wires.


Finished off with a zip tie to prevent the wires from fouling the float.


All done. I know it looks rusty, but whatever is left has survived a rust converter and a tiny wire wheel on a dremel. It can stay...


Final notes.

That silver can looking thing right under the float bracket is your fuel pressure regulator. If that goes bad I'm not sure what could be done. The late John Of Char over at Vstrom.info measured the fuel pressure at 43 PSI. I will probably measure mine asap to make sure my regulator is OK. I soaked it in rust converter and sprayed it out with WD-40 after.


All said and done I paid a little over 90 bucks for the new pump, sock and the external filter. That's a FAR CRY from the $660 that suzukli wanted! Also, Suzuki America didn't have the pump. It would have come from Japan and taken weeks.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Ok, the fuel pump rebuild was semi-succesful. The pump and filter are fine, but as I suspected my fuel pressure regulator is bad. It seems to be rusted shut. I can't get anything to pass through it and it keeps blowing out of the filter housing, even with zipties holding it in.

I bit the bullet and ordered a new oem filter housing last night to the tune of $232 bucks at Partzilla. Ouch.


It seems to be the case that this FPR is unique and the only way to get it is to buy the filter assembly. That sucks.



I did find something interesting though, for those who have later 650's and some gsxr's... This FPR:


Seems to be the same as a Toyota Celica from 2000-2005.


So that FPR should be available at your local Napa and it's fairly cheap. I almost used this and modified (hacked apart) my stock filter assembly to use it, but my wife talked me into just buying the right damn part, so here I am throwing away over 200 bucks for a 10 cent piece of pressed metal with a spring in it.


Anyway. I also put in a new TPS, new Tusk ATV sport bend bar, Oury Grips, new rubber seals for all the master cylinders and a clutch lever.
 
#8 ·
I will do that at my next oil change I guess. It's charding now, but I can definately see a spot around 3000 rpm where the lights get a little brighter.



Progress update:

New filter housing with a new FPR fixed my fueling issues, and I also put on a new TPS, even though the old one "seemed" ok. It would calibrate just fine, but now the bike is smoother than it ever has been. Even when new. The combo of the Werks Clutch Basket, new TPS, and new fuel system has transformed this thing.

Now it's time to go through my little things like my electrical doo-dads, and maybe get ready for some heated gear so I can commute this winter.


I rode it to work this week and it was perfect!
 
#9 ·
OK more wierdness.

For 2 tanks of fuel it has run great. Then starting yesterday I get the stumbles between 3k and 4k rpm. And it's getting worse. What else can I check? I've been through the fuel system like 7-8 times by now. Maybe my new automotive style fuel filter? I can't imagine it being full of swarf already.

Should I pull the injectors and make sure they are clean? Still not sure why it would stumble only between 3-4k and at steady throttle.
 
#10 ·
Ok, I just rode home (about 50 miles). It's less of a stumble and more of a miss. It's like one cylinder is missing under 4k. I can make it happen everytime if I slowly increase the throttle. Like when you are mid corner and starting to accelerate. If you keep moving the throttle slowly it will continue to miss. If you decrease the throttle *just a bit* it clears up immediately. So you can jiggle the throttle, or slap it open, keep it steady, or decrease throttle and it runs good. If you slowly increase it misses.

Any tips?

If you haven't read the above, brand new TPS, new fuel system including an automotive style fuel filter and bypassed stock filter. Valve clearances on the loose side of spec. Spark plugs I reused (Iridium) but regapped and were clean.
 
#11 ·
Others here who know more than me will likely answer as well, but is it possible that you got a faulty TPS right out of the box? It happens with other stuff every once in a while.
Maybe you could try switching the spark plugs between the cylinders and see if that makes any difference. Another thing that you could check, if you haven't already, is the drain hole on at least the front cylinder head and maybe both, which is supposed to allow any water that might collect around the spark plugs to drain away. Some members on here have talked about discovering that those had been plugged up.
Just a couple of ideas...
 
#12 ·
SONUVA!!!!!



While searching ebay for something completely unrelated (audio gear) I found this:

Standard Motor Products PR310


Which is for an early 2000's honda civic! The Civic runs 40 to 47 pounds of pressure so THIS IS THE SAME FPR AS OURS! And it's only 75 bucks online. I could have saved 150 bucks!

This is just my luck.


Anyway, I hope this saves someone some money someday. You can reuse your old filter housing (bypassed) and buy this FPR for cheap.

Again, it's the Standard Motor Products PR310

Here's an uploaded pic for the future.
 

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