'02 Vee Refresh and Build Thread

The rear wheel was already off to send the spacer to richlandrick for machining. Figured this would be a good time to replace the wheel and sprocket hub bearings. The wheel bearings still had some grease, the sprocket hub bearing was a little roached.

Lord knows when the last time the chain was cleaned. There was a solid 1mm+ layer of oil and dust on all the drive components. Took quite a while to clean up everything with kerosene and degreaser. I also cleaned up the cush drives to look for checking and dry rot. They looked in good shape so they were bathed in silicon lube and reinstalled. Bearings had an overnight soak in the freezer and pressed in without drama. Onto the next task.

Yesterday was tear-down day and a bit of an eye-opener. It's always a slow process the first time I dig into any machine, documenting little details I'm likely to have forgotten several weeks down the road. Prior to yesterday, I was hoping to have the bike ready to ride cross country end of this month. Now I'm a little doubtful I'll have it buttoned up in time. I'd rather tackle all of the maintenance jobs now rather than coming back to some later. We'll see how the month progresses.

I didn't see witness marks on any of the fasteners so it's likely this is the first real service she's had. The air filter seal was a bit dry checked and the filter was a killing field for insects. Hopefully the oil film kept most of the dust from entering the cylinders.

I noticed the TB boots may have been leaking as well. Will have to order replacements.

One of the (many) reasons for the tear down: replacing the coolant hoses.

I'm assuming the slave pushrod seal is the culprit for this mess. Will remove the slave and sprocket today to confirm.

In her current state of disassembly the ~2,500 ride from WA to MI seems a moonshot.

The air filters are always full of bugs; for some reason the mighty Vee slurps up insects. Mine was always full of bee bits, I guess because black and yellow are the only recognizable parts in the general bug mush.

Sounds like you're on the right path overall. Once you do the first valve check, the clearances hardly ever move much. And a valve check on the Vee is a hell of a lot easier than the 650, that's for sure.

One thing I'll add is to THOROUGHLY check, clean, and treat with dielectric grease, ALL the unsealed electrical connectors.

Two particular sore spots are the two sets of connections between the stator and the regulator/rectifier (look for overheating), and the green connector in the left fairing "cheek". I will guarantee that the latter is showing signs of overheating if this hasn't already been addressed. Basically, the three terminals in this connector feeding the headlights (ground/high/low) are badly undersized, and the connector is open to the elements. A bit of corrosion starts, and the connectors overheat, and soon you're in the dark. Happens to every V-Strom sooner or later. It's something of a Suzuki tradition.

If you catch it in time, hopefully the connector is not yet warped. I de-pinned the three headlight wires, left the other terminals in place (they don't carry nearly as much current), then installed beefy sealed spade terminals for the headlight wires and plugged them together separately.

I was long overdue to get some time to myself in the garage. This weekend I pulled the TB assembly and went through valve inspections. Glad I did, all valves were OOT on the tight side.

When I went to remove the TB assembly I found the rear TB had popped out of the boot/tube that goes to the head. It was seemingly sealed by a layer of crud, but I doubt the engine was happy. Here's the current state of dust/oil.


Crusty old t-stat assembly. I cleaned up the housing and installed a new t-stat and hoses. Those intake boots will get some lovin' before the TB assembly gets reinstalled. Before removing the valve covers I wiped down and vacuumed as much crud as I could get at.


I went through inspection of the front and rear valve clearances and removed the front, then rear cams to pull shims. The local parts house got me sorted out nicely with new shims at $4/pop. Rear cams went in first, and then I turned the engine to install the fronts. Took me a couple of revolutions on the fronts to realize the TDC hole for the gears was on the narrow, idler gear. Gotta zoom in to see it, but it's there.



I buttoned up the front and turned the engine a few more revolutions to set the new shims. Upon checking initial clearances I was dismayed that everything was still tight. I double checked my math, nope, all good. I had a hunch that I had been overzealous with the assembly lube on the valve stems and shims. Broke it all down a second time, front head, then rear, cleaning out the lube from the valve tips, shims, and buckets. There was enough oil on my fingers to give the shims and buckets a light, light coat during reassembly. Re-checked clearances and was happy to find everything was relatively where I wanted it. Lesson learned: too much assembly lube on the shims can indeed throw off valve clearance.

The valve covers got cleaned up and reinstalled with the old gasket, using some high-temp RTV on the semi-circle reliefs. Note to self for next time, clean the old RTV off the head while the cams are out. Popped on the new t-stat assembly and called it a night.

Ran errands today on the KLR, got various vacuum, coolant, and EFI hoses, vac. caps, etc. and some NGK 4218s.



I mocked up a few of the hoses and realized I should have bought a 90° elbow for the t-stat to water pump line. I hate ordering from Bezos' money printer, but two brass fittings delivered tomorrow for $8 is hard to beat.

Big project for tonight was cleaning up the TB assembly. Bits of shop towel and carb cleaner with the occasional aid of a pick helped me through the tedious process. Three out of four of the fuel pipe screws were relatively easy to break free. The fourth was a bugger but it came free unscathed. Don't go after those screws with anything other than a JIS #3.





The injector o-rings appear to be in decent, albeit dirty, shape, but may as well replace them while it's all apart. A quick search revealed this thread. Turns out The Injector Shop is 30min up the road, so I'm hoping to get the injectors cleaned and flowed before Labor Day weekend.

@bwringer thank you very much for pointing that out! I had neglected to purchase those o-rings.

I got very lucky today and a local dealer had the two o-rings in stock! I picked those up after dropping off my injectors with Scott at The Injector Shop. He said they'd likely be turned around by Friday, you can't beat service like that!

Popped out the hose connectors and o-rings. A bit of oxidation and the rings were dry, but not dry checked. Red scotch-brite and brake clean on the connectors was enough to clean them up . A light coat of Super Lube was applied to the o-rings and everything sealed up nicely.




With the connectors reinstalled, I tackled the t-stat line to the water pump. The Suzuki replacement part 17854-24F00 is not a molded line. I essentially paid $18 for 16" of 5/16" coolant hose. Fuck. The unmolded hose wanted to kink due to it's long length. I shortened it and the hose still wanted to kink with the tight radius 90° bend above the front cylinder. Solution: splice in ~45mm of line to a 90° brass elbow. The splice provided roughly 3mm of hose length between barbs to accommodate expansion/contraction. I repurposed some wire sleeve from my now-deleted PAIR system. Also spent some time mocking up and trimming hoses for the IAP system, TB sync leads, and the crankcase breather line.



I was running on fumes at this point, but I wanted to keep the momentum. Off with the front end to free up the steering head bearings. With the forks off, I felt very noticeable notchiness in the bearings which confirmed my suspicions. I had picked up a steering head socket from a UK ebay store back in July, it worked a treat with my DeWalt impact. I cleaned up the grease and the bearing dents are quite prominent. A dozen whacks and a blood blister later, both races popped free of the steering head.



I appreciated the fact that I put in a solid 4 hours of work today, but removing the fairing gives the appearance of being so much further behind in this project. Still, I'm happy to have the valve work completed, feels like the stressful part is behind me.

I've got some Motion Pro goodies arriving tomorrow to help with the new tapered rollers from AllBalls. Should make quick work of the steering head. Woof. Off to bed.

Glad I could be of service! Those o-rings were falling apart when I did the cooling system work on mine, at around 9-10 years of age and about 100,000 miles.

The main issue on my higher-mileage bike was that the radiator hoses were too compressed and hardened to make a good seal on the radiator after being removed and replaced several times for assorted repairs and maintenance. I replaced all the hoses, o-rings, seals, etc. while I was doing this, and I'm very glad I did so. I used OEM for everything; it wasn't THAT expensive, and I was assured to get the exact molded or metric hose I needed.

I did not replace the thermostat; it was working fine, the system was very clean and uncorroded inside, so I figured the odds of failure were quite low. Plus, the damn thing is $28...


FWIW, for anyone in the future who's researching this stuff, two things

1) The previous owner had dropped my bike and bent the radiator slightly. There were no issues for years, and then it started leaking where it was tweaked. After lots of dead ends, and gazing in horror at the $700+ price of a new one, I found Myler's, which I believe is the ONLY company in the US that will repair motorcycle radiators. Pricing was very reasonable, the work was superb (they straightened and repaired the radiator, added reinforcements, and pressure-tested it), and turnaround was very fast. HIGHLY recommended.

Make sure you READ and UNDERSTAND how the service works and follow the instructions on the PDF: Radiator Repair PDF Worksheet


2) One other issue to watch for is that the plastic shroud around the fan can warp with heat, time, and pressure from all the wires, hoses, etc. crammed in back there, and it can make noise and even keep the fan from spinning.

There's a specific way all the wires and such need to be routed, so be careful with that, and any time you're in there, check the shroud for warping or contact. I had to carefully heat the shroud on mine with a heat gun and bend the warped plastic back into place, then I made a little aluminum reinforcement to make sure it held its shape.

The last two days of work have been hellacious so I haven't had much energy or time for the DL. Thankfully it's Friday and we've a fun weekend on the horizon hosting some friends and family.

Today I picked up my rebuilt injectors from Scott at The Injector Shop . I'd like to note that I'm not getting any kickbacks for saying this, but the guy is super friendly, knowledgeable, and has top-notch customer service. He confirmed that folks wishing to DIY their injectors should purchase the Yamaha Marine Kit for the time being or just contact him via the website to purchase parts for two injectors. At $15/injector including parts I was more than willing to let him tackle R&R and flow testing. Anywho, my injectors tested great. Apparently under 3 std. deviations between injector flow rates is ideal. Woot!



No pics since I was covered in Red n' Tacky, but the steering head is now rebuilt and properly tensioned. Took me some fiddle-farting and multiple attempts to set correct preload tension via a trigger pull gauge. In my fatigued state I installed the tang washer under the steering head nut and broke off the tang. I sorted out the correct fastener orientation and used the washer as-is, which may have lead to my difficulty setting preload tension. I kept getting issues with the lock nut further tightening the head nut. About four attempts of monkeying with the head and lock nuts and I got the trigger pull gauge to about 250g of pull force to initiate handlebar movement. Phew.

Weekend plans means there won't be any more progress on this project for a few days. Tomorrow morning we're going to check out this '94 XT225 for the fiance. Hoping to hit some trails in North Bend this weekend.



New D606 for the XT and some old-new Kenda's for my KLR.

Busy couple weeks with friends and family. This past weekend I went trail riding, ended up low siding into some deep gravel and the bike's handguard smashed my pinky. Stuck with a big 'ol splint/cast for 3 weeks. Ortho doc had warned me surgery might be neccesary, I'm happy to have avoided the slice and dice for now.



Working with half a hand is definitely slowing me down, but the project continues. No pics, but I greased and installed new wheel bearings and seals on the front wheel this past weekend when I thought I had just sprained my finger.

Today I spent some time digging into the front sprocket area. Removed the side stand switch entirely. Since it's an NO switch that closes with the side stand up, I'll loop a pigtail closed on the connector and delete the switch. One less failure point down the line...

Cover removed, this is a chunky, nasty mess.


Since the rear wheel was off I employed this pretty handy trick I saw on YouTube. Wrap the chain around the axle and slip a flathead between the rollers in front of the axle. This binds up the chain and allows you to break the speed sensor pickup bolt and the sprocket nut. Credit to Urban Monk on YT.



Sprocket area will get cleaned up so I can install a new pushrod seal. Tomorrow morning I'm going to fetch some more gloves and attack this with kerosene. Also need to make a ZipLoc condom for Splint Eastwood so I'm not stinking of grease and kerosene the next 3wks...

Finally received my lower TB boots! Both rear boots were pretty boogered up, shown below. Both fronts were undamaged but they were swapped out as well.



TB assembly is mounted back up and the Holeshot/Dobeck harness is plugged into the rebuilt injectors. Still need to check height on the secondaries before installing the airbox.



Before installing the fuel line, filter, and tank, I wanted to get the new HEL clutch line installed. This lil screw hole was damn near impossible to find blind, even though it's located between two frame bolts. The view below is looking straight down from the left frame rail, near the rear valve cover. If you pull the wire loom up from between the rear head and frame, you can clearly see the screw hole and get her situated. Hot tip, hydraulic systems like to be kept ultra clean. A plastic baggie and zip tie make great banjo fitting covers when pulling lines and the clutch system is opened up.



My better half was out of the house so I had a chance to use the parts washer (kitchen sink) to clean up the airbox.



I overbought foam for the crank case coalescer. A foam knife would have made a clean shape, but I'm happy with the fit. Cut slightly oversized, this will work nicely.



Sprocket area and clutch seals are on order, so I'm going to continue putting the top end and cooling system back together in the meantime. Garage work was cut short today by beer and pork tenderloins. Nice way to welcome in the weekend. Cheers y'all!