Attention K3/K4 SV1000 owners (charging issues)

[jhawksteele]

Google searching turned up quite a few people who have had this problem. I had never heard of it, so I wanted to share what I’ve learned with other SV owners.

My 2003 SV1k has just shy of 75,000 miles on it. About two years ago, my regulator/rectifier failed, so I replaced it with a MOSFET unit. I also wired in a volt meter so I could keep an eye on things. Lately though, I’ve been noticing that my bike really only wants to give me 13.5v or 13.6v while riding, and when the engine gets hotter (coolant temps above 210) or when I get up over 7,000 RPM, I’ll only get around 13.1v. I tested the R/R and stator output, and the results were within spec. Well, last night I decided to open up the stator cover, and I found the problem. The flywheel with the magnets that spins around the stator has seen better days. All the magnets should be evenly spaced, but when I looked, I saw they were all bunched up.



The epoxy on every magnet had let go. The only thing that kept them from falling off and crashing into the stator is the fact that they’re strong magnets and the flywheel is a big hunk of steel. I got lucky and none of my magnets were cracked or broken.

I ended up getting some marine JB Weld and gluing them back into place. Hopefully that’ll get me through until I find a replacement part.

[Burg-Mann]

How ironic!! I have a 2005 sv1000s and my battery kept going dead after wearing my electric vest and gloves. Now I'm having charging problems without electric clothing. There is a slight rattling noise coming from under the stator cover. Sounds like loose wiring is flopping around or something in there. Of course I'm not going to ride it until I have it looked at by my mechanic. Hopefully things aren't to bad. Its one if my favorite bikes. It has about 25 thousand miles on it.

[mototireguy]

Curious to know if during the diagnostics phase you measured the AC voltage numbers coming off the three stator output leads and what those numbers were.

[jhawksteele]

Originally Posted by mototireguy

Curious to know if during the diagnostics phase you measured the AC voltage numbers coming off the three stator output leads and what those numbers were.

I did measure the no-load voltage coming out of the 3 stator output leads. I adjusted the idle screw until I was holding 5k RPM with a cold engine, and the output was about 76v across the board (min for a good charging system is 75v according to my service manual). I think I got good numbers because the engine was cold and the RPM were very steady. The magnets didn't have hot engine oil lubricating and facilitating their movement, and the flywheel was spinning at a consistent speed, making it easy for the magnets to keep up with the flywheel's motion. Of course, that's just my guess

[jhawksteele]

Originally Posted by Burg-Mann

How ironic!! I have a 2005 sv1000s and my battery kept going dead after wearing my electric vest and gloves. Now I'm having charging problems without electric clothing. There is a slight rattling noise coming from under the stator cover. Sounds like loose wiring is flopping around or something in there. Of course I'm not going to ride it until I have it looked at by my mechanic. Hopefully things aren't to bad. Its one if my favorite bikes. It has about 25 thousand miles on it.

I rode my bike without earplugs yesterday so I could listen to what the engine was doing, and I also heard a slight rattle coming from the stator. My guess is that it was the magnets banging around in there.

[afm199]

Happens with the SV1000. When you replace that flywheel, your jaw will drop at how heavy that sumbitch is.

[tonedeaf]

This was something I had to fix on my '05, a couple of the magnets were totally disintegrated and shards of magnets were everywhere. it was such a pain in the ass to fix, i had to flush the engine out with lots of oil and clean a lot by hand. here was what mine looked like partway through cleanup:



i ended up following forum advice not to re-epoxy myself, just because i ain't a pro, and i bought a new OEM rotor and that fixed it. the general consensus on the boards is that Suzuki had a bad run of epoxy for a short while, but nothing wrong with the design, so everybody who replaced their rotor with a new OEM one and wrote about it said they had no more problems. I've put about 5k miles on mine and it's still good.

also my engine rattles at low RPM's, and lots of people on the SV forums have described the same thing, and they all decided it's clutch rattle, and not harmful. If yours rattles louder when you let the clutch out in neutral, and quiets down when you pull the clutch in, it's just the clutch and you're ok, so they say. back in 03-05 everybody was hot about fixing the clutch rattle, and there were a few good fixes discovered, some of them involved custom machining on the clutch basket, others swapped out parts from another bike, but they are all expensive and not worth it IMHO. I'd swap out for a slipper clutch before i fixed the stock clutch.

[tonedeaf]

Originally Posted by afm199

Happens with the SV1000. When you replace that flywheel, your jaw will drop at how heavy that sumbitch is.

seriously, it's a freaking brick. like, it's probably as heavy as two red bricks.

[jhawksteele]

Great success. Just fired up the bike after waiting for the JB Weld to cure, and at idle I got 13.8v

[tonedeaf]

[Cycle61]

Originally Posted by afm199

Happens with the SV1000. When you replace that flywheel, your jaw will drop at how heavy that sumbitch is.

Haven't had the problem with ours (54k and running strong) but I'd like to stay ahead of the curve on it. I wonder if there's a lighter replacement available so it revs easier?

[jhawksteele]

Originally Posted by cycle61

Haven't had the problem with ours (54k and running strong) but I'd like to stay ahead of the curve on it. I wonder if there's a lighter replacement available so it revs easier?

From what I've read, after 2005 they lightened up the rotor.

I have come to the realization that my magnets were likely a problem for quite a long time. I used to peak at around 13.8 ~ 14.0v while riding, idling at a stoplight would give me 13.2 ~ 13.4v, and when coolant temperatures were over 210 degrees F, I'd see 13.6v max. For the half hour I was on the bike this morning coming to work, I saw 14.4v (steady as a rock) while riding and 14.5v while sitting at a stop. It's going to be over 100 degrees in Sac today, so I'll see if high heat has any effect on charging when I go home at the end of the day.

[BigShotBob]

I think the problem might be coming back! A google search lead me back here...I'll have to look into it more closely soon.

Experience low voltage as well. Last time I took it out, voltage was jumping around drastically until I came to a stop. Seems like the magnets could have come loose again? I'm not hearing a rattling, but I haven't been listening to it that closely.