Nothing crosses my anal-retentive keep-the-bike-clean tendencies with my latent obsessive-compulsive nature faster than leaks. Aside from being unsightly, they can signal that my ride wants attention — NOW! In other words, it wants money and time spent on it immediately (kinnda like my last few girlfriends and a Lotus I had….)!

After about one year, I noticed a leak from around the water pump area (sometimes oil, sometimes coolant). To be exact, 12 hours after the warranty was up! Oh well…. This started a bit of a research project into exactly what was leaking and why, and eventually a self-done reseal.

Is It Hard To Do?

It wasn’t that hard, but it is involved — so make sure you are comfortable taking it on before you start or have a friend hanging around who is done similar stuff that can help. And make sure you have a manual!

If you change oil yourself, do your own tires, messed with your forks, survived getting the front vacuum cap off to balance your carbs, you’ll probably be OK. Figure about 3.5 to 4 hours start to finish, taking your time. If you’re still under warranty, get it done or get the leak documented before the warranty expires and let the dealer mess with it!

When stuff starts leaking around the pump housing the water pump seals are usually suspected, though in actuality there are 6 possible leak sources in and around the water pump housing itself. Any of these can cause leaks of coolant, oil, or both in the same general area. Generically, anything coming from this area gets called a "water pump leak." At any rate, we’re going to seal up everything that can leak from this area!

Parts

Here’s a list of stuff I used on my 2001 SVS during the reseal. Yours could be different, so check with the parts guys when ordering!

1 Water pump seal (2 part assembly, one part number) 17470-02F10 $20.04

1 Oil seal 09283-10004 $3.16

1 Pump housing o-ring 17435-33400 $4.34

1 Pump assembly base to engine case o-ring 17418-18F00 $3.72

2 Pump assembly discharge port to engine case o-rings 09280-22001 $.81ea

1 Right side engine case to cover gasket 11482-19F00 $12.42

Other stuff…

1 Tube of Three-Bond. Available at Suzuki dealers. Around $6.00

1 Jug of coolant (mix 50/50 with distilled water). Any auto parts store. $3.00 - $5.00

1 Tube Green Locktight. Any auto parts store. About $2.00

2.5 Quarts engine oil, 10/40 SH/SG. Motorcycle accessory places etc.etc.

1 Oil Filter (optional). Available at Suzuki dealers or mail order places. Around $13.00!!

When Is A Leak A Leak?

Water pumps, by their general nature, will pass a minute amount of fluid across the seal face normally. Let’s call the normal stuff a "weep." Although there is no published weep spec for the SV, I suspect it may be a drop or two every 10-15 hours of operation. Most likely, this evaporates almost immediately and leaves no evidence of its presence.

The way the water pump actually seals is unlike a typical oil seal. Two opposed faces which are 90 degrees to the shaft do the deed, instead of tight rubber lips riding on the shaft itself. These faces seal against each other, rather than against the shaft. In theory then, the water pump shaft never gets "wet." Typical rubber lip seals (as used to seal oil) will erode after only 30-40 hours of operation as a water pump seal! (Anyone who has worked on a Rotax 532 will be reeeaalllyyy familiar with this…)

All that stuff about "lubricating the water pump" that coolant manufacturers hype over is referring to the lubricating properties of their coolant as it weeps between the seals opposing faces during normal operation. Plain water actually sucks as a lubricant in this application.

Are these "weeps" really normal? Yep. All water pumps are going to weep a bit normally. In fact, Mercedes diesels from years ago actually had a drain pipe out the bottom of the water pump so coolant wouldn’t dribble down the front of the cars engine. These pumps would just go on forever, dribbling (er, weeping) a minute amount, without any problem.

The SV has something similar - a "weep hole." This is a small passage behind the water pump, but in front of the oil seal (remember, the pump’s shaft is driven by a bunch of gears inside the engine, so the mechanical force has to get out to the impeller end somehow, as opposed to a car which would be belt driven). This weep hole or air gap is important — it lets the coolant that weeps normally (or otherwise) exit the housing to atmosphere.

Also, if the seal should fail altogether (either the oil seal or the water pump seal) the respective fluid can exit without contaminating the other. Just think of the mess that a coolant seal puking into the crankcase could make! Yep, good idea to have a weep hole. On the SV it’s behind the water pump housing. You can’t actually see it unless you take stuff apart, but it’s back there. That’s part of the reason the water pump assembly isn’t mounted completely flush on the engine’s side cover.

Here is a cross section of an SV’s pump housing from the manual that may help to clarify the guts and layout of all this.

So you suspect there is something doing more than weeping back there, and the amount of coolant or oil piddling down your cases reinforces this suspicion. Here’s a water pump leaker "guide" to how bad it is and, based on my experience, how much time you may have to deal with it:

Normal = Very minor, if any, smearing or grunge-ing from right below the pump housing, usually never enough to require a wipe down of its own. Keep riding, nothing’s wrong! Change your coolant at least once a year to keep everything clean.

Be Concerned = Staining (coolant dries almost white) or smearing after almost every ride, requiring a wipe down now and then to keep clean so no one notices. You think you smell coolant sometimes, but aren’t sure. These things usually won’t get better as time goes on, but hope springs eternal! Plan to change within the next 2-3 months at most and keep an eye on it.

Be More Concerned = Wet coolant (green) or fresh oil film on the cases after every ride, never really dries off. Get the parts ordered! (Note: This is as bad as the oil seal leak or oil o-ring is likely to get, and would mean that it’s time to do a reseal! The water pump seal can get much worse…) You know you smell coolant often. Probably down to weeks, not months. Again, it won’t fix itself with time! (I changed mine when it got to this point.)

Do It Now = Has coolant coming out like a cow peeing on a flat rock. Your right boot is wet. There are slime trails all down the side of the case all the time. Get the parts. Drive the car until they get in. Times up! Don’t ride and risk a meltdown! You only have about 1.5 quarts of coolant total, and it can go pretty quick!

What Else Can Leak Around The Water Pump?

As mentioned earlier, there are a total of 6 possible leak sources.

There are 3 coolant o-rings and the 1 water pump seal living in there (the water pump seal is actually a 2 piece affair, but when you order it is "one" seal), as well as 1 oil o-ring and the 1 oil seal.

Any or all of these can take a dump and slime out the general area, which is bad news. The good news is that if you have to go in and reseal one thing, you’re going to replace everything that could leak anyway! At least you can reseal the pump assembly in a SV, unlike some of Suzuki’s other offerings where you have to replace the entire pump assembly (big $$$)!

The accompanying pictures are from the Manual, which is pretty good, except that there are a few surprise changes that seem to have made it in later models. There may be a service bulletin floating around from the factory. My dealer says there aren’t any on the water pump.

Here’s A Somewhat Related Observation:

Years ago I worked as a BMW motorcycle mechanic when the K100 and K75 were hitting the market. They had a lot of water pump seal failures which I believe were due to the paint they were using on their sexy looking black cases — they painted the INSIDE also, and the coolant lifted this paint, ground it up nice and fine, and deposited it on the seal faces causing them to fail prematurely. By the way, the black paint ALWAYS came off the coolant passages and made a mess, it NEVER came off the inside of the engine due to oil. Whew!

Suzuki did the same thing with their black covers. Take a tip even if your seal isn’t leaking. Change your coolant after no more than a year and note if any black stuff is in it. You may then want to flush and change a few times. This could save your seal from premature failure.

Also, like the old BMW K-bikes, the water pump in the SV sits at about the lowest point in the cooling system. Any sediment in the system likes to gravitate to the lowest point, thereby aggravating any seal erosion problems. Best to keep the cooling system as clean as possible.

Getting The Engine Side Cover Off

First, drain the oil with the bike on its side stand — that gets the maximum out. Leave the drain plug out for now.

Drain the coolant using the drain bolt on the bottom of the water pump housing, and with the radiator cap off. Do this with the bike on a track stand or while someone holds it upright. This gets out the maximum of coolant and also allows you to make the biggest mess possible since the coolant really shoots out and will miss the drain pan no matter where you positioned it.

Note any crap in the coolant, there was a lot of black paint flakes in mine that came off the coolant passages in the side cover. Suzuki must powder coat (or whatever) the entire surface of this thing, and coolant, over time, will cause some of it too lift and go adrift.

Clean everything up around the engine case cover and remove ALL the perimeter bolts as well as all the bolts that look like they hold the water pump assembly on.

When you take the case off, you’ll see two coolant passages that would otherwise dump coolant into the crankcase if you didn’t get it all out. The few drops (if any) that didn’t get dumped out will drain out the oil drain hole once the bike is back on its side stand. You’ll also notice that any dirt or crud around the case/cover will magically be attracted to the inside of the engine.

Don’t force the case cover off. There are two pins that center it up, and it’s a pretty snug fit against them. Be patient and don’t go at it with screwdrivers to lever it off. That will just screw up the sealing faces. I used a plastic dead blow hammer to gently tap it loose, and then wiggled it off.

The gasket on mine came off the engine case cleanly, but was stuck all over the case cover requiring about 1 hour with a razor to get all the old gasket off. Yuk. You get to drop little pieces of gasket all over the inside of the case cover. Be careful cleaning it all out. Don’t use any real aggressive spray cleaners (like contact cleaner), as it can lift off the black finish and maybe even melt the plastic clutch cover. Solvent tank stuff seems to work OK to wash out all the crap from the gasket.

Getting The Pump Housing Off

The pump housing is still stuck on to the case by its drive gear. Take off the snap ring, the gear, the gear’s drive pin, and a thin flat washer for now. You can then carefully pull the housing out of the case. It’s a heftier pull than you may imagine. Don’t force it.

When you do this, three potential leak sources reveal themselves. The big o-ring where the pump housing seals to the engine case (mine was leaking), and two coolant passage o-rings (mine were leaking a bit too).

OK, now you’ve got the pump housing off, separate it by removing the two over-tightened screws in the BACK of the housing. Great, now you’ve got the pump housing separated and you didn’t strip the heads off the two screws that hold the housing together!

SUPRISE

Take the black water pump housing off from the aluminum backing plate, and you may get your first surprise — the impeller end doesn’t look ANYTHING like the pictures in the manual! Oh well, at least now you can see the weep hole in the back of the housing and confirm if anything is dribbling out from it. (You’ll also notice that the drive gears and impeller shown in the manual are metal, the ones in my SV were plastic.)

Now if you have a "new" style pump, there will be a big c-clip on the shaft right in front of the bearing you can remove to slide out the shaft with the impeller still attached.

The big change from the manual seems to be that the impeller is larger and screws directly onto the end of the shaft, instead of being held on by a bolt, washer, seal washer, etc. like the manual shows. There is no need to remove the impeller from the shaft in either case (good), and the water pump seals are (for now) the same no matter which impeller style you have (even better).

Remember the bit about the two opposing faces? One of them is behind the impeller (the water pump seal is in two parts, but has just one part number). Use a small hook probe or screw driver to lift out the old seal face (looks like a big rubber washer with a plastic face on one side) and insert the new one in the same orientation (white facing away from the impeller). That half is done!

The Seals That Are About To Die Salute You!

Now you get to remove the springy complex looking water pump seal half out of the pump housing. The manual shows a guy gently prying the seal out with a small dainty screwdriver ever so carefully, as if the seal may leap out of the housing all by itself and fly up to the clouds.

Actually, the water pump seal is pressed into the housing like a freeze plug and is pure evil to get out.

This is the worst part of the entire job, and all’s fair in how you get the damn thing out — just don’t screw-up the bearing on the other side of the housing as you go at it.

Oh yeah, the oil seal lives BELOW (or behind, depending on your viewpoint) this thing, and even if it was good and you didn’t really want to change it, is about to die in the ensuing friendly-fire that will be needed to take-out the water pump seal.

You’ll also get a pretty good idea as to how the old seal was. I found a lot of black engine case paint that the coolant has lifted packed up on the seal faces, causing them to leak. Good idea to wipe any loose black paint out of the passages that you can get to.

Here’s what I did to get the pump seal out of the housing:

Plan A

I took the biggest Exacto knife blade I had and tapped it in between the seals flange and the housing. (It is a really tight fit, and may not even look like there is anything to pry on or under, but there is.) I carefully worked my way around to get it moving up ever so slightly. Once there was some space, I beat the hell out of it with a hammer and a screwdriver.

That didn’t work too well….

Plan B

Gently tap a small screwdriver around (like you did the knife blade) to edge it up just a wee bit more on the side I didn’t beat to hell. Then use a larger screwdriver to do the same. Then a larger one. Then gently twist the big screwdriver to help push the damn thing up a bit more.

Work it, work it, and after about 30 minutes of this nonsense you have the seal out! Oh, and a collection of ruined screwdrivers. And a bloody thumb from having one slip and skewer you.

A small bearing puller may work better, but I didn’t have one. Also, you can’t really tap the water pump seal out from the back using a drift. You can try, but you’ll just destroy the oil seal (no biggie — you’re going to change it anyway). Feel free to try (you will anyway). I was running out of screwdrivers when I decided to try, and the few drifts that I have we’re either too big or to small to be effective. You may have better luck.

As for the oil seal, that’s a piece of cake. A small hook probe or screw driver just pops it (or its remaining pieces) right out, no problem. (Figure 5)

Save the old water pump seal. You can have fun later chasing it around the garage floor with a big hammer to let out some frustration built up in the removal process! Do it with the garage door open, that way the neighbors can watch and wonder…..

Reseal!

Put in the new oil seal first — the side with lettering faces you while you do it. Lightly grease it and tap it in with a deep socket.

Now you can put in the new water pump seal. I used a big socket that would catch the metal flange, but not the springy plastic parts, and drove it home with a big hammer. Very gratifying. You don’t need to grease the water pump seal, and it should be installed "dry."

You can also use a c-clamp for a kinder and gentler approach; just don’t press on the bearing on the back through all this. The new seal has a bead of blue sealer around its base, but you cal also put a bead of three-bond around it for additional sealing if you’ve buggered up the housing seat with all the screwdrivers you just ruined. Even if the flange face is buggered slightly, it really isn’t important.

Grease the impeller shaft lightly so it will slide past the oil seal easier and GENTLY slide it back into the housing. Work it carefully past the oil seal — you don’t want to pop the little spring ring out of it or tear its lips going in. If you have the "new" style impeller, the drive shaft will have a c-clip that goes just in front of the bearing — go ahead and put that on now (you could do it later after the pump housing is together, but you have to be clever and pull the shaft out slightly to get to the c-clip groove — not really a problem.)

Put in a new housing o-ring (the one that is shaped weird) and you can screw it back together using the Phillips screws from behind (their heads are still good, eh?).

Replace the big round o-ring around the base of the housing assembly where it slides into the engine side cover. I put a bead of three bond around the o-ring just for overkill since that was where mine was leaking oil. Also, put three bond on the two o-rings that seal the discharge ports of the pump housing. That will help hold them in place and seal up that much better.

Put the thin washer, drive pin, gear, and snap-ring back on the pump drive shaft after the pump housing assembly is put back on the engine case cover (the classic "assembly is the reverse of disassembly routine). Be really sure the snap ring(s) are seated in their grooves!

Work quickly now, put a thin coat of three bond on the gasket surface of the engine side cover. Put the new gasket on the engine case (it will be held in place by the pins). Gently put the case cover et. al. back on, center on the pins, and push gently to get the drive gears re-engaged. Don’t force anything — you could bust the pump drive gears!

The manual says to use green Locktight on the case cover bolts, so make sure you have some around. Start putting all the cover bolts back in and tighten in a good cross pattern. Check it several times as they will loosen up as you tighten the case down progressively.

Hook up the radiator and the smaller bypass hoses. Take a break and let the three bond set up for a while before you add coolant/oil. (Feel free to chase the old seal around the garage now…)

Add fresh coolant while the bike is on its side stand — it will help to bleed out any air in the system. I noticed the OEM coolant that came out looked pretty weird, even without all the black paint flakes floating around. It didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. Good old Prestone mixed 50/50 with distilled water works great.

Don’t use any of the new "long life" antifreezes — you know, the orange stuff that GM is using in their cars that is supposed to be good for 10 years or something — it may not be compatible with stuff in the SV’s cooling system, like the head gaskets, radiator core, etc. (heck, it may not even be compatible with the stuff in a GM’s cooling system!).

You may want to check and clean the bottom of the radiator cap; there was a lot of black paint grunge on mine.

By the way, antifreeze is deadly to all small animals (and big ones too), so I made sure kitty was in until everything was cleaned up. You should too. Most car part stores will take used coolant for recycling.

Drain plugs still out, right?

No coolant pouring out of the oil drain or anything?

Cool! The gasket is sealed up tight and you did everything right!

Put the oil drain plug back in, top up with oil.

Warm it up, (I love the smell of antifreeze burning on the headers in the morning…. It smells like… like every British car I’ve ever owned…) add coolant if necessary.

Check for any leaks. The grease on the shaft and oil seal may melt off the first time things get really hot, so don’t panic if a tiny bit makes its way out the weep hole.

That’s it! You did it! Not so bad after all, eh? Now you can ride down to Sears to cash in on that lifetime Craftsman screwdriver warranty!