Leaderboard

Optimize the California Vintage Parking Position The California Vintage parking position is very tilted. Maybe the reasons are the special kickstand (also a Jiffy type but the shape is different to the older ones) and the longer shocks (365 mm instead of 340 mm). Harley drivers use a special wedge for their Jiffy kickstand when they have lowered their bikes with a shorter shock. In this case the lowered bike stands too straight with the original kickstand. These adapters fits a California w/o any changes! If you mount it turned 180 degrees it will lift your California 2,5 cm! You need 4 screws (+ 4 Schnorr washers) with the following lengths: - top: M8x25 mm and M8x45 mm - bottom: M8x16 mm and M8x20 mm In Germany I bought this kind of adapter here: https://www.dock66.de/Kickstand-Adapter-Harley-Softail-Motorcycle Before: After: Before: New angle:

Since I could not abide in the stock stalk mirrors from new, I went early on to the wee CRG barends (gasp! ). When they say "Objects In Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear", they mean a cop car on your tail is only visible when the strobes come on.

This is a long sad saga on how one person can be so stupid and how you should always listen to Chuck. I purchased a low mileage Australia 98 from Japan a few years back, HiCam engine and running gear identical to a Daytona RS As Winter was coming on apart from idling the bike to check as much as I could that all was in order the bike did no running. I purchased a Caruso pump and gear set to remove the "grenade with the pin pulled" oil pump and to a lesser degree the suspect OEM Aluminuim gears for the service shaft and oil pump drive, the OEM crank gear is steel. I also installed an oil pressure gauge and a dipstick temperature gauge. There were other things done along the way but they're not relevant. Come the next summer I took it out for a ride, the first thing I noticed was the low oil pressure on cold oil at idle, around 50-52 psi. The traffic getting out of town was particularly bad, with road works, diversions, queues and snarled up traffic. Just as I got by the worst of this I seen the oil pressure light come in. Went into panic mode looked at the pressure gauge somewhere between 5-10psi. Pulled off into a convenient car park adjacent to me, killed the engine and freewheeled to a stop. Checking the temperature it was in excess of 120C. Waited for well over an hour perhaps longer until the temperature dropped to around 60C and rode home via a backroad a cab driver told me about. On the ride home I was still dropping oil pressure and rising temperature. As I recall it was about 25psi when I got home, I cannot remember the temperature. Although a backroad with less traffic I was still limited to 30mph, so at no point did I really get the chance to get up speed and some real airflow around the engine. With the low pressure at idle I was convinced that the overheating and low pressure were linked and as the pressure was low from the outset thought I'd start there. The 2V bikes I'm used to will run cold idle circa 60-65+ psi. Cutting to the chase after pulling the bike apart several times, installing several pressure gauges, the OEM pump plus another Caruso pump, running multiple experiments swapping over all sorts of parts between my Sport engine and HiCam, dimensioning several bearings and journals (but not all) and about to strip it again. Lucky Phil stepped in and started to make suggestions on checks. These came to nothing BUT give me a far greater understanding of the engine architecture and I'm very grateful to him. Without his intervention I'd probably have had the engine apart (or in a skip). I also got a friend with another HiCam engined bike to install a gauge onto his and he saw 50psi cold idle. This took another interesting turn when Phil fired his blueprinted HiCam, as he had installed a stronger relief valve spring and obtained 105psi. This told me that the pump has more than enough capacity to support engine oil requirements when escaping via the normal engine bleeds & bearings BUT with the relief closed. When Phil then installed the standard spring, his pressure dropped to 50psi cold idle, so the culprit had to be the relief partially lifting early, that Chuck had told me about so long ago. I'm hazarding an "informed" guess here, but think with the large oil feed to the heads, not present on the 2V bikes to anything like the same degree, it doesn't take much lift from the relief for the system pressure to start bleeding down. Joe Caruso has been brilliant and invaluable during all this, providing me with a lot of pump data and insight. One of the facts made me go "WIDE EYED" was the HiCam oil flow from the pump, was the highest of all the bikes of this vintage. The pump gears are longer (all the pump gear diameters are the same) and spinning faster than the V11 or the MGS-01. So that's where I am now, I'm going to install a Setrab 13 row cooler, which involves shifting some components around & will hopefully improve the heat rejection avialable from the cooler. At the moment there is 15/50 full synth in the bike and if I still encounter rising temps the next move will be to step up to a 10/60 to see if the higher viscosity at elevated temperature will sustain the oil pressure. This was also Lucky Phil's suggestion and Paul Minnaert's on a Facebook Daytona page. I've still a ways to go though to complete the cooler install & here we're still under lockdown, so sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, I'll be able to take it out and see what happens Just thought it might bring a little insight to those of you lucky enough to posess one of these wonderful machines. I'll update this as and when but it will be slow John

Saw this today: https://advrider.com/germany-bans-gps-speed-camera-alerts/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=06_05_2020 Curious to hear what our Germans on this forum -- and FTM, of course, other Euros -- think of this. Bill

I built this, showing you guys first look, I hope the link opens. I'm not allowed to post on YouTube, content infringement but I'm calling fair use to make art.

Wut th' ha'yle WUZ that?

What the hell was that?

Mine is here & installed

O.K. Due to the overwhelming lack of interest since Monday, I'll spill the beans. These tools are used for front end alignment on US made autos with some being specific to certain popular models. Some are generic and provide access to bolts and nuts without being a contortionist. The secondary use for the tapered tool is for hub cap removal. Hope this helps Paul B

Will be fun to see your progress... isn’t it winter down there, time for some garage work? :->. But sounds like you won’t be suffering, with an ST4 to ride and a V11 in the garage ready for some hands-on. Sounds like a good “happy place” to be. i was extremely fond of my ST4 (916). The sound of that machine with proper exhaust is in the class of the V11 (like the “Italian tenors”).

John, I have this Stelvio cooler. It's worth nothing over here. Nobody will pay shipping. Take it or it goes to the tip. I don't know enough about early hi-cams to say but I tend nowadays to think that unless they are 'Racing' all big blocks are generally over cooled.

Been a while and yes totally agree. This does not mean I was an idiot in the first instance! I will start a thread on my V11 experience. (first guzzi and rebuild journey). My biggest problem is that I have put a lot of work into the bike with plenty of tasks yet to complete before I get to ride the bike again so miss the engagement i felt when i purchased the bike. Anyhow i have a heap of pics to contribute to a thread that may help others so will do as you recommend Doc and start my own thread with its own topic. Not planning to have the work completed for a few months yet. I just have to ride the ST4s until then.

Your bike looks great. Bad to the Bone!

Thursday night at the Mountain View Motorcycle Campground and there are already four Stelvios here.

I'll take your word docc on it's brilliance but the cost over here is extortionate. Ciao

Arrived in Arizona. Lovely !!

V11’s create a hell’uva lot of interest wherever they land - people & other bikers just love to find an excuse to sidle up & have a perve, a chat, even give a generous helping hand! Now if it was a generic like a Honda or sumsuch - meh! I wouldn’t be so sure. Better clean it though - she’s looking a bit skanky 😂

Y'all boys are good *sports*! Thanks for tolerating my mirror spoof. Here is my actual set-up (early CRG barends with complicated machined attachment to the factory Sport clip-on weights): Yeah, it's wide, but its low. Worthy of a proper Blues Bassman. And bogus poet . . .

I'm going out on the snake oil limb here, but I have never experienced any kind of corrosion control and prevention like CorrsionX. Learned about it from a US Coast Guard Senior Chief maintaining deck armament on marine patrol craft at the mouth of the Rio Grande. I have been amazed by it. The "Caig DeOxit®" of corrosion product: https://www.corrosionx.com/collections/corrosion-prevention-control

But are they "elegant"? Ciao

Rizoma snobs.

Here's another thing to consider John. I emailed Karsten yesterday on the Guzzi.de forum to thank him for the Centi .bin maps he sent me(2 off) and asked him how well his bike used to start from cold. I had noticed a big difference in the engine temp trim between the Centi and V11 maps esp from 0 deg to 65 deg and was interested if his bike was an "easy starter" ( my V11 with the 2 valve motor was never an "easy starter" not bad but would never start on the first crank) I just put it down to big Italian twin stuff after 35 years of cold blooded Ducatis. Anyway he said it started fine BUT he had REMOVED the std oil cooler and made a bypass unit between the oil cooler fittings because his engine used to run too cold in the rain and didn't get off the mixture enrichment part of the trim. I'd imagine Germany and Scotland would have similar climes to some degree. Just some further info to complicate things:) Ciao