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Whichever bikes are "better", the spineframes win the beauty contest.

I used to think a relay was a relay . Boy , was I wrong !

I tried a few times on my V11's with the "Pit Bull" head lift stand that I have used on my Ducati's and Aprilia's..even with the right sized pin to fit inside the steering tube ..I couldn't see anyway it could be compatible with the front fairing and headlight, its too low and too far out for the Pit Bull stand to be able to fit under and back to the steering tube . I don't remember the pin size needed but its very small inner diameter compared to most bike..and I don't have a V'11 right now I can measure.

Sorry for the abbreviated reply, @Revilo . . . Be certain to use a High Current "Best Relay" in that rather demanding, and failure prone, position . . .

The single biggest improvement you can make to the shift action of your V11 is to lengthen the shift lever arm and incorporate a new eye end mount hole 12mm ctr to ctr from the original upper hole. Shortens up the shift action to Japanese bike standards and gives the gearbox return spring greater leverage over the shift lever. It also makes the shift action a little bit stiffer which means you need a little more load on the lever before it shifts gear which makes for a faster cleaner shift. This is the shift selector. The area that is blued rides over the pins on the shift drum during the lever return after a shift. It usually has a rough finish and often doesn't bear across the full face of the pin and causes the shifter to hang up on return. Draw file it smooth and blue it to check for correct contact and if it isn't right dress it so it is. Do the other face on the left of photo as well of course.This arm always has a bend in it due to the way its stamped from a flat sheet. Carefully rework it so its flat and straight without any twists and polish the faces with some fine emory. The shifter mechanism stop can allow over travel of the mechanism. This one has had pads welded to the stop faces and dressed back to prevent this happening. Don't ever be tempted to adjust the large eccentric on the shifter cover with it fitted to the bike. It is a very sensitive adjustment that controls shifter travel and over travel and needs to be on the bench to set up correctly. It wont solve your shifting woes alone so leave it alone when on the bike. Note the detent roller, it often doesn't ride correctly in the detents. Remove and bend the roller arm until it locates correctly. Note the different covers, the later type on the left with the shift selector arm return limit adjustable eccentric and the older type on the right with the fixed roll pin. Set up the eccentric with about 0.030" clearance to the shift arm at its closest point in the travel. This later unit also has the extra banana shaped support plate. Guzzi sell a mod kit for the earlier bikes. A close up of the return limit eccentric adjuster on the later covers. The return spring can be installed the wrong way. Make sure when fitted the spring isn't contacting the cover, if it is remove it and install the other way. On the bench set up and ready to install. The V11 shifts like a Japanese bike now, short travel, slick shifts with or without using the clutch and no return binding. This is the mod kit which comes with new cover with eccentric adjuster, new selector wheel pins with the ability to fit the banana support link and from memory a new shift selector arm and spring and new centering spring. Note the shifter input arm and stop assembly in the lower right hand of the photo. The pin you can see under the shifter wheel with the spring arms around it is the large eccentric adjuster which controls the travel of the shift mechanism and provides the stops in both directions. As mentioned earlier adjust it on the bench only, its very sensitive and governs how far the mechanism moves the gear selector dog to engage the gears. If its a long way out you can have a situation where it moves the gear to a fully engaged position and then pulls it partially out of engagement during the shift and under engagement in the other direction. Ciao

Oh my…quite delicious! Feeling a bit peckish now watching this!!

I take it by that comment that it's a bucket & shim setup,,, mea culpa,,,I'd be in the wailing and gnashing of teeth group I realize it's a more precise and long term stable adjustment once done,but for a home mechanic living far away from a shop with a supply of shims;that was a job I grew to detest. Major pita

Yes, there's been some of that in the German language forums too. And about the cylinders being part of the same casting as the block, and a few other things. All of which are apparently par for the course in modern motors. Since a couple of decades.

Service manuals are out. Full of interesting info. Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the 'Old School' boys about having to take the cams out to change the valve clearances.

^^^ Soul Train was my late night go to in the 70's. Loved it. no video but ... heard this on the radio today. Good days

@andy york has run a JW Speaker in his LeMans (highest mileage V11 in the world!) for a good, long time . . .

I would happily use Fast Bike Industries / Adreani if I lived in that area. In fact, I would consider them even living where I do. I do like having a suspension guy that is local. Generally I like doing stuff myself, but time is in shorter supply than it was when I was young. So I could see paying someone to do the job. The young me would do it myself. But I am not that guy anymore (sadly). I have heard good things about the Adreani fork cartridges. They seem to be a quality company. But the guy in the email might not understand that Guzzi used very different forks on the early V11 vs the later V11 and V11 Lemans.

A bit late to the party but here is another Ohlins specialist that comes highly recommended. Dan Kyle in Sand City, California. https://kyleusa.com https://shop.kyleusa.com/main.sc

WOW, I like it! I put a brand X ($15 ebay) style h4 led in my V11 Lemans last Fall. It fit fine, base was thin metal like the oe h4 and dimensionally (lengthwise) was the same, I encountered no clearance issues. However, after I installed it I realized it looked a little crappy. The light was bright white (nice) but the pilot light was the old incandescent (kinda yellowish) and my lens appeared a little hazy (from age??!!). So, if this Cree brand actually fits/works I think I'd be game to spending the money for one. It would resolve the haze & pilot bulb issue. And, imho, Cree make a quality product, 5 year warranty is nice too. FWIW, Walmart sells Sylvania 194 LED wedge bulbs for about $6. Also, I picked up another 0.2 to 0.3vdc to overall charging system voltage at idle by going to an led headlight bulb. I should probably swap out the S & T bulb with an led too. On another note, I installed a plug & play led sealed beam into my '72 Eldo, has no retro appearance but I can certainly be seen, I'm pleased with it. It was marketed on ebay for Jeeps & motorcycles, $42. Art

Yeah, swing arm spools would be great but don't know if it would be any easier for me than the "factory" style contraption that has me sweating every time I use it. My forks are up into the clamps about 8mm more than stock because of the hbar risers, I wonder if that is why it is a chore lifting up onto the stand??!! To aid in lifting my Lemans (and center stand bikes) I toss a 1"x6" under the rear tire, it helps. Plus the factory style stand allows a greater multitude of rear end tasks to be performed if needed vs. spools...imho Anyway, the headlift thing looks too for tire & fork oil changes. It won't work on '03 lemans, lower fork clamp is covered...some sort of air dam and not easily removable, brake line runs through it. Art

Once installed you will like them. I have on my '03 LM

Failed Relay #2 ( from the front) . . .

^^^^ Pro Grips gel and lead shot plus Napoleons is what I had on the Mighty Scura. Worked pretty well, but yes you could feel a little ticking from that V twin. That's a good thing.

The good thing about this forum : contribution .

PM sent for the Motobits.

I too ran across the LEDPerf model that says it is "plug and play" for the Lemans, and wondered if anyone had actually tried to see if it indeed was a physical "plug and play" fit with the Lemans headlight setup. Anyone? It's not very expensive, relatively speaking, but then again that may or may not bode well for quality or accuracy of the product description. I agree that I don't really love the high-tech look, but then again I really do like being able to see the road well at night Round LED headlight for Moto-Guzzi V11 Le Mans - 5 year warranty (ledperf.us)

Sorry, no input at this point Al on the chuck/phil mod with the MotraTech, but will just add that I’m a big fan of the MotraTech. And i’lll be watching to see how yours turns out. If I came across another MotraTech setup I’d buy it to have just in case. My setup is slightly finicky, requiring a little different “action” with my shift foot, but overall resulted in a subtle but great change for me, as a “lanky” rider, and someone who wanted a little less weight/force on my arms for touring (due mostly to a shoulder issue).

As I am assembling an inventory of what needs to be done to refresh my bike, and what I have on-hand, I'll likely be trying out a set of Motratech foot controls which I suspect I have squirreled away with many other bits pre-COVID illness and brain-fog. I also believe I already have the Lucky Phil's shift extender and Scud's updated spring, although not yet installed; so my question is a two-parter with regard to using the extender with the Motratech controls: 1) Has anyone used Chuck's Lucky Phil extender with the Motratech foot controls successfully? 2) Is there still a benefit of using Chuck's Lucky Phil extender with the Motratech foot controls? Chuck, I hope you feel better soon. I had COVID in early 2021 and was down for about a month, in the hospital twice, and had serious post-COVID issues in the subsequent months that then lingered for a year+. It's no fun. For reference:

It seems to me that stealing my quirky Italian bike would be a grand folly for the thief. It reminds me of this delightful read from Hagerty: "A Few Things to Know Before Stealing My 914"

No. To cross-check, I just loaded this manual down to my laptop: https://guzzitek.org/gb/ma_us_uk/1100/V11_1999-2003_Atelier(Compil-GB-D-NL).pdf No costs, no membership, just "save to ..." using the function for that in the browser. There is a place for donations on the site, but using the site is free. I should donate actually. The amount of times I've used that site myself or linked to it, I "morally" owe the guy about 10.,000 bucks.

I've moved the Neutral Switch mess I've made off this thread to Tech Topics. Thanks for helping me figure out what happened! [edit/July 31, 2021: one of the circlips failed to stay in its groove and allowed the cam wheel to shift inboard where it did not contact the neutral switch.]

The other two springs (both Moto Guzzi parts) superimposed showed the compression of 90,000 miles:

Top: 64,000 mile factory pawl spring; Middle: new factory spring; Bottom: ChuckScud Superspring:

I have a couple posts to report after doing (most) of the Lucky Phil Shift Improvement. First, though, a big thanks to @Lucky Phil for sharing the technique and posting such great detail! My box shifted okay before, but definitely improved. My shift lever had been sticking down periodically, so I replaced the springs (along with the Chuck/Scud Superspring). Unfortunately, the sticking persisted after the new springs. And the plate did not seal upon reassembly, so I had to go back in. This time I changed the leaky shifter shaft seal and installed the McMaster-Carr roller bearing posted by @Craig back in 2016. Today, 205 miles, no leaks! And the new roller made my shift feel decidedly smoother and more precise. And no lever sticking! My original bearing was really peckered up as you can see in the image. It was grooved like this in several places around the surface: Yet > sigh < , my neutral switch is stuck on and I really don't want to go back in there. (I sealed that cover REALLY WELL this time.)

So much win in one picture.

Sport-I's use the 'Broad sump' the same as the V11. The thing is because of the taller gearing in the lower gears in the old five speed box the issue of oil surge and pick-up exposure doesn't seem to trouble them. This isn't to say it couldn't happen, just that I've never heard of a Sport-I running its big ends due to pick up exposure, (Or a Centy or Daytona RS.). That being the case, while fitting one is extra insurance it probably isn't necessary. The carb Sports still used the old 'Deep Sump' with bottom feeding pick up so exposure isn't an issue. Pete