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In Chicagoland the Norton Club has put on an outstanding Antique Motorcycle Show every August. 20 years ago I woke up Sunday morning and hopped on my 1993 Daytona and went to it. Not having had my coffee I was a little groggy and when I pulled into the show someone waved me in. I suddenly thought “Oh Shit I’m in the Show”. I was directed to park with the Guzzi’s. I spent my day bouncing between the show and parking lot looking at cool bikes. At one point I walked by my bike and saw a sign on my seat. Move Your Bike To The Modern Bike Section. So I did. I ended up staying all day until the end. When they announced the show awards they started with Best Modern Bike and called my name. I was in shock and had not realized this was possible. The plaque was nice and I stuck in the back of my pants for its ride home. What happened next was a heart felt note that the award announcer stopped to add a special guy. He said the best Norton award goes to Joe Blow. Now his bike is a beauty but I feel that I need to tell you that everything that has been done to this bike was done by Joe. From rebuilding the engine and trans to painting it. I thought what a nice thing to say. As a baby boomer I remember when everyone did this back in the day. I knew how rare it has become to not farm out the work. I got my award because I forgot to get my coffee and park in the parking lot. My hats off to you Joe for a job well done.

Finally changed the speedo cable, then rode it slow and fast to make sure it was ok 👍

It's been some time since I went to this show. Frankly, it's mostly cars, but today I needed a ride. I show up and there's something like 300 cycles parked in a row. Granted, mostly all Japanese, mine was the only Guzzi. I met an Englishman now living in SC that owns a Coppa and a Greenie. Maybe he's on here as well? Hope to see him there again, maybe some others on this board that are local.

Even Kathi thinks my Moto Grappa music is a bit of a brown egg. But, it and the (strange) like are what I listen to much of the time. Played drums "back in the day" in all sorts of bands -- from 18th century rudimental groups, to Big Band, to rock (of the times, i.e., late '60's; if I ever hear "Wipeout" again, I'll hurl. But I just can't enjoy any contemporary popular music, and especially so if blaring at decibel levels that put F16 afterburners at take-off to shame. Now ... get off my lawn! Bill

Viva Analog!

No affiliation other than being a long time customer but I’ve been buying products from Edmunds Batteries for years for all my vehicles Several locations,fair prices and really good service, and they’ve always had Oddysey 545’s in stock when I needed one FWIW

I remember fiddling with them when I was about 6 or 7 working with him in the basement of our first house in NJ. I still use them today for intricate work. Brings back memories when I use them.

It's the same with everything these days. I needed all the guttering replace on my single story flat block small house a few months ago. 50 linier metres of guttering. No down pipes just gettering. Going rate 100-110/LM! So $5000 for a simple guttering job. Materials? $800. So $4200 labour for 10 man hours of work for a pro doing it day in day out that involves about $500 worth of tooling/equipment. About the rate a heavy jet commercial pilot earns for stick time with 500 lives in his hands. Solution? I bought the materials online delivered and the wife and I spent 25 hours taking our time 4-5 hours a day being super cautious to eliminate any serious errors and doing a first rate better than a pro job on it. I've never done guttering before but I know how to string line the required fall and fit the support clips and I have good quality tin snips and a pop rivet gun. The corners are all done with cast fittings these days so they are a doddle. So that's $4200 net in my pocket. I think a lot of the issues with getting work done these days on anything, houses, cars, bikes is that the average person totally lacks any sort of basic hand and mechanical skills and is at the mercy of anyone in a trade. The value system then becomes distorted. The ultimate degradation of our forbears ability to carve out a life from the wilderness by hand, swearing and sweat. My single biggest fear getting older is losing the ability to do things like this myself. It's just fundamental to who I am and the foundation of my independence. Not looking forward to losing that. Phil

Happy New Year

oh my, you came to the right place to talk about batteries! I’ll not say anything except that there’s a wealth of info from PC545 guru’s on this site, and i’m a believer, but I also have finally gone to the dark side and installed a Lithium battery, and can’t see every going back. Thats a long, long topic, but fast-forwarding to the final thing for one side of the discussion is that the lithium battery (i think I put an EarthX in the V11) cranks the bike over better/quicker, and takes less space in the cradle, in theory allowing for easier road-side work if such a need would come up. Can’t go wrong with an Odyssey, properly cared for, but I would not be afraid of a decent lithium battery.

All good fodder for the discussion, though I don’t know the root cause reasons Smart or others have for it all. When I moved to LA from Alaska, among other culture shock things was the presence of quicky oil change places that would change your oil and filter for the same or even less than i could buy just the oil. What? So I did that thinking how nifty that was, but always a bit suspect, then sure enough one day I went to drain my own oil for some reason and found the drain plug was badly cross-threaded. well, was fun while it lasted. That little Smart diesel engine, basically what I’d call a golf cart with 57hp, is all mercedes built and has been a solid little bugger since 2006, no-drain-plug-and-all. Plastic outer body never rusts, frame is some kind of space age alloy engineered to handle some nasty crash scenarios (check out what some British university did for testing, published video on YouTube), and the drivers side has more head and leg room than about any rig i’ve had my 6’4” frame in. But it’s still basically just a golf cart you get to drive 60mph on the road. But we digress! Sucking oil out is not new to me, because of the Smart, but only recently have I looked more into doing it for other rigs, hence the foray into messing with it using a better suction device. The Super Duty diesel (“Whitey”) that holds 12+ qts will still be drained by a quick scoot underneath on the creeper, a short twist of the fumoto drain valve, and voila, 12+ qts drained. Not nearly so quick for the Volvo, low to the ground and with an engine cover underneath… a real hassle on a comparative basis.

It totally fits for '25

I've felt the same about some of my bandmates at times . . .

There is so much incredible talent out there, and so much of it 'under the radar'. Always has been I suppose. I saw a curious post from a musician I follow on X. He asked an AI to write and preform vocals and all instruments, using some of his own ideas/prompts for style and genre. He posted a short clip, which had a spiritual rock band sound. Generic but very professional. Human soul was represented well. Wish I could repost it here. He then said the result made him wonder if he should ever pick up a guitar again. I hope real human talent like these folk doesn't get lost in the race to transhumanism.

The screwdriver is from one of my dad's toolboxes; a carpenter by trade and EOD by profession. I have a newer version of that screwdriver style made by Irwin The feeler gauge is from my high school days. It has set many a lash!

Wow, that's oldie! From your Dad? I have a bunch of hand tools from my Dad's box. Old Utica dikes, needle nose and pliers, plus other stuff from his days at Western Union after WWII. Who made that screwdriver! Stanley?

Yes, you too.

I want the guitars on the wall. They're not playing them, so they could easily give them to me.

There was recently an open house at one of the dealership which I like to go to as a ride reason. I asked and got permission to visit their workshop. All the mechanics are very young. But since they are an Indian dealership, I would expect that they could work on my Guzzis. They said they would, providing I bring whatever spares required, so they don't have to spend time they would not know how to charge. I found that going to places in person, and speaking face to face may break the ice. I know, business is business. But you don't know who you spoke to over the phone. Maybe a bored clerk that will just repeat over and over what he has been told to say: If "Bike" = > 15 years age Then "No" When you get some time, go to these shops and maybe speak to the owner directly. When I was on the verge to purchase a Honda CBX 1000, we have a shop here in Houston that does restauration. The guy was very friendly, and honest. He told me that he had no experience on the CBX 1000, but he did not see it as a problem. He said that he knew where to get information from people that he knew that had that experience. This guy: https://wolfsmithsheights.com/ Now he said right away that his hourly rate was $175. You ought to find someone that is going to accept to work on your bike. Just don't take no for an answer.

The "we do not work on old motorcycles" is something I discovered when I came here. In Europe, generally, a Moto Guzzi dealer will work on your vintage motorcycle, as long as you are not asking for restoration works. There are specialized (plenty) shops that do that. So what is different? for instance, if you have an old bike, the dealer may pre warn you about compensating the search for parts, and other difficulties that he may encounter and may need to charge you extra for. The Mechanic which will be assigned to your bike may not be familiar, and may need to spend time documenting himself. All that will need some working for a final price. But what I found, because I asked while in France, they only refuse if the owner does not want to cover the costs that I stated above. Now, we need to factor in, that in Europe, motorcyclists use their bikes to commute and not only for leisure. Having older motorcycles is not rare, and getting the spares is usually easier, faster, cheaper.

I was parts manager for Peterson's H-D in Miami through most of the 90's. Service had a policy of refusing work on any Iron motors- the last of which was built in 1985, so then only 5-6 years old. The rationale, which I can't argue, was that many of those customers with older bikes were simply not willing (or able) to pay the dealership's shop rate, and by then they all knew the 'Warranty Time' for their bikes and often demanded that they be met- which was patently ridiculous even when the bikes were new. I questioned it until the Key West poker run crowd came through- we would change oil and tires on those bikes during that sponsored event, but no mechanical work. There were some pretty ugly conversations over it, even though there were a dozen aftermarket shops locally that would do the work, and do it well, and do it cheaper than we would have- we actually partnered with some of these shops because we were overloaded with work in those days anyway so it was better for everyone. Yet they complained. Probably didn't help that half of us rode Iron motors ourselves...

Ditto. Do my own. I have well-stocked tool and parts cases. OK, OK. My moto-techy friends do the work. My job is to supply the tools and beer. Several bring their own of both. Moto Grappa Tech Days 2024 Seriously -- tho almost all of that was -- I'd last about 30 minutes in a "retail" business of any kind before I, some asshat customer, or both of us wore orange suits. Kudos to those who can do it. Bill

Agree with all of this^ On the RE forum a couple of years ago a guy have a very new one that started running on one cylinder only. No nasty noises or vibration just dropped a cylinder. The workshop at the RE dealer couldn't figure it out so RE gave him a new bike and he still winged about it every post he could! Got the equivalent of a lottery win from the manufacturer and still winged. Anyway the point is the 650 is a basic air cooled twin, how hard can it be to diagnose a dropped cylinder? Phil

Success:

Sadly, this is very true. Even newer bikes can be a problem. I had some real doozeys when I was an official service agent in the Noughties. On more than one occasion I was threatened with physical violence by disgruntled customers who thought their bikes should be fixed for nothing after they’d done stupid shit to them. As for the folks who own 1970’s and ‘80’s Guzzis? Well they expect ‘70’s prices for parts and labour! In my last twenty years or so I just had a policy of refusing to work on any bike not built this century. That was after I had one arsehole dispute the cost for some clutch parts and a gearbox rebuild on his Eldo. While I was off dealing with another customer he went through my toolbox and stole a whole load of my Guzzi special tools! Then he had the temerity to phone me up and get shitty with me because I dobbed him in to the police! With something like a Gen 1 Hi-Cam things are much, much worse. They were never made in large numbers and were built at a time when quality control was in the toilet and many of Guzzi’s suppliers had cut them off for non payment of outstanding bills! This led to some, errrr? ‘Creative’ assembly at Mandello. As Chuck said of the Centauros of that period the only reason the factory bothered assembling them was to ensure the owner got all, or at least the majority, of the parts! Parts for them are generally very hard to get and things like belts have long been available only as NOS which means even your ‘New’ belt is probably thirty years old! Then there’s also the fact that many workshops don’t employ skilled labour and those that do have clever, qualified shop staff can basically name their price! I certainly wouldn’t buy a new Guzzi if I couldn’t service it myself and wouldn’t trust any ‘Official’ shop to do it properly. A thirty year old orphan is orders of magnitude more difficult!

No idea why I thought of this just now. I don't even like R.E.M. much. Just a weird day, I suppose.

Starting 2025 in all the right ways! I went off on a no destination morning ride. 2010 Moto Guzzi V7 Cafe Classic

Suspicious, but it could be that your pump simply lost it's prime, and you swapped filters just before it caught on. I'd cut the paper filter open and inspect the guts just to have peace of mind.