jchayes

This is so damned irritating. Took it off to replace the fuel pump and it's been off for three months 'cause it's grown so much I can't even force it back on. I can force the mounting bolt in, but even then the rear is so far back that I can only get one of the two bolts for the rear cowl in. Don't wanna shave anything off or move the pucks. The left side has grown more than the right. Since I got it, it has only had 5 things in it: Shell V-Power, VP or Chevron, Sta-Bil Performance 360, Marvel Mystery Oil. Grrrrr... Revival, or pretty much any custom builder can build a replacement but $$$$$$$ Your help is appreciated.

Anyone have any recent experience with having a tank made, particularly one made to duplicate the OEM tank? Have I mentioned just how much I hate plastic fuel tanks? Mine is growing. Must've put something in it it didn't like. Probably gonna crack soon...

Thanks

G'day gents. One quick question: ignition switch "on," bike ready to start, should the generator light be "on" or "off?" (Early '02 LeMans, stock wiring - new factory wiring harnesses, light does work, oil pressure and neutral lights are "on") Thanks

Fluid Film. That's the stuff from Eureka Chemical. The Rust Store is a reliable supplier. Been buying from them for years. Great stuff, Fluid Film. One word of caution: it can soften some adhesives and has a funky, sorta "minty" odor some folks don't like.

Depends on whether your bike has an O2 sensor in the exhaust... The oxygen sensor in the exhaust tells the ECU how much unburned oxygen there is in the exhaust and the ECU uses that feedback to vary the amount of time the injectors stay open, i.e., adjust air/fuel ratio for optimal combustion. If the fuel pressure is high or low the ECU knows it and is able to compensate, within limits. With no O2 sensor air/fuel ratio depends entirely on the regulator. (Assuming everything else is working as it should.) Fuel pressure too high, bike runs rich. Fuel pressure too low, bike runs lean. Just that simple.

Yeah, that ain't a "breather," that's the oil return line from the crankcase blow-by oil/vapor separator.

Hey footgoose, Lee Parks has a good primer in his book "Total Control" as does Nick Ienatsch in "Sport Riding Techniques." And ROX: when you bolted down that 4-piston caliper you also upgraded the master cylinder, right?

You nailed it - the gearbox and final drive case are a different paint: Did the final drive and reaction arm yesterday. The paint on the final drive case is clearly different from the paint on the reaction arm and its mounting bracket. Separated the bracket from the final drive case, applied Crown Tuff-Strip, waited 15 minutes (almost) and 99.9% of the paint came off in sheets leaving clean, pristine, virgin metal behind. The remaining .1% came off with a little fingernail scraping. Same with the reaction arm. The final drive case? What a mess. Same stripper, same time, different result. The paint didn't come off. Turned into sticky black goo that had to be wiped off, not scraped. With difficulty. In small sections. Try to do too large an area and the stuff hardened before I could get it all off. More stripper. More wiping. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum. Got into the recesses with Q-Tips. Took 4 or 5 passes to get it all. Took 3 hours but I got it clean and it's gorgeous. Started on the engine today. Crown Tuff-Strip takes the paint off in sheets, like skin off BBQ chicken, leaving clean metal. A test on the gearbox showed that it's painted with the same crud that was on the final drive case. I may strip just the engine... Wonder what Tuff-Strip would do to wheels.

Hey Jet, that little plug, does it have some kind of diaphragm in it so that air can come in but not water as brake pads wear and the fluid level drops?

What brake fluid are you using? Brake fluid boils 'cause it's being overheated (duh) but different fluids have different boiling points. Auto Zone Dot 3 saturated with water will boil at less than 300 degrees. Might wanna switch to new Wilwood or Motul RBF. Both boil at over 650 degrees. Drain. Flush. Refill. Ride.

Peeling that fugly @#$*&%# black wrinkle paint off my beautiful big block. And wondering why Crown Tuff-Strip removes the paint from the engine in sheets that peel off cleanly but the paint on the gearbox morphs into black gel that sticks like tar.

According to my bible/Moto Guzzi shop manual, this bike originally had a pile of spaghetti and two meatballs on it somewhere - no mention of a can. Not that it matters. I don't know, those parts and a bunch of other things are off in a ditch somewhere, may they rest in peace. Sounds like no one is impressed by Guzzi's work in this area so I'll plumb my own. Seriously, how difficult can it be? I have a good example, the vapor recovery system on my V7 Racer is almost invisible - no "box hanging off some random exhaust bracket." Yuck... The info about fuel vapor loss came from an article about simple, easy methods of improving your car's fuel economy, probably in Popular Mechanics magazine back in the late '60s or '70s. The actual details came from Dr. John Clarke at Southwest Research Institute. Electric fuel pumps are cooled and lubricated by fuel. The internal ones circulate the fuel in the tank. The external ones circulate fuel through themselves and out to the loop that feeds the EFI. Most car manufacturers caution owners to not run the tank dry - the pump can be damaged by heat if it doesn't have enough fuel to cool itself. Most of the designs for EFI systems run the pump constantly, cooled by the fuel passing through it, circulating fuel through the loop that feeds the injectors/rail with the pressure maintained constant by the regulator. Start/stop pumps used with carburetors are not able to maintain the constant pressure EFI needs. Constant-run pumps need to be cooled and they use fuel to do it. Not necessarily a bad thing since warm fuel vaporizes easier. Scud, you're not kidding, they are wonderful bikes and my new old one is shaping up nicely! There's a real gem hidden under all that crud.

Fuel + heat + agitation = accelerated evaporation. Never ceases to amaze me the number of people who rip out "all that EPA junk" never realizing that without it you lose a pint or so of fuel for every hundred miles you ride on a hot day. Fuel that you could/should be burning. You realize that there's a heater in your gas tank, right? Your fuel pump is cooled by the fuel it constantly circulates. Got a fuel pump inside the tank? Make sure you don't use that last gallon - you need it to make sure that your fuel pump has enough coolant. Same thing happened when people ripped out PVC systems and then couldn't figure out why their engines didn't go as far between valve jobs as engines with the PVC system intact. Oil vapor in the intake = valve lubrication. As for what's on the bike, uh, at least one of the previous owners has no business working on motorcycles. Seriously. Right now I'm tearing the bike down and rebuilding a section at a time, fixing the problems, cleaning, restoring, etc., and some of the stuff I'm finding is just flat stoopid. Final drive held in by bolts that were just finger tight. Fuel tank vent nipple with nothing on it - shake the bike with a full tank and fuel would drip on the hot engine. Or did until I found it. A bunch of plumbing was pulled out but almost nothing was plugged. Lots of naked nipples. I don't wanna talk about the wiring except to say that there's an "M-unit" in the near future... Thanks for your offer, Gio, but I think I'll rig up my own. A V7 canister or two, a proper anti-tip valve and a little hard line. Plenty of room now that Luigi's "La Stranglotta" airbox is gone...

Still ain't got not pictures of the factory installed sausages, sauce or no sauce...

Yeah... No, that looks nothing like the diagram in my MG service manuals. The one in my service manual is year and model specific and where Harper's generic diagram shows one box-like canister mine shows 2 cylinders that seem to mount somewhere under the gas tank with a bunch of spaghetti thrown in for good measure. Still no idea what that second nipple is for.

Hello everyone, I recently became the proud 3rd owner of a bouncing baby '02 LeMans. Woo-hoo! Okay, okay, it's a bratty 14-year-old... I am tearing the bike down, starting a "restomod," and am encountering a bunch of problems created by previous owners. Some things I knew about when I saved it but I've found a bunch of stuff under the tank, or rather there's a bunch of stuff that I should have found under the tank and didn't. Like the entire evaporative emissions system. It's not there. Just one hose from one of the vents that runs down the back of the transmission. When I open the door to my shop I like the pungent perfume of raw gas as much as the next guy but, let's face it, that's wasted gas. My service manuals detail all the parts and plumbing needed to restore that system but they have no info about where those parts actually go on the bike. Anyone have any pics that show what the stuff under the tank should look like on a properly maintained bike? Oh, by the way, external fuel pump... Thanks

Just got a cd I found on eBay - $15 - from someone in Waterloo, Ontario. It has copies of several different service manuals, owners manuals, accessories catalog, bunch of stuff. Well worth the money. None of 'em cover the LeMans, though, just the Sport but the only real difference is that you won't find any mention of the front fairing. Do a search on eBay for "Guzzi V11 service manual." Also bought a printed 2000 service manual from some guy in New Zealand. $35 plus $32 shipping - it arrived in only 4 days. New Zealand to Texas in 4 days. It also has nothing on the fairing and nothing about the "fuel pump in the tank" bikes. Same search on eBay.