Nihontochicken

Of the scooters shown in the video, the Kwacker 650 comes the closest, a bit down on power and somewhat porky, but less weight than most of the others. Is 75hp and 375 pounds too much to ask for? Retro styling aside, I think the KTM Duke 390 comes the closest, anemic but flickable.

Nope, nope, nope. As has been MG's pattern since the V11, the styling is once again a miss. Not as gawdawful as some intervening whiffs, but still no cigar. Gee, if they had only put the funny looking side exhaust engine in V11 replica bodywork, it might have been somewhat a winner. Then again, once forced into water cooling, the reason for the 90 degree transverse V-twin configuration goes out the window. The more compact longitudinal V-twin with chain rear drive makes more sense with water cooling. There was a Moto Guzzi before the transverse V, there could be one thereafter as well. Maintaining the now outdated transverse configuration for nostalga sake is a failure to successfully meet the future. JMHO, YMMV.

It won't be long now before the only one left will belong to Dr. Who.

Okay, I had the similar idea yesterday to try to pressurize the oil light switch, and so today I jury rigged a tire hand pump to the fitting with duct tape (what else?) and hose clamps. With the ignition on and the oil pressure fitting out, no lit low OP light. With an electrical lead from the OP lead to ground, the light comes on, so the circuitry outside of the OP switch appears to be working okay. There was some leakage with the test set up, so no constant pressure reading was possible, but I think I could get up to a transient maybe 20 psi. Whatever, with the ignition on and the switch connected, the OP light went out when I pushed on the hand pump at about 10 psi or thereabouts. So the switch appears to be working, and the malady lurks somewhere else. I was hoping to avoid removing the inside oil sump shell, but that looks to be the next move after I remove the oil filter to check for a missing or double gasket. First I need to devise some way of keeping the scooter upright after removing the side stand. Sigh.

Having dealt with Japanese bikes for decades, I have a pretty wide assortment of the typical socket and wrench sizes, most used being 8 (Yamaha dirt bike weirdness), 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, 22 and 24 mm. That said, I also have all the in-between sizes up to the 19, just in case. So what did I find today that I needed for my V11? A 21 mm deep socket! What for? The oil pressure sensor. Shee-yit. Luckily I also have an assortment of inch pattern tools, including a 7/8 inch deep socket that, though fitting loosely, was "close enough". (Note: Please see the follow up to my original post on my oil pressure light problem., thanks!)

Okay, after a decent amount of procrastination, I finally removed the oil pressure sensor. A 21mm hex??? Must be Italian. Of course, after I had unscrewed the sensor, it fell out of the socket as I was removing it and lodged itself where I couldn't see it. So I back the scooter out of the garage into the bright sunlight and grab the high intensity flashlight. I find that it wedged itself into a little form fitting nook between the lower cylinder fin and the crankcase. Talk about tight. I didn't shred my hand all that badly in fishing it out, just some bruises, no blood. I count that as a win. So is there something I can do to determine whether the sensor is good or not? The lower sump cover is still off, so I would need to backtrack to check or measure oil pressure at the sensor hole. TIA for goodly advice.

Wow, it sounds and smokes like a two stroke! I'm in as soon as someone loans me $116k. Any takers?

Too much cycle porn all at once! BTW, who is that Ago guy?

Pretty bland, uninspiring. Looks like an econo 500 of decades past. I'm afraid that compared to the V11, the best this new scooter can do is Miss Congeniality. (Note: Second try, first one disappeared into the ether, wonder if it will show up sometime.)

Neat. Some old gals don't lose their beauty. Now why can't new V7s and V9s look this good?

Once Guzzi goes to from air to liquid cooling, there is no need anymore to have the jugs sticking out in the breeze. At this point, the Ducati model of a longitudinal V-twin becomes much more useful in compacting and consolidating mass. Too bad, really, but MG had decades to perfect the transverse, air-cooled V-twin after the V11 and booted it. The liquid-cooled MG will be the last, feeble gasp of the marque, alas. JMHO, YMMV.

I had one of those, unfortunately, about a '93 750 IIRC. A big flat spot in the carburation at about one-quarter throttle, impossible to bypass no matter how nimble the wrist. It was reported in the press before I bought the bike, but I naively thought I could deal with it, and the new 900SS I was waiting for turned out to be too ugly to contemplate. The 16 inch wheels were no blessing as well. I sold it along with half a dozen Duc singles (mostly desmos, sniff) to a Ducati freak and bought a GSXR750 myself, fifty pounds heavier, but it carbureted smoothly and didn't want to headshake over bumps or flop over at walking speeds. Only downside was that it redlined at 13,500 rpm and didn't want to make really serious HP until near five figures, though it would happily putt around downtown at only a few thousand rpm.

Since I've gotten this scooter, there have been no rocket launches or long rides up steep mountains, so, despite no Roper plate, I doubt there is damage resulting from oil shifting in the sump. I just went by the local O'Reilly and picked up a Wix 51215 oil filter, fitting cap wrench, and strap wrench just in case to remove the apparent OEM unit. If the currently installed filter gasket checks out okay, I'm thinking of bolting the pan back up, refilling the oil, pulling the pressure switch, and turning the engine over again just to be sure there is no oil pressure and the switch is operative before pulling the sump middle section to check the gaskets there. Any yays or nays? Note that as I advance in my "golden years", the following equation seems to hold true: (Time left before check out)/(Desire to throw a wrench) = Constant

Third pic is the residual oil in the drain pan, only discoloration is apparently some condensation water (bike was only run 2-3 miles before stopping on its last run).

Okay, got the pan off. I left the rear oil fitting on as I couldn't get enough swing to loosen the inside nut, the far end of my 19mm wrench was hitting the cement. Pics below. The oil filter is still in place and apparently screwed in tight. Also a shot of the oil pan with residual oil. Can anyone identify the filter, or more to the point, name the correct cap wrench to fit it? I wiped off a lot of the outside oil to see whether I could get a good hand grip on the filter to assess its tightness and unfortunately seemed to wipe away a lot of the print. It is on reasonably tight, so next to check out if it has a double gasket problem. If not, I guess it's on to assess the oil pump? Note the black scunge pictured above was only a small blob that I wiped off the drain plug magnet, the bulk oil doesn't look all that bad (see pics below). Then again, I'm used to my Yamaha WR250F in which the drained oil came out pitch black after only 300 miles of trail riding every time, though a lot of it was likely due to the aluminum clutch plates. The engine had 6k hard trail miles on it when I sold it on and it never needed a valve adjustment. Do V11s run on the other end of the oil color spectrum?