audiomick

I can relate to that. Mine wasn't even in the dark. The last time I was in Australia I had a Falcon ute to drive around in. (2016, it was. The ute actually belonged to my father, but lived at my sister's place. Anyway...). I was heading for Beechworth, where my mother lives, from Wodonga. On the way, I decided to detour from the main road into the bush a bit. Dirt road, but good. No worries in the ute, it can deal with it. I'm tooling along at a fairly relaxed speed enjoying the bush, and all of a sudden there were 4 roos RIGHT THERE !!!. They came from the right at an angle, about 4 o'clock. I didn't see them until they were right in front of me. They would have been Eastern Grey Kangaroos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_grey_kangaroo , and they just blend into the bush background perfectly. I didn't see them coming, and lost them very quickly after they headed back into the bush. I fairly shi was quite shocked by the experience.

I think a forum is a bit old fashioned. You need old farts to keep one running. In the context of the V7, the old farts that have them are already in established Guzzi forums and just continue there with the V7. The one I'm on in Germany has it's own subsection for the V7 models, and there is regular activity there. The young folk that get a V7 go to facebook and what have you, or just stick with Moto Guzzi's Clan. Forums are too "old school" for hipsters, although they take great pains to affect an old-school style. I think I'm getting nasty and cynical in my old age....

Very nice. Did you do it yourself?

I wouldn't have called it "club" racing, as it is organised by Guzzi directly, but there is this: https://www.motoguzzi.com/en_EN/fast-endurance/ I'm not aware of a dedicated V7 forum.

Yeah, I'd have it for that if it wasn't so far away from me.

Yes, indeed. A mate of mine collected one (or it might have been "only" a wallaby) somewhere out near Kinglake years ago. The thing landed on his front wheel. He was lucky: scratched up the bike and broke his collar-bone. Could have been lots worse. @docc : the comparison with deer is appropriate in another sense as well: deer come bounding out of the bush, the don't just wander on to the road with four feet on the ground (at least the little ones here do...). Kangaroos are even better: they come out of the trees about a meter in the air and hit the ground in the middle of the road. It can be a little difficult to see them coming... But, as Guzzler has already mentioned, they are indeed grill-compatible.

Incidentally (or perhaps additionally...) I reckon the difficulty with the white faced Marlin's instruments in p6x's photos is less the size than the fact the they are white faced, and the speedo and tacho are black faced. There is a "mental switch" involved in looking from one to the other that slows down the "quick glance". Regardless of aesthetics, I would keep all the clocks in the same schema, i.e. all white-faced or all black-faced.

Wow, that's a lot of dead 'roos. I don't reckon I can remeber ever having seen one on the Hume, or maybe one or perhaps two. And wombats too. On the one hand it is good that the native wildlife is apparently flourishing. On the other, it would be better if they didn't flourish on the freeway. Regarding this: indeed it is. My benchmark is being able to read the clocks at about 150 km/h on an Autobahn with a bit of traffic on it. That really does have to be "at a glance", even in a car.

Hmmm, I reckon that is an eminently debatable question. An analogue clock, for instance, with clearly differentiated hands, is very easy to read. An analogue temperature gauge, as long as the quick glance is only to see if you are in the "normal" range and not the precise temperature, is also very easy to read. If I remember rightly, the one in the Monaro didn't even have numbers on it, just a blue end and a red end.

"Alles richtig gemacht" is a saying here. Literally: "Everything right made", and so that it makes sense: "Goodonya, mate, ya done well". PS: I think it must be "Vyrus", without the "e". Brian Snelson from Hockley, Essex, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyrus

That bloke is a true artist.

Yes, just like that.

Now that we are all grown up and have become responsible, we know that this is not really true, don't we (Dorothy...)? But I used to be pretty good at this when I had one of those bikes

Yeah, looks to be the same principle. Look here on the second half of the page under "product specifications": https://www.stahlbus.de/lng/en/bleeding-system/bleeder-valve/conical-sealing-standardtype/stahlbus-bleeder-valve-m6x10x135mm-steel-1335.html The mechanic I go to when needs must be uses a bit of hose with an inline one-way valve in it. No idea where he got the valve from, but with that he effectively has the same principle as the speed bleeder / stahlbus system in a version that he can stick on whatever bike he is currently working on. I've watched him using it, and it seems to work very well.

good burnouts are important.

Who makes them? Are they like these? https://www.stahlbus.de/lng/en/bleeding-system/bleeder-valve/?language=en

I'm sure you can. It wouldn't stay there long, though. Those tiny little molecules are accomplished escape artists.

That is what I was expecting, i.e. I expected to see grease come out of the join between the two parts of the shaft as an indication that there was enough grease in there. From my very reliable source I have been informed that (a) normally, excess grease does indeed come out past the O-ring, and (b) when one is greasing the spline with a grease gun and grease comes out of the join, that is already too much. According to my source, one or two pumps of the grease gun is enough. When I think about it, he's right. There is not much space in there. During the course of my experimentation, I pumped some grease into the dismantled end of the other shaft that I have. Two pumps put in enough to, I reckon, more than fill the available space. It might even be one of those fabled "less is more" situations.

That's done. I was pleased to discover, after having seen some unsettling pictures here, that that bolt on mine looks good as new, and was well greased as if someone had at some point actually done some maintainance on the bike. As far as the pivots on the shock go, as mentioned, I'll be getting another go at them.

Thanks for the tip.

I've been thinking about that. Would it be really tragic if that end of the shaft wasn't air-tight? Phil wrote that the bung in the end is just a plate staked into place. I dare say that isn't really air-tight even when it is new. I'll be taking mine out again to have a close look at it, but I'm inclined to think that if I don't rely on the grease nipple to lubricate, i.e. take it off every year or two and grease it dismantled on the bench, then it shouldn't really matter too much if that bung doesn't seal 100%. Or am I overlooking something?

The name has been around for a while... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_brake