audiomick

"Vampire" power draw is not that hard. Just hang a multi-meter that can do amps between one of the battery cables and its pole. This is ok, because mult-meters that can measure current can generally (I believe...) handle around 10 amps, and anything sneaky that is draining your battery is likely to be much less than that. Measuring higher currents is a little more difficult. There are measuring devices that clip around the cable to be measured. I believe they use induction, but I don't have one so the knowledge is sketchy. I stumbled over this post a while back: It describes how to build a "shunt" which allows one to measure current by measuring the voltage drop along a piece of wire. Good for measuring high currents. As far as the grips go, if you have any documentation on them or can find any markings on them, you can calculate the current draw from the power rating, if you can find a number for it. The formula is hier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power#Definition specifically: power rating of the device / 12 volts = current draw

You are keeping track of how many amps are being drawn there, aren't you? Also, where does the speedo get the power for its internal memory for the GPS position? Pemanent 12V from the bike (in which case it will be slowly draining the battery much like a clock or the dashboard on the Breva 750 models...) or does it have a battery or condensor or something inside for that?

Thinking about that, it is probably more accurate to see it the other way around. If something obviously wont work well because of its design, I find it very difficult to see any beauty in it. Prime example: the extended forks on an extreme chopper, and the associated combination of a very skinny tyre at the front and a ridiculously wide one at the back.

The really important thing to keep in mind is that there is such a thing as bad art. Just because someone calls something art doesn't give it any intrinsic value, just a name. I can't say it isn't art, but I can say it is crap. PS: not form over function, form is important. But I find if something is cleverly designed for good function, it often also has a pleasing form.

I am reminded of a "rule" that I learned very early on at University: The question was posed "when does noise become music?", and we were taught that the correct answer is "when the composer says it is music". Perhaps I should note that the course of study was music theory with a focus on 20th. century composition. Anyway, the idea behind the "correct answer" can be applied to anything. When the creator maintains it is art, then it is art. One can express one's own opinion of the object as art, but not deny that it is art. Therefore, if someone puts a heap of bits together to make something that resembles a motorcycle and says it is art, then it is. It may very well be bad art, and equally likely a bad motorcycle, but it is art because the person who made it says it is. Christo comes to mind: very successful, very popular, but what a wank. Having said all that, I personally tend to land in the court with Phil and Pete. A motorcycle must, first and foremost, work properly. Modifications should primarily be aimed at improving the function. Generally, the form of a functional improvment is pleasing to my eye. Things like titanium fasteners and well finished machining are the final touches that make a bike beautiful and not just pretty.

Well, I hope the manufacturer of the tank bag knew that. Four screws holding the ring, and two of them in the short holes. It's one of these.... https://www.hepco-becker.de/tankring-lock-it-inkl-tankrucksackgegenhalter-fuer-moto-guzzi-scura-le-mans-ballabio-coppa-italia-cafe-sport-sport-naked-sport.html Incidentally, the kit includes spacers that put the ring high enough to clear the chin pad. That means, on mine, no chin pad, there is nearly a half an inch breezeway between the bracket and the top of the tank. When I get the lengths of the spacers and screws worked out so that it sits down close to a tank without a chin pad, I'll post it here. PS: I have absolutely no doubt that blackening bits on a Scura is the single most important thing in the entire universe.

I always think, if I'm looking at having to buy a new part, it can't hurt to try and fix the broken one. It is, after all, already broken. What can go wrong? Do keep us informed of your progress.

I'm in the process of fitting a ring on the filler cap to hold a tank bag. In the process, I've become aware that the original screws are apparently alternately long and short, i.e. 3 of them are M5 x 16 and 3 are M5 x 25. Does anyone know why? There is probably a perfectly sensible reason, but it just seems a bit weird at first glance...

Yes, I had a very similar thought whilst reading that.

Clear as mud. I still reckon they're talking about RON.

Is that still the same bike as this one?

That's very nice of it.

Would you be mad at me if I did? Chris, from my Australian point of view, Pete is light hearted and tolerant. Narrow-minded reactionary arseholes is a bit of an Australian speciality, at least in the time of my youth and in the countryside where I grew up. Going by what he writes here, Pete isn't one of them.

Can't do that here anymore. The lowest availabel is 95.

The funny thing is, the motivation for bobbers was origionally the same as for cafe racers: cut off everything that is not necessary for function to make the thing lighter and therefore faster and more agile. It's just that the "bobber style" somehow got hung up on tyres that look like they were manufactured in 1938 and various other more or less ludicrous "features".

Without the "more desireable", rather "bearable": The current retro Z900 Kawasaki is pretty enough, but I would have to change the bars immediately. The are too reminiscent of the absurd street fighter asthetic for my taste, and ergonomically pretty senseless in my opinion. The Thruxton is pretty, but I don't like parallel twin motors. Otherwise, the list is very, very short. There is a modern design Kawasaki that I would be interested to ride, the H2 SX SE. A technically interesting package that would be ideal if it had a shaft drive. Unfortunately not really pretty, but a bit less ugly than some others. In the Guzzi stable: the V7 850 is quite pretty, but I'd like one with clip-ons. The V85 TT is not my cup of tea; I don't like chook-chasers. The V100 is a lot prettier in person than in the photos, I reckon. It would be ok, although the styling is a little too "general use motorcycle" to get me excited.

That would be the same one as is required for the V11 for Guzzidiag operations. Here is a supplier: https://www.lonelec.com/product/moto-guzzi-ducati-3-pin-to-16-pin-obd-adaptor/ Here is a wiring diagramme, along with quite a lot of info about Guzzidiag and links to it and other useful stuff. The wiring diagramme for the adaptor is quite a long way down the page. https://www.von-der-salierburg.de/download/GuzziDiag/ Without knowing for sure, I reckon Guzzidiag is probably your best bet, anyway, to read out the error messages and generally have a look at what the motor management is doing. As I said, info on that page....

Yes, I've seen a couple of his films. Fascinating to watch him work. The one that particularly got me was one in which he was hand bending titanium headers. Beautiful to watch.

Well, yes, but only when it's well done. I fully agree with Pete in as much as when I (completely uneducated in vehicle design and construction) can see that some feature(s) are obviously only there because the builder thought that would look cool, I very quickly lose interest. Bandages on the exhaust headers, for instance. If, however, it seems that everything is done for a functional purpose, yes a custom can be a beautiful thing. Even if it is an antiquated motorcycle that is obviously so extremely hotted up that it cannot possibly be reliable.

I reckon some of the modern V7s are quite pretty, but not sports bikes and very much too "sit up and beg". I even test rode a V7 850 a couple of months ago to make sure. Spent the whole ride wondering how hard it would be to fit clip-ons to it. Modern sports bikes: yes, undoubtably wonderful machines. If only they didn't all look like the 8th. or 9th. edition of a transformer movie after the ideas had all run out.

Very good that man. Carry on! In fact, I'm of a similar opinion to a large degree. Spending heaps to make an old bike unreliably almost achieve the performance of a newer one is questionable. With that which is called "cafe racer" these days, as you say, what have those bikes actually got to do with those stripped down brit bikes that they are named after? Mostly nothing. The essence of a cafe racer is remove anything that is not absolutely necessary to save weight, and put some clip-ons on it because that is what race bikes have. If there is any money available, it goes in to making the bike faster, not making it prettier. Anyway.... That particular one mentioned above might really go well. As I said, if the builder really did take Peter Horvath's advice for the motor build. Here is an article from 2014 about a bike that he was looking after then. According to the article, 121 ps. . Of course they don't write anything about how long it can do that before a re-build... Although from what I've read, it seems the final drive was the weak point. His motors were apparently so strong that they ate final drives regularly.

I noticed this sentence in the text: If the bloke actually listened and acted upon Peter's advice, the bike is likely to be very good. I've not had any significant contact with Peter, having only bought a couple of bits off him a couple of months back as he was clearing out his workshop. He is, however, literally a Legend in the German speaking Guzzi world.

which reminds me, I've had the recommendation many times to always rotate the motor "forwards" in to the position at which you are going to check your adjustments. This makes sure that the play in the cam chain etc. is all taken up properly the way it is when the motor is running. Turning the motor backwards could theoretically "move the play around" or at least have things at the "wrong" side of the lash movement. Turning the motor backwards whilst doing your adjustments wont break anything, but if you have need to turn it backwards for any reason, go forwards to where you want to get to as the last movement before checking adjustments.

Ummm, no, I won't go there....

I have absolutely no doubt that they are talking about RON. The petrol pumps here in Germany have the octane value quoted in ROZ. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktanzahl#ROZ For those too lazy to translate for themselves, ROZ = RON. Italy is EU, same as Germany, and such things are regulated here at the European Parliament level. The fuel specs that Guzzi stated in the late nineties and early 2000s were certainly RON. I did some searching and found this. It seems to have something to do with a Corvette. http://www.auto-tests-service.de/Service/Technik/Allgemein/Treibstoffnormen_EU_US.html Under "3. Stellungnahme" it says Directly under that is a table showing ROZ (= RON), MOZ, and the US RON/MOZ calculation. This Workshop Manual https://guzzitek.org/gb/ma_us_uk/1100/V11_1999-2003_Atelier(Compil-GB-D-NL).pdf specifies on page 20 that the V11 should be fuelled with "premium unleaded 95". Referring back to the nice table on the Corvette site, that should be 90 in US numbers, and not that much higher than the 87 octane mentioned in the openeing post. So 87 in US numbers would likely not cause any great problems most of the time. As a comparison: my V35 Imola is supposed to get minimum 97 RON. Awkward, as that doesn't fit into the modern standard very well. The lowest number available is 95, the next one up is 98. Ocasionally one lands at a petrol station that doesn't have the 98, so occasionally the Imola has to put up with the lower grade. To be quite honest, I have never noticed a problem with that. So I could imagine that US 87 would mostly not bother a V 11.