Skeeve

In all fairness, G'wings & other full-up tourers are perfectly plush for the superslab, which is their intended environment. The vast majority of their riders do not realize that they are dangerously undersprung for anything approaching normal motorcycling maneuvers... Yes, you have been singing this tune for a long while. That 900# gorilla? Well, quite frankly, I don't claim to be a good enough rider to know when handling flaws are the bike's purview or my own lack of skill. [That's me, humble to a fault! ] so I think a lot of riders out there may just not be aware of how much better it can be. If all you've ever been fed is Purina motorcycle chow, how are you to know that there's filet mignotorcycle to be had for the asking? And the last bit is the "do I gotta?" factor, as in "if I can crank up the preload enough to make it handle kinda sorta O.K., I'll live w/ the nasty jolts going over freeway expansion joints if that means I don't have to disassemble the front end of my motorcycle to replace the cr@p stock springs..." And btw, at least one pair of ears your singing fell on isn't deaf; all I've got to do now is install the new fork springs I bought. So there!

Generally speaking, it's accepted that accuracy cannot be greater than 1/2 a division. If your divisions only go to .01" [NB: thanks, Ratchet, for reminding me about significant digits... ], then no matter how well calibrated your eyeball, the rest of the world is only going to accept your measurements to +/- .005". This is the class of fit known as "coarse," & is sufficient for blacksmiths w/ hammers, files & hacksaws to turn out relatively functional copies of AK47s on the Pakistan/Afghan border. I do not want to start a p!ssing match here, but as you just stated: the key is resolution, and a pair of calipers that has 10x the resolution of another is, to all intents & purposes, 10x more valuable (better) than the other, provided they both cover the same range of measurements, etc. So unless your needs for the caliper consist of mainly sorting nuts & bolts or other widgets to determine whether or not they belong in the SAE or metric bin, or organizing a pile of whatsits by 1/64", then please, shell out the ) Yeah, this worries me too. What is it w/ you two? Actually, I'm more likely to shell out for your Sachs w/ the stock spring, since that will give me a spare shock to mount my own Hyper (not, as yet, ordered, but gonna,gotta,gettit! ) and can then be rapidly swapped out w/ minimal loss in riding time. All of which begs the question: are the Sachs stockers rebuildable? Ah, but you'd be goofing it with fine accuracy, vs. coarse! A whole WORLD of difference, there! Well, not exactly: the measurements can generate "ballpark figures," which have comparison value, ie: accurate measurement of a "known" spring like the Hypercoil unit you have generates a calculation of say, 500# for a nominal 475# spring, and an accurate measurement of the stock spring yields a calc'd. value of 450#, so we end up with a good guess that the stock spring is around 425# nominal, with the result that we now know the factory was adjusting the suspension for their test rider, the 45kg ex-jockey Giacomo Felloffadahorsey (who preferred a soft, roly-poly kind of ride, since that was what he was used to), instead of any kind of average rider. ;-) And just so you know, I believe your measurements within their range of accuracy, which cannot be less than 1/2 the smallest division. It's just that we're in a realm where we need a higher level of accuracy than your measurement tools can provide. Think of it like the difference in visualization offered by Muybridge's trip-wire cameras vs. Edgerton's invention of the stroboscope. A world of difference, there. Trust me, you'll never regret the money you spent on a .001" (or .02mm, if your preference is for metric) -graduated dial caliper [preferably, steel, altho' I've heard the fiberglas models that have come out lately are decent enough.] I know that I haven't had a month go by since I got my first one that I haven't really wished for it for some reason or another, even when I'm in a long dryspell between puttering about on the lathe. Yes, when I need precision I reach for a micrometer, but for most occasions, my dial calipers are the measurement tool of 1st resort. Remember when you were a little boy, and first got ahold of a magnifying glass, & spent days looking at everything UP CLOSE & going around burning ants & stuff? It's like that... Ride on!

I know this is almost a year out of date now, but just for the record: you're both right. You could call it a gearbox [altho' that term is usually reserved for a case w/ selectable gears, in order to vary the ratios between input & output shafts], but it's more correctly termed "the bevel box" because it has a pair of bevel gears in order to turn the driveshaft output thru 90 degrees, as Ratchet said in reply way back when. But we all pretty much knew what you were referring to when you used "gearbox" when discussing rear wheel removal...

It sounds to me like you're into riding a kind of relaxed pace and it sounds like you've got enough tread left to last the summer. As long as the roads are dry, you should be fine, and can plan on replacing the tires in the fall [or if you put the bike in storage for the winter, next spring before riding season begins.] It kinda depends on how many miles you rack up; I doubt very much that you have more than another 1-2k miles left in that rear, so if you expect to put on much more than 1k this summer, you'd do well to plan on replacing it during the riding season. And if you're going to replace the rear, you might as well get a matching front at the same time, so you'll have fresh rubber all 'round..

(emphasis added) Now that's just mean! (to quote James Coburn*, & using the original meaning of the word in English, ie: poor or stingy.) & that's just pitiful... Talk about bean counter engineering! How bad off does the factory have to be to choose inadequate components in order to literally save pennies! Unless Guzzi's accounting department ordered a lifetime supply of springs just once, there's no way they could have saved enough money to make a significant difference to the balance sheet**, & the cost difference of 5mm vs. 4.5mm wire to the spring manufacturer is probably only noticeable in ton lots! These things are even wimpier than the springs from my SV, which aren't suited to anyone over 70kg, and are fitted to a bike that's already at least 35kg lighter than the lightest v11 variant at that! This should be added to a "New v11 Owner's FAQ" or something: "The fork springs need replacement with new ones at least 20% heavier than stock if the bike is new & you're an average human male. The previous owner would have told you he already did this if he'd known about it. Go out today, not tomorrow, not next week, today & order some replacements. Best $100 you can spend on your Goose..." * - Payback, in response to Mel Gibson's character shooting his luggage... ** - Due to Moto Guzzi's "boutique manufacturer" small production runs in the late 90s & early '0s.*** *** - Nice to see this changing, since under Piaggio's stewardship!

What the heck good is a plastic caliper that only measures to .010 good for? Making sure you've got the right sized fuse for your magnetic mine? No offense, but you can buy a 6" dial caliper that reads to the thou' for $15 at Harbor Freight; if that's too much, you can get an old-school machinist's vernier caliper for $12 from Enco & others. Why on earth are you bothering w/ that stupid plastic piece of... um, polymer - for? Thanks. I can't take credit for it; it was part of the OP in the KLR forum where the link to a spring calc. formula turned up when I first went looking... Yes, material makes a difference: that's why the spring calc formulas we're using all explicitly state "for use w/ steel springs only." Phosphor bronze, titanium, carbon-fiber: these all have different Young's Modulus values, & hence, yield different formulae. Apparently, due to the physics [don't ask me, I only work here], steel is steel is steel when it comes to making a spring: different steels may fracture of fail sooner, & others may sag or slacken in longer or shorter periods, but it's all same same wrt poundage ratings (resistance to deformation), all else being equal. Yes, I read that too. I don't think the thickness of the protective coating is likely to have noticeable f/x when you're talking about springs in the 100s of #/in category [except in measuring them as we're now doing], but the fact that powdercoating provides a more flexible, contiguous, weather resistant protective layer than paint is certainly worthy of note: by possessing greater flexibility than true paint, powdercoating is less likely to develop points of failure [rust] down the road, which would weaken the spring & ultimately lead to material failure of the spring [cracking.] But suspension springs were probably one of the first widespread uses of powdercoating, since they're small enough to fit in an oven & would benefit greatly from the superior weatherproofing P/C has to offer... Ride on!

Several persons have posted their experience of Corbin seats, all of it bad, iirc. Rich Maund has a thread "stickied" to the top of either the 24/7 or Tech forums, I forget which. Nobody seems to have anything other than great things to say about his work... and his prices aren't unreasonable. Check it out!

Back to the Ramtops wi' that treasonous talk of inconspicuous consumption, or I'll set the wee free men on ye! Regards, Rincewind

That bites. Here, let me rub salt in that wound for you: I work in Irvine & would have been happy to "will call" it for you & then meet you in San Clemente or Oceanside or something to hand it off. There, does that sting any less now? I hate it when companies use their shipping dept. as a profit ctr...

This is undoubtedly out of whack for the rear spring. You'll notice how close the computation for the bare metal springs from the forks are vs. the "high" reading for the rear spring. What you overlooked is that the "wire dia." you measured includes paint, which has (for our purposes) a Young's Modulus of zero, & hence, adds nothing to the poundage of the spring. Figure the paint on the rear shock spring is pretty thick, maybe .005-.010", which is doubled for the reading of the wire diameter. For those who have a spring of "known" poundage, ie - Hypercoil purchased aftermarket, it should be easy to establish a rough guide for how thick the paint layer is, which factor can then be applied as a rough estimate to find the stock spring rate. Also, the words "plastic caliper" fill me w/ skepticism when we're discussing measurements in which .005" variations can have significant f/x due to the 3rd & 4th powers values are raised to in the course of computation.

Looks great, but the one drawback is that huggers, by their very nature, tend to get covered w/ road gunk. Ergo, by making it eye-catching, you've also sentenced yourself to more time keeping the bike clean. Does look extremely spiff, tho'!

Don't think it's a matter of "poor quality," more a matter of "incomplete." Seems to me that a strap of stainless can be welded to it for the mounting bracket [as detailed elsewhere] and then the whole lot can be sent to Jet-Hot for ceramic coating for not too much more than the Stucchi would cost right now, w/ the dollar trading so low against the Euro. Until the economic winds of change blow the other way, such homegrown solutions may have to become more common! Ride on,

Well, there's really only two pieces of data missing, which is the number of free coils[1] and c-c dia. of the coils[2]. The nifty html spring rate calculator is on Guzzitech, here. Using it, I was able to determine that the spring rate of my stock SuziQ SV650 springs was 39#/in, which compares favorably w/ the empirical guesstimates of 40#/in. [This works out to .7kg/mm, which also compares favorably w/ reports by various suspension-fixing companies that the SV comes w/ .70kg springs & needs about .85kg springs for someone of my wt.] What's so nifty about the spring rate calculator at the link above is that you can easily compute how many coils you would need to cut off to reach your target poundage by trial & error. Then all you have to do is determine the minimum number of free coils you'll need to prevent spring bind by dividing the fork travel you'll need[3] by the intercoil distance, ie: 6" divided by .280" = 21.4 coils. My SV springs have 26 (exactly), so I can only cut off 4 coils [allowing for some added slop to mash down the spring end & grid it flat] This would raise the spring rate to 48# - a 23% increase! In reality, the SV has less than 6" of fork travel; I forget how much right now, but it's closer to 5 or maybe 5.5", which would give a little more room for spring length reduction w/ an according increase in resistance. From the free length of the stock Marzocchi springs you list above, there's not enough there to make any substantial reductions [my SV springs are about 12.5" long, which works out to about 1.75 coils removed before they're even as short as the Marz's. That's a substantial portion of the available reduction. Ouch.] So what good would the Marz springs be if you can't cut them down enough? Well, you can always keep them for another, lighter bike [much as I replaced the SV's springs w/ the stock springs from a heavier, also undersprung bike that another owner had upgraded.] Or you could use them to make your own progressives[4] by cutting them to the spacer length. Or, take up amateur blacksmithing & use'em for quality steel scrap & forge your own water blade out of'em... In my case, I should have enough combined spring material from the Guzzi & SV springs to make an interesting pair of progressives. IIRC, the Showa's 41mm OD stanchion is the same as the Marzocchi's, despite their difference in design [standard vs. upside-down] so the spring ODs should be roughly identical. We'll see... Ride on! [1] - This includes fractions of a coil. Best way to count'em is to start where the spring takes off from the flattened end coil & count coils to the far end minus the flattened end coil, plus any portion (rounded to the nearest 1/8th coil is fine for our purposes) to where the flattened end coil meets the full dimension spring wire. [2] - Center-to-center dimension is most easily determined by taking the outside diameter & subtracting one spring wire diameter. IE - OD of the spring being 1.350" and the spring wire being .185"dia, you end up with a c-c coil dia. of 1.165". Sorry 'bout the SAE units, but the html calculator at the link above is for us Yanks, who still resist the whole metric system idea, despite its official adoption by our country...after more than a century and a half! [3] - This is = to the entire range of travel of the fork, not just the remaining travel when at rest. Best to use the official suspension numbers of (for instance) 6.5", not just the 4.25" of actual travel you can measure when holding the front brake & bottoming the forks by bouncing... [4] - The reality being that most progressive springs are just wound at 2 rates, not a continuously variable one. As the two sections compress at their combined rate, the shorter, closer wound section coil binds and the spring rate undergoes a rapid rise. That's all the "progression" most people need: softer for the initial hit, stronger to prevent hard bottoming.

So you can keep the oil level low & away from the crank w/o risking the oil pickup sucking air [ie: "Roper plates need not apply..."]

Looking sharp! Test rode one at the Vespa of Newport Beach dealer recently [last day of the "free mp3 player" promo] & really liked it. 2 reservations I had about it [besides the obvious one, price ]: sucky power/wt ratio [480#/220kg dry wt: it weighs as much as a Guzzi!] w/ the 250cc engine (I shudder to think about the 125cc model sold in Europe) and the incredibly poor choice on Piaggio's part to go w/ different sized rear wheel from fronts (one of the best points of the original Vespa was the interchangeability of wheels...) I'm waiting for the 400cc MP3 to be brought over, or better yet, the 500cc Gilera Fuoco before dropping my ducats for one, altho' I do think it will make a great commuter, but the 250 just doesn't seem up to the task of keeping up w/ the 80mph avg. fwy speed out here in CA. But the excellent feature set combined w/ the frugality [60mpg] and advantages from the dual fronts on wet or loose roads strikes me as the way to go for riding year round. I'll be riding the Can-Am Spyder next month, & while I suspect that the Rotax mill [same as the Aprilia Tuono/Falco/etc] will make it just a tad more responsive than the MP3, the non-leaning nature of it and the $15k+ expected price tag will almost certainly prevent me from buying in. I think Piaggio has a great product in the MP3, and as soon as they bring the 400 over, I'm thinking they'll really take off, stateside! Ride on! PS: This chassis really cries out for release under the Moto Guzzi nameplate w/ an updated Bicilindrica 120deg v-twin under the seat! What you give up in storage would be regained in performance and exclusivity! Make it a real "halo" product...

Just looking at some pics of the new Gilera Fuoco [500cc, "Hummer" styled version of the Piaggio MP3] & realized: I have no idea how to say "Gilera!" I know it isn't the "j" sound, which requires the double g's, like in the parent company's name. But is it an aspirated "h" sound, like in Spanish, or a hard g like in the fish "gills" or what? I've always read it like "hilera," but that's just my high school Spanish classes coming back to haunt me... TIA

Do bicycle gooseneck wedges come in a size to fit the ID of 7/8" OD standard handlebar tubing? Seems that they might be a cheaper effective solution than special "motorcycle wedgies." Every bar end held on w/ rubber squidgies eventually works loose, IME. Metal wedges would seem to be the solution.

Yeahbut... Thermal conductivity is closely allied to electrical conductivity, so the copper anti-sieze [nickel A/S also would work, but w/ necessarily decreased electrical/thermal conduction] should remain a better choice than dielectric grease, not to mention the heat factor, which is where A/S goop comes into play anyway. Clearly, the grounding issue is irrelevant if the brass standoff is the preferred replacement as seen above [& in other threads here on v11LM.com...] For the simple fact that the plastic standoff will inevitably become embrittled from the heat & fail when attempting removal at some future date, besides not functioning as well as the brass part, seems to indicate that this part is a part of the "early retirement program" for any Guzzichondriac, along w/ the stock relays & the dipstick markings... Ride on!

Well, thank you for all the kind words, Ratch'! Altho' to be honest, I think anyone who just happened to be fiddling w/ their new Guzzi & realized that A] the seat could be popped off just by whapping it hard enough 'cause the latch spring was too weak & B] the fast idle control snapped back as soon as your finger came off 'cause the spring was too stiff might have been able to put A&B together & get Q... er, "C." Sometimes, you've just got to make room for serendipidity! Compared to some of the other priceless info I've gleaned from v11LM, my own small contribution is relatively minor. But it's sure nice to get such effulsive recognition for it & be placed among some of the other giants on v11LM like Pete Roper, Greg Field & Carl Allison, & yes, even you. Thanks! Ride on, Dang! I got you & Ratchethack to agree on something! That's even bigger than the swapping springs trick! Thanks for the kudos! Coming from someone I feel is far more mechanically knowledgable than myself, its a serious ego booster! Ahh, my head is so inflated right now, I might float away if I went outside... See ya, I'm outta here to go celebrate my friend's graduation [interesting coincidence that it fell on Drinko de Mayo , don't you think? ] Ride safe,

Go to a Harley shop; they'll have all manner of chrome polishes there, including some specifically for removing the blue oxide [CrO5?] from exhaust pipes. Ask'em for a discount: now that Harley has gone to double-wall pipes on all their bikes, the shops should be having a hard time moving that stuff...

Just a suggestion: you might want to edit your post & add the eBay auction# to it: I don't know about anyone else, but I'm too lazy to actually search "Moto Guzzi" & then list things from highest to lowest & do all that scrolling... Happy you're happy w/ your new bike, sorry to lose one from the Guzzi fold!

Just out of curiosity: unless the speedo goes bad [so you're left using the tach & knowledge of gears, ie, "5(k-rpm)x5(th gear) @ 55(mph)" for my old XSEleven Yamaha to judge speed (the speedo worked but was unreadable @ night on that bike)], what do we need a tach for anyway? The ECU has a built in rev limiter, doesn't it? Rev it til it bangs off the ceiling, shift, repeat... of course, if you're into that sort of thing, you're better served w/ riding a J-brand hyperbike anyway!

Add another vote for the Metz Z6 (aka Pirelli Dragon Strada); simply great tires, far, far, FAR superior to the MEZ4s that came stock on my SV650 Scarlett ["commuterbike"]. Haven't had a chance to try them on Cygne yet, since the stock BT020s aren't worn enough to bother. Best mileage wear from a rear tire on Scarlett yet was 8k miles, the Z6. Best handling wet or dry: Z6. Haven't had to replace the front yet; it looks to go 12k mi at present rate of wear [commuter miles, so the sides, where fronts wear most, get minimal wear vs. serious scratching duty...] In comparison: the Z4s never liked even slight amounts of dampness, nor did they inspire confidence when traversing paint lines in the street [when did CalTrans stop putting ground glass in the lane line paint to keep traction safe?] Next best tire after the Z6 were the Conti Sports [replaced by their "Road Attack" model] - excellent all-rounder, but not quite up to the Z6 performance. Good budget alternative, tho', since they run [ran?] about 2/3 the price of the Z6s... The Avon Azaro? AV46 [old stock closeout] I just slapped on the rear hasn't given any good feedback yet, but then the parting compound is so embedded that I haven't even worn it off except for the center 2 inches! Once I get the sides scraped in more and down to fresher rubber, I'll be able to say whether it's worth consideration as more than a commuter tire. Of course, living here in So.Cal., I don't get much in the way of rain to test hydroplaning issues, but the "wet grip" is actually well-tested here, since when we do get rain, it's usually not enough to wash away all the road-slickening spooge that accumulates during the long intervals between gully-swampers. That means the roads get good & slick, really treacherous, and a supreme test of how well a tire grips [or rather, recovers traction once it's let go, since that's what's usually happening here when riding in the rain... ]

Has anyone else had a vision of a spring-bail like on old Beetle valve-covers as an end-all solution to this filter-loosening nonsense? Screw it down until you can get the divot in the end of the filter reasonably lined up, flip the bail over it, & no leaks, no loosening, no worries. If life were only that simple..

The front x-over was added to resolve the hole in the powerband 4k-5k rpm. For Guzzi, this was much easier to do than to redesign the exhaust & recertify w/ various govt. certifications, since none of the existing muffler/cat-con system would be affected by the addition of a front x-over. The Stucchi x-over replaces the factory 'pre-muffler' and resolves the flat spot by utilizing a more elegant engineering solution. It also reduces some wt. vs. the factory exhaust w/ front x-over & pre-muffler. The Stucchi 2->1->2 style x-over is a wonderful solution that fits within a predetermined space, but I suspect even they wish they could have done it differently: way too many direction changes going on there for the exhaust to be happy about it! I think Guzzi got smart when they built in a better 2->1 pipe when they were designing the Griso... In my own private Idaho, I'd have the equivalent to an EXUP-valve in place of the factory pre-muffler, and some sort of variable intake-horn on the throttle bodies : the Guzzi mill needs all the help it can get w/ the high-rpm breathing, but we all love it for it's grunt: this way, you'd get to have and eat your cake too! So, if I designed one of these, how many would want one? Even if it meant it was as heavy [or even heavier] than the stock system? Not as sexy as Ti/Carbon Fibre/Alloy cans, is it? Sic transit gloria mundania...