Greg Field

After trying everything from bicycle pumps to electric pumps to CO2, here's the tire kit I found to be the best and handiest for use on a Guzzi. It's got an engine pump, patches for tubes, plugs for tubeless tires, and the tools to insert the plugs. It all fits in a handy little bag that stows under the seat of my V11 or in the saddlebag of the Eldo. You could even shove it in a jacket pocket. It takes up 1/4 the room of the smallest electrical pump and weighs less than half. You can't ever run out of cartridges, though you can run out of plugs if you have a very bad day. Carry at least five. The plugs it comes with are the sticky, rope-type plugs. These are far better than those mushroom plugs for use in any tire that has steel cords or belts. Why? Those cords will eventually cut right through the stem of the mushroom plugs, and the plugs'll get sucked into your tire, and the tire will go flat. This happened to me several times before I gave up on them. Best of all are the thicker, brown plugs made for car tires that you can get at any good auto-parts store. I buy these and throw them into the kit. The pic below shows one I installed when I got a flat 90 miles from home on the way back to the National. Yes, I know the tire is worn out. The left side had been roasted 1500 miles ago, so I spent most of the way back hanging off the left side and leaning the bike right and riding any reverse road crown I could find to shift more of the wear to the right side of the tire in effort to nurse it home. Stupid? Probably. That metal end is the pump itself. Thread it into one spark plug hole. Once you start the bike, compression from the engine drives a piston in there to pump fresh air into the tire. Be sure to ground the unused plug and wire to the engine somewhere to prevent damage to your ignition. The other end screws solidly onto the valve stem. After plugging your tire, start the bike, rev it a little, and the tire'll be up to pressure faster than you could ever believe. I think that little pump'd be able to seat a bead, if it had to. These are available from any Parts Unlimited dealer. We have 'em at Moto Intl., if your local dealer does not stock them.

Any grease is better than none. I use Redline grease, just 'cause i have a tub of it. Use what you have.

I posted a thread a few years ago about how to really make and keep your cush drive functional. Almost always when I disassemble one, they are frozen in place and nonfuctional for rust and lack of grease. There are several levels to which you can take it: The most basic is to pull it apart and grease it. If you do not do this, it will seize up and be non-functional. The one on my mutant Coppa Ductapio was in this state after maybe 12,000 miles (I did not write down the mileage but it was almost 2 years ago.) The next level is to grease and drill out the rubbers so they are not so hard. The right level, IME and IMO, is to take it all the way to the MATT (More Anal Than Thou) level, which means greasing it, removing half the pairs of pucks, and then drilling each puck to make it actually give and absorb shock. This is what I always do for my bikes and bikes in my care on which the owner wants to really be nice to his splines. It makes an enormous difference in cush-dirve action that you can feel, and it drastically reduces spline wear. See the earlier thread for pix of that. After I got back from the National, I had to replace a roasted tire, so I though I's take the 5 minutes to open up the cush drive and see how it was holding up. Here's a pic of what I found: The pucks were moist with grease and perfect and pliable. The cush bearing surface was just starting to show surface rust. It definitely was still operating, as shown by the shiny spots, but it was crying out in pain for grease. I knocked off the surface rust with a cloth and greased everything well. Based on this, I'm going to grease it at every tire change, so at about every 7,000 miles on the Ballabio. If you haven't done yours in a while, or ever, I can garantee you it is running in pain, too.

I pulled apart my ITI speedo just before the National ride, just to see how the greasing I did 21,000 miles ago (at about 7,000 miles) was holding up, and also to calibrate it more precisely. I had already turned the needle back about 10 mph at 70 mph, but my calibrated bicycle speedo showed that it was still reading 4 mph fast at 70. Why not make it right while I was in there? The short answer was that the greasing was at the limit after 22,000 miles. The grease was all gone, and it was just starting to wear on the smaller gear. The grease I had put on all the other pivot and bearing surfaces was fine, though, so I got to thinking that maybe it would be good enough if I just modified the case so I could easily and periodically grease the worm gear? I pulled out my electric soldering iron and burned two holes in the plastic case that would allow this and did a few trial greaseings. Why burning? Well, it's easy (though very stinky) and easily controlable and doesn't dump a bunch of shavings into the speedo case. Maybe there's a better way, but burning worked pretty well. The red places show where I burned the holes and goobered in the grease to get the big worm gear and the smaller plastic gear that drives the odometer. By squishing it in pretty good and turning the input shaft with a screwdriver, I was able to prove to myself that I could do a pretty good job of it without opening up the case again. I sealed up the two holes with duct tape, and that should hold me until I want to grease it next. I checked it today, after about 4,000 miles since the National, and it was good and greasy still. I'll probably grease it once a year and maybe make the speedo last forever. If you want to do it totally right and grease everything and re-calibrate or even set the odometer correctly, you have to open the case. For ways to do that, see the original thread, but this is a way to easily extend the life of your speedo with about 20 minutes's effort. I hope some of you will give it a try.

Check for crustiness in the connectors from the alternator to the harness. Sometimes, there's a secondary connector hidden under some harness tape further up the steering head, and this is usually the one that is gooey. Then, check the 30-amp fuse. Is the plastic melty looking? If so, get an auxiliary fuse holder and jumper it in around the fusebox to carry the charging load. We have the fuseholders at MI if you can't find them elsewhere.

Waste $40 worth of time to avoid buying a $15 breather hose? Guzzi riders never change.

Rod: Get the Griso. Saturday at the Deep Forest campout three of us (me on the Coppa Ductapio, Steve on a totally stock Griso, and Vance on his sorted Duc GT1000) went on a long ride in the twisties and traded off bikes. Of the three, the Griso is the best handling and easiest to ride fast. The griso rear suspension is far better than the V11 rear, even with the Ohlins on mine. The G.'s Showa fork is pretty darn good, way better than the Marzocchis on your old V11. The brakes on both the Duc and the G felt completely wooden, but that's 'cause I've been totally spoiled by hot-rodded brakes (RCS master cylinder, 4-pad calipers, wave rotors, etc.) on the Ductapio. I'm pretty sure I'm going to replace my V11 with a Griso in a month or so.

Yep. Hose-clamp his casket shut and shove him underground.

I wish I could post pix of the insides of my buddy's Quota engine after the filter spun off, but I can't. It's so fused together from heat that I cannot get the rods off of the crank. That filter had been on for over 3000 miles when it suddenly decided to spin off. The results of that ain't purty neither.

One other thing: One time I saw similar symptoms on a customer bike. When he changed the filter, the rubber gasket from the previous filter was stuck on the filter mount, so when he added the new filter there were two gaskets. One slipped, allowing oil pressure to bleed off.

It's time I became intimate with the newer Guzzis, so I'm thinking this thing has to go. It's a 2004 Ballabio, upgraded with Ohlins and a V11 Lemans fairing that will be painted to match the Coppa Italia tank. The paint job is all paid for but hasn't been done yet, so you can influence how it's done. Has 28,000 miles. I bought it at 6,666.7 miles. Since then, it's had completely total MATT (More Anal Than Thou) maintenance. THe best fluids, the best grease. Way more often that is sensible, if you look only at numbers. Every bolt removes has been put back with anti-size or locking compound. This is not a poseur machine. It has all the truly meaningful upgrades for a RIDER. Has Ohlins from a Cafe SPort, resprung for a man with gravitas of about 240 lb. Then adjusted for a cadillac-racer ride. Has front crashbars. Has voltmeter, oil pressure gauge, and oil-temp gauge in LeMans fairing. Has Motobits footpeg relocators. Guzzi Titanium mufflers mounted low so they can be used with H&B bags/hanger system and 30-liter bags, with Mistral crossover, so I could also fit a centerstand (a bike is a toy without a centerstand, IMO). PCIII mapped for this bike. 82 hp at the rear wheel, with custom-modded airbox and with a good paper filter. Carbon starter cover. Carbon RSV front fender (protects fork tubes) with carbon rear extender. Carbon alternator cover. Carbon sidecovers. Carbon hugger. Edge Guards. Braking Wave front rotors. Four-pad front calipers (like on a 998, bought neew a few months ago) actuated by Brembo RCS front master cylinders (clutch and brake) with Goodridge lines. If you use more than two fingertips, the rear wheel will rise off the ground or you will lock the wheel. Roper sloppage prototype (serial number 0; how much is that worth?) Tons of parts stolen off of Pete's Scura (how much more is that worth?) Who knows what else that I've forgotten? If this sounds like anyone's cup of tea, PM me. It won't be $3000. Some riders on it might keep up to my Eldo. What higher recommendation could there be?

I'd check to see that the filter is tight. Check also the gasket (upper sump gasket) that seals the oil passages.

In addition to what Ratch said, you need to replace the 30a fuse holder. Get a separate high-amp sealed fuse holder and jumper it in around the fusebox.

You don't need a center groove. Just get a sensibly designed tire with siping that extends in from the sides to or near the centerline. At least a half dozen such tires exist in V11 sizes. Or, go with the Z6 and always have to wonder if you'll see the dreaded "white stripe of death" before you get back from your 1400-mile weekend ride, if you do such things. I do. Z6s're for local riders only, IMO. I work at a shop and can't tell you how many times I've heard, "I thought it'd get me home from the trip just fine but started showing cords halfway through, so I had to change it" If you're a local rider, they work well, though they are more expensive than other tires with identical performance and life.

I've seen plenty of the Ohlins suddenly become stiff. I'm not sure why they do this.

Stock setting is 36mm.

I use the "if it'll hang there without slipping out under its own weight" rule of thumb, which with my gauge set is quite a bit more than a slight drag. I use 0.006 and 0.008 settings on everything from Eldorados to V11 Sports. The guys in the MI shop use 0.005 and 0.007.

Ah, so it continues to prevent the problem you never had? Stellar!

I normallty get 37mpg no matter how gently or violently I ride mine. On the trip to Colorado, I consistently saw 40-42mpg once we'd climbed up to the 5,000-11,000-foot altitudes common east of Idaho. And this held true even on the gas with 10 percent ethanol. Ran perfectly, too, even in the heat, despite having the brass sensor holder and thermal goo. Does that qualify as a miracle?

Are we not civil?

I believe the opposite. The mass of the head is so much greater, and it is hooked directly to the source of heat. The brass holder is finned, too, and positioned up in the breeze, though I have insulated mine to prevent it from cooling faster than the head. The plastic one is well insulated, and it has lower mass, which helps it heat up faster. One of us is wrong. Absent a test to prove which of us is right, it remains a matter of opinion, not scientific fact. When it's couched as opinion, I have no issue, but when it all gets couched in scientific mumbo jumbo and trotted out as truth, then I have issue.

Apparently I need to connect the dots. I'm not gonna bother, though. Those with the wits to see the obvious implication probably already have.

OK, in response, I will say that your example above may impress those who are unable to think but is absolutely meaningless in comparing what is really going on here. Here's what would be meaningful: Hook the sensor and holder to the head. Heat the head to 100 C. Let all heat be applied to the chamber side of the head and flow through to the sensor. Measure the temperature the sensor reads vs. actual temp of the bulk of the mass of the head (i.e. not the tip of a fin). Now, letthe head cool, and as it does, compare the readings. Does the head cool faster than the sensor? If the sensor reads hotter than the head, you will be proven right. If not, all of this thermal diffusivity and inertia will stuff'll be proven to be inconsequential in comparison to the relative masses involved (i.e mass of head vs. mass of sensor holder). You cannot look at the sensor isolated from what it reads.

Yes, I've been playing with it a bit. I'm "learning" the ins and outs of small-valve roundfin heads. Then, I'll move on to medium-valve heads and then to large-valve heads, as on V11. THere's a lot to learn.

I believe the factory's recommended quantity for the sump is correct and that it is the dipstick that is in error. If you fill to the recommended quantity, in the recommended way (meaning that the dipstick is threaded all the way in), rather than to the recommended level you are unlikely to ever expose the oil pickup. I will point out that this will increase the thermal inertia of the engine while reducing the required air gap and thus could cause running problems that don't really exist or the possible total destruction of your engine. I do not recall having seen a drain hose from the V11 sump. Later bikes have one that is plugged off and must be drained periodically.