Greg Field

If any of you are up for a ride tomorrow, a bunch of us are riding from Seattle to Neah Bay. We leave my house in Seattle at 0800. (I can give address/directions for those who haven't been here before.) If you want to show up early, we'll have high-octane coffee and bagels and cream cheese/fruit or wheaties or something. Or you can meet us at the ferry terminal. We're catching the 8:35 to BAINBRIDGE ISLAND. This is earlier than originally planned because while looking at the map, it occured to me that if we left earlier, we could take some great alternative routes on the way back, such as Hood Canal, if we made good time and wanted more riding. Please be gassed up and fooded up to ride. It's about 145 miles from the ferry terminal to Neah Bay. I'll go with the will of the group on whether we go to Neah without stopping or not. Bring a bottle of water and snacks. Bring a camera. Bring a cell phone if you have one. Bring a spare tube if you have tube-type tires. Bring slug repellant. I've been working on some "rules" for such rides because when the weather gets better, we could have droves of riders from the Vintage Motorcycle Enthusiasts (VME) joining us on these formerly Guzzi rides. What do y'all think of the following rules? 1) We do not ride as a group, necessarily, but we are all in it together. Some will ride faster and some slower, and that's perfectly OK. At every turn onto a new road, everyone waits until the last person has caught up. This doesn't mean we'll be waiting at every intersection. Follow the main flow of the road to major turnoffs marked on the map we'll give you. We'll be waiting at the major turnoffs. 2) You are expected to stop if the guy in front of you breaks down. If you are second-to-last, keep an eye out for the rider behind you. This does not mean you have to stay with the broken-down rider forever, but you should stop, try to help, assess the situation, and then assist in letting the leader know. You can do this by calling on the cellphone or continuing to the next stop to let the ride leader know of the breakdown. 3) If you do not catch up in a reasonable amount of time, we will send someone back to find you. Because of this, we ask that if you stop for photos or a smoke or whatever that you do it quickly and make an effort to catch up. If you decide to turn around and leave the group for whatever reason, pull over and let someone know who will be continuing on the ride. If you pull over, the others will assume you have broken down. If you are just stopping for a break or whatever, clearly let following riders know they can continue on without you by waving them by. If you wave everyone by, though, and your bike subsequently will not re-start, it may be some time before we realize you are not with us any longer. We go places where there may be no cell coverage. 4) It is expected that you ride at your own pace. If you want to pass, do so only when you can do it without endangering the passee. If you pass the leader, remember that you are expected to stop at the next turnoff and wait for the group. The other side of this coin is that if you know you ride slowly, please keep unnecessary stops to a minimum so that the group is not unduly held up at the next turn. 5) We do not have a chase truck. Please make sure your bike is ready for the ride. If you do break down, we'll assist in any reasonable way in getting YOU home. We may or may not be able to assist in getting the bike home, depending on circumstances.

The releif valves in all Guzzi systems I have seen are after the filter.

The Vintage is dual-spark but with the old single-spark valve covers.

Ryland: I will check and get back to you.

We can do the same at Moto International.

Imagine if Hailwood had "hung off." That would be comparable, or if Rossi were sitting up in his seat like Hailwood is. I would very surprised if Hailwood's cornering speeds're higher. This is not because I believe Rossi the better rider. Actually, I think the opposite is more true.

Ryland: I'll look in the boneyard at work. There may be one there. I'll let you know if there is.

What possiible reason could there be for keeping the Guzzi V configuration when adding water cooling? I think it's utterly retarded. Design a more amenable engine configuration, and really have something. That's just an opinion, though

I'm with sir ratchet on the noise. Perhaps you should consider Phil A.'s airbox mods instead? Works great, and I can't hear the noise. You do get a nice "moaning" sound when the throttle bodies are at full throat, and I love that sound.

It drains down through the bearings. There is clearance there, as you know. The top of the V11 filter is at very nearly the same level as the lower edge of the rear main bearing, the lowest point with bearing clearance. The drainback valve is superfluous for this reason.

Ryland: I had that problem with a set of Mistrals. At my local NAPA store, I got one of the expaners Ratchet speaks of for about $18. It worked great. Good luck!

A drainback valve primarily keeps the oil in the filter from draining out. It doesn't really keep the whole system primed. Loosen your oil fittings that are above the sump and prove this to yourself. The bottom of the filter is solid. On the V11 Sport, the bottom of the filter hangs down. The top of the filter (the part with the holes) faces up. Oil cannot come out of the filter, unless pumped or the shell is punctured or the motorcycle is turned upside down. Thus, unless the motorcycle is turned upsiode down, the drainback valve is superfluous. I do not believe you would ever find a siphon effect in this system. On the other filter-type Guzzis, the top of the filter is face down. Oil can drain out of it, absent a drainback valve.

Unfortunately, I didn't run them all on the dyno. I did run them on the street back to back. The Mistral definitely felt torquier in the 1500-4000 or so rpm band. I do a lot of commuting in traffic, so that's useful for me. The Stucchi felt stronger than the stock crossover everywhere. Mine's an '04 with the front crossover. I think it would makes and even more noticable difference on the earlier bikes without the extra crossover. I don't have data to back that up, though. It's just intuition.

The same filter is used upside down in all the Cali 100s and later. It needs the drainback valve in those applications. Guzzi chose it for the V11 Sports because it was already in the parts system and worked well. In the V11 Sport appication, the valve is superfluous.

I was just looking at an old partially disasembled IT 250 frame. It's a big spine with monoshock routed down the center of the huge spine tube. It's more alike Foale's frame than not. Same with its swingarm. I wonder who it inspired?

Stogiebill: I've found one RAM for the Sports that I can get you. If interested, please PM me. Everybody else: I can provide the cut down, balanced and refurbed steel flywheels with fiber friction plates for about $550, which includes everything needed to bolt them up, from the trans input hub atthe back to the flywheel bolts at the front. It's more expensive than I thought it would be, but if any of you are interested, let me know.

Kevin brings up a good point: The action of the single-platers is lighter. I have one in my Eldo and today I got to ride it for the first time since early summer (it was laid up for work that included camming it up with a Megacycle X10 cam). I really like that clutch.

Wittner told me the first inspiration for it was an Aermacchi frame. Likely, it seems, the inspiration included Foale's frame.

I'd just like to add that I meant no criticism of those who buy tires on line and change them. I did it for years myself. It's a great way tosave money if you burn through a lot of tires. And I also think that the combination of the Harbor Freight changer with that better wand someone linked to would be an excellent set-up for this work. The key is solid mounting for the changer and having that better wand or modifying the HF wand. I drilled into the concrete of my garage floor and put in permanent anchors for this.

Sorry. I dropped one off last week and haven't heard back. I'll bug him today.

I don't much bother with the tire business. Our techs hate changing tires, and unless you buy tires in huge quantities when they are on sale and then have 'em sit on the shelf all year (and they take up a lot of space for what you make on them), the margins are as slim as 20 percent for some of the brands. Give 10 percent off retail, and you're losing money on the tire, when you consider overhead and disposal of the old tire. And then every fifth tire changed or so, some clown tries to get us to buy him a new wheel by claiming an old scratch is new. Sometimes we can't prove it was an old scratch and have to buy 'em a new rim. As a business, it's a net loss. We stock tires for those who trust only us to do the work on their bikes and we are happy to do it on that basis. If somebody wants to dicker on the price, I give excellent directions to the discount place just up the road.

The Hrbor Freight changer is the best value. If securely mounted, it'll do the job. The only really ubstandard part is the actual wand. With some grinding and a re-paint, it can be made servicable, too. Keep in mind, though, that some modern tires have extremely stiff sidewalls and can be a nightmare to mount. And you can get injured doing it. I know of more than a few broken fingers and rotator cuffs torn up by do-it-yourselfers. Then, you have to balance the times, which takes more gear. I did it for several years for myself and friends in my own garage. I now just pay the guys in the shop to do it. My left rotator cuff's bad enough already.

Back to the original subject: Fuelcooler: A friend of mine crashed his ballabio this summer and now he has decided to part it out. He came over to my garage yesterday with the engine block, asking to use my tools to get off the rear main bearing and the nuts on the cam and crankshaft. The block is in great shape. I can put you in contact with him. You might also want to just get all the bracing from him and bolt it all on.

I'll look it up. I actually have a spare one that I bought for the Eldo, but it won't work on the Eldo because it doesn't clear the bracket that holds the alternator. The sender is sold separately from the gauge. I also have the gauge, come to think of it.

The way the filter is mounted on V11, the oil can't drain back. I do the pre-oiling trick, too. Here're pics of a couple of ways to add a gauge: This is an adapter I made that allows function of the oil light. (I had a mechanical gauge on the Ballabio for a while.) This is a sender for an electrical gauge. It threads right in to the Guzzi block and also runs the oil light. Here's the electrical gauge I currently have mounted to my Ballabio.