Greg Field

Yes, probably the biggest V11 forum. Until what, a week ago, none of you knew that it was the triple clamps that were changed, let alone how and why. Good lord, with all you geniuses on this forum, you remained ignorant of this until I told you? How could that be? All the yammering for all these years and you had no idea what you were yammering about. What else might you be ignorant about? Christ, remember the glowing oil light thing? You clowns kvetched about it for years but none of you took the time to hook up an oil-pressure gauge and find out what was really happening. All you did was whine and wring your hands. Within days of first seeing my oil light flash while the bike was accelerating, I had a pressure gauge on it and proved what was happening and was on to solutions for it. Of course, there was no problem there, either; just more demons and haikus, too . . . Or remember the RLSH and the pink moly? Nothing but mocking there, either, until I proved it to you. COnsider the possibility that you will be proven as foolish about this as you were about that . . .

I never said anyone was killed on a V11. I said that several times in the past Guzzis have been designed on which some of them proved dangerously unstable. On those machines, Guzzi and most of the cheerleaders for the company claimed there was no problem. Guzzi even sent an engineer over to check the bikes for "proper set-up." Still, they wobbled, and Guzzi stone-walled until after more crashes and the further shedding of blood. It took the crashing of that Guzzi engineer and then the death of a factory test rider in one instance before they listened. That you don't believe it doesn't change the fact that it happened. Some of you are more comfortable with demons and haikus than facts. So be it.

I have a pile of junked ITIs. They last, on average, 9,000 miles, unless you open them up and grease them regularly.

TM: If you want to send it to me, I'll field-strip it and see if it can be fixed. Likely, it's just a haiku problem or maybe a twitchy demon. I have a voodoo priestess on call and a lot of parts from junked ITIs. Or maybe send it to Luhbo? There are no problems with Guzzis. It's always the owners.

Just go look up the old service bulletin on the rake change in the triple clamps. Dave Richardson showed it to me in early 2002 or so. It listed the part numbers for new and old, and what do you know? They match the two series of part numbers shown in the current parts diagrams. That's good enough proof for me, but you doubters can go ahead and do your own research, or not. Facts are facts. The earlier ones are twitchier than the later ones. We offered the upgrade kit (with the "canted" triples) to our customers, but few opted to spend the money. Instead, they just kept their dampers cranked up. But keep believing in demons and haikus if you want.

If the subject that started all this was "Why It's a Good Idea to Have a Steering Damper as a Back-up," you'd have a point. As you know, that wasn't the subject. It was "Who Needs," arguing that everyone NEEDS one. That's just hogwash.

I've got one of those Aermacchis. It says "Harley-Davidson" on the tank, though. 1965 model. They can be gotten here for $100-1,000 almost all the time.

Well, I think I have one of those Evoluzione kits in stock. They work well for folks who have big feet. Less well for others.

The knob quotient one can find on this list is unique in the vastness that is the WWW.

I did not make it up.

If it's not a triangle, what you say does not apply. It's not a triangle, so what you said does not apply.

It's not a triangle.

Yes, all is fiction but what the Kool-Aid drinkers offer, which is nothing but demons and bad haiku. I think the main stabilizer needed on this forum is thorazine. Or perhaps an ice-pick lobotomy. Scratch the ice pick. For most, nature has provided.

Everyday at work, I watch Guzzi customers sign credit card slips. About 40 percent are left-handed. I also watch people I've never seen before signing test-ride forms. The left-handed among them are almost always signing up for a Guzzi ride, rather than an Aprilia or trade-in of another brand.

What he said.

They are bored off-axis. No need for shims. Or haikus. Or demons. What the Aprilia-era Guzzi factory did was far more interesting than demons or pathetic poetry. After that, the Aprilia clowns stepped on their @#$$#! trying to put hydraulic lifters in the Cali engines and installed a single-plate clutch that self-destructed sometimes in less than 200 miles. I suppose those things made sense to you, Luhbo? Or perhaps you think they're fiction, too?

Lube the rubber bits with spit or silicone grease and twist them as you push them in. Keep in mind the bilbs can be inserted into the sockets two ways, but only one of the ways is right.

Hatchetwhacker: Your steering damper's cranked on too hard.

Nope. Some manager/engineer spec'd these things. The guy on the assembly line in Mandello is not culpable.

The shaft and the brass collet have two different diameters. The only way to make them stay together is to glue them together. If the assemble aligns them properly during assembly, they will be close enough to concentric in axis. If not, You get what you have.

Good lord.

It may or not be under the VIN plate, or alongside it. US bikes are hard to decipher. You almost certainly have the early, non-canted triple clamps.

GM: Sometimes the US VIN corresponds to frame number but more often to engine number, so I'm not sure how useful it is. Sorry, but I meant under the upper clamp. Does it read "01493100" or "01493130" (both early) or "501452" (most late)? Axle nut or not?

What? You don't like a slobbering dog?

I wonder if Pavlov ever tired of his dogs?