Jim in NZ

Hi Kiwi Roy, Thank-you for your reply. After a false start, I had the problem that you say. I then decided that your post dated Sept 8, 2019 was the one to go with (same as your option 2 above) as it was simpler and didn't require another relay. (We were under a high level of Covid lockdown at the time.) I had to cut open the wiring loom to retrieve enough of the wire that I had cut off start relay 30 - everything is placed very tightly with absolutely no slack! Anyway, I just successfully finished it yesterday. I haven't yet got to the issue of the headlight staying on during cranking. I think that will have to wait until I next have the rear shock reservoir and starter cover off. But now that I have your instructions I will know what to do. I removed the electrical half of the ignition switch as you say. As far as I can see, the only place you can take it apart any further is at the joint 1 cm up from the bottom, which requires pressing in a couple of tiny black tabs. I was not able to move these at all. It looks like, if I could do that, I could then remove the white plate that you mention by pressing in a couple of white tabs further up the barrel. You can't remove the white plate from the top of the barrel - the top and the sides are all one moulding. Are there variations in the switch, or am I missing something? In any case I am at least mobile again now, thanks to your and others' help on the forum. I have been putting this off for literally years, until it reached the stage that it wouldn't start at all, so I am very grateful for all your electrical know-how on this forum. My nearest Guzzi dealer is over 300 km away, and I wouldn't be at all confident handing it over to them anyway! Cheers. -Jim.

OK, cheers, thanks Tom. I have been lucky so far with no electrical troubles. I've had the bike since new for 98,000km (61,000miles), so can't complain! It lives in a dry garage, and I haven't ridden it in the rain very much, so I'm sure that has helped its reliability. I still love the bike (and this forum).

OK, thanks for that, docc. I will have to go and digest this whole thread for a while. Looks like I might have a couple of options to choose from. Both involve access to the wire I cut from the ignition switch, which I cut off very short in order to leave a "tail" on the spade connector to the relay to extend it. I think I will be able to figure it out now. Many thanks docc and Tomchri, I appreciate your help. I know this is a well-worn subject on this forum, but most of the posts assume more knowledge/experience than what I have! Cheers, Jim.

Docc, yes, Tomchri has suggested an extra relay. This must work, as far as I can see. If I do that, my problem is restoring the original wiring. Access to relay wires is almost impossible, and having cut the wire to terminal 30 of the starter relay I can't get enough wire on the loom side of the cut to reverse what I have done and join it up again. I guess I am going to have to cut into the wiring loom without cutting any wires, and try to expose some more of the wire that I cut.

Docc, as I understand your modification, that is exactly what I did. Sorry, I can't test whether the light goes out when the starter is cranking because my ignition switch is still partly dismantled. But I'm pretty sure it did.

Docc, I can see now on the wiring diagram (with the benefit of hindsight!) that when terminal 30 on the start relay is live all the time, it is feeding terminal 87A which goes to the solenoid of the lights relay so would turn on the headlight.

Docc, I rewired the front relay. The second relay has not stuck closed. If I make and break the connection to the battery negative terminal, I can hear and feel the relay flicking closed and open as the headlight goes on and off. How did you help the member with the 1200 Sport? Cheers, Jim.

Tomchri, thanks for your reply. Yes there's so much information on the forum, but it is very confusing as to what advice applies to what model - I've already made a wrong judgment on that! I'm in unfamiliar territory here. If I understand you correctly, I have to put the wiring back how it was (somehow). Then I can use the power that currently goes from relay terminal 87 down to the spade terminal of the starter motor, to operate the solenoid of a new relay. The heavy current side of the new relay would connect the battery + terminal to the spade terminal on the starter motor. Have I got that right? Could you please explain what you mean by "just take care of your kill switch,,, and the other electric connections" ? I appreciate your help, thank-you. Cheers, -Jim.

Hi, I have a 2004 V11 Coppa Italia. The wiring diagram in my handbook that came with the bike looks to be the same as Carl Allison's 2004 V11 Sport Catalytic, except the wire colours are different. I took the ignition switch off, but was unable to get it apart. Sprayed Inox into it and worked it around to clean the contacts. Still wouldn't start, so I followed posts from KiwiRoy and Pete Roper (which I thought applied to my bike but with hindsight obviously didn't), and connected terminal 30 of the starter relay via a fuse directly to battery positive. The bike starts now, but with the ignition off, the headlight and oil light operate continuously. The brake light goes if I pull the brake lever. (The oil light goes out when I start the bike.) If I pull out the lighting relay, there's no problem with the ignition off, but with the ignition on, I have no headlight, oil light or brake light. I'm now stuck as to what to do next. Access to relay wires is almost impossible, and having cut the wire to terminal 30 of the starter relay I can't get enough wire on the loom side of the cut to reverse what I have done and join it up again. I'm no electrician, and would really appreciate advice specific for my model please (wiring diagram as above). If there's more than one way, that would be great too, so I can pick one with reasonable access. Many thanks -Jim.

Before you put the sealant around the outside of the cover, you want to do a "dummy run" and offer up the selector plate to the gearbox and make sure that it is going to go straight on. Otherwise the sealant will skin over while you muck about with it. The gear selector mechanism must be in the same gear as the gearbox for it to fit. It is easiest to have them both in neutral, unless you know for certain what gear the box was in when it locked and you haven't moved any of the selector forks. You can set the gear selector mechanism in neutral, and put each of the selector forks in the gearbox in the middle of their travel, which corresponds to the box being in neutral. You might still have to slightly adjust selector fork positions by trial and error until they match up exactly. Then clean the mating surfaces of any oil, apply sealant sparingly, and bolt up quickly. Good luck! - Jim.

Thanks Marty, but I'm fine! My post was not intended to be as "pessimistic" as czakky interpreted it. Cheers - Jim.

Sorry docc, I assumed that you had shown the yellow protractor gauge in your photo because that was the angle you had measured on the spring. (And your comment "This is totally bad".) Looking again, maybe that was the spring from the first run.

I've just received my spring, and the angle is the same as docc's above (28 - 29º). I suppose you have to give the spring maker credit for being reproducibly wrong. It beggars belief that they can't do better than that. Sorry Chuck, your engineering skills are wasted on people like that. Hopefully, it will still work, and there will be no more lying on the side of the road at unpredictable times draining the gearbox oil while trying not to get any crap in it! Many thanks to Chuck, Scud, MartyNZ and anyone else involved in this project. Fingers crossed. Cheers. - Jim.

Yep, the idea is about cushioning the drive line, and I'm sure it will reduce stresses on all components during hard acceleration, wheelies, clutchless gear changes, unintentionally jiggling the throttle as you go over a bumpy road, and so on. I suspect that stresses in alloy components can be cumulative, so maintenance (cleaning and greasing) of the cush drive will be worth it over the long term even if you decide not to drill the rubber wedges or remove some of them.

"Mine are stock and after 18 years and 42,000 klms look fine also as do the drive splines on the wheel and the drive shaft. So whats the advantage?" The original design was OK, but the rubbers are very hard. I didn't drill mine, but I took out every alternate rubber wedge. I also regularly clean the whole cush drive and grease the centre bearing every 10,000km service. The advantage is that you can feel that the cush drive is a bit softer every time you change gear, with less abrupt take-up of the power. This must (by my reasoning) be kinder to the entire drive train from gearbox to tyres. Jim.

Well done, Chuck and Scud! Your efforts and ingenuity are really appreciated. Though I will miss those hours squatting in the gravel on the side of the road replacing the spring when it decides to surprise me (NOT!). I have PM'd Marty NZ to put my name down for one. Happy New Year to you both. Cheers, Jim.

"It's not just a Guzzi problem." What kind of bike is that from, bbolesaz?

Chuck, the 0.071 3-coil job looks great. Being able to test it compared with the MG standard spring is beyond expectations! Looking forward to seeing how this works out. Thank-you for all your effort and time. Cheers, Jim.

"If you can Jim just wait for Chuck and Scuds spring. Knowing Chucks magic fingers work it will be a first class solution and unbreakable." Yeah, thanks Phil, I'll follow them a while and see how they are getting on, as I'm not in a huge hurry. My spring replacement is a preventative one. Last spring broke after 15,000km and I had to replace it on the side of the road 300km from home. Now the current spring has done the same mileage, and it is much easier to do it in the comfort of my garage at home before it breaks. Cheers, Jim.

Yes, that's what I thought, thanks Lucky Phil. I also rounded off that sharp edge many years ago, but none of my springs have broken there, they've all broken around the coil. I'm about to replace another spring, and I don't want to spend around NZ$150 on a new preselector shaft unless there is at least some possibility that it might extend the spring life. Despite what MI say on their website, I haven't heard a plausible reason, so I'll just go ahead with the spring I think. Maybe next time, you guys working on this will have found a solution! Incidentally, I have always put a kink in the long arm of each spring to lessen the tension it works under. Gearchanging is still OK (it doesn't need much spring pressure), but the bloody things still break! Cheers, Jim.

Chuck, I thought that the coil binding you refer to was between the inside of the spring coil (25 in the drawing that swooshdave has kindly attached), and the boss on the ratchet arm (24). The coil doesn't encircle the preselector shaft (27). So how can replacing the preselector shaft fix the problem? Am I misunderstanding this? You are doing a great service with your efforts to improve the spring. Please keep going, I'm sure there are lots of us who don't have the engineering expertise to do this, but are cheering you on!

Hi guys, When searching for shift springs on MI's website, I came across this note on the spring: “The 2007 preselector shaft update (01237032) is your best assurance against a broken shift spring.” I didn't know about this before. When I ordered a new spring about a year ago, I didn't see that note there. The preselector shaft on sale is version 3, and has a note saying "Guzzi's answer to breaking return springs in V11 transmissions." Has anyone heard about this, or am I just out of touch? How would it do that? My springs break on the coil, not at the right-angle bend that engages with the preselector shaft. I find it hard to see how the preselector shaft would influence the life of the spring. (Tried to post the parts book drawing but it wouldn't let me. But the shaft is no. 27.) I got some information from MI, but from the explanation I think there was confusion about which spring I was referring to. Anyone here understand this please? Cheers, Jim.

Hi Neil, You will get knumbnutz if you ride too far like that! Assuming engine mounting bolts etc. are all tight, I agree with you, I would put my money on the throttle bodies being unbalanced. You will need vacuum gauges to synchronise them properly. It's definitely worth the trouble. You will always get a bit of low-frequency vibration at certain speeds, so if you came from a smooth multi-cylinder you might just be feeling normal vibes. But if that Coppa Italia in the photo is yours, you will know what to expect. Cheers, Jim.

Hi Dimples, Mine did that from when it was brand new, so it wasn't injector wear. Only on the RHS, after every run especially in colder weather. The dealer replaced that fuel injector, which made no difference. It has not got any worse in 7 years / 60,000 km. I read on this forum at the time, about others who had replaced injectors and whole throttle bodies. It never seemed to fix the problem. I would just forget about it unless it gets worse. Just wipe it off after each run so it doesn't stain the throttle bodies or drip down over other parts. Cheers, Jim.