Guzzi2Go

So you stayed at home and played really loud!?

I believe that the general idea behind a good, round number is to avoid lengthy discussions about storage, temps, humidity, sunlight and riding skills when being pulled over by the "officer in charge"...

I witnessed TÜV (MOT) engineer ordering 10 year old car tires to be replaced before passing the car in question. I heard somewhere that the limit for motorcycle tires is 5 years, worn or not. Cannot confirm though.

Holger Aue. Meister!!!

For those going south... Cocomo

I'd check the head temperature sensor. Can you smell petrol/see smoke from the exhaust? Temp sensor is a NTC and should measure 200-400 ohm between 100 and 80°C. At 20°C it measures 3750 ohm. Drop it into a pot of boiling water and see how low does it go. Also check cable connecting the temp sensor to the ECU. If it is broken, your ECU believes the engine is dead cold. It may be that the cable is simply not connected properly. http://home.planet.nl/~world.traveller/pics/wts05%20v4.pdf

Well, time will tell, and if not time, I will... So far, as far as mechanical properties are concerned (aesthetics aside), I had only positive experience with "the tape". Amongst other things I've been repairing ripped sails with it, and they would last through the summer, not minding water, wind, salt, temperature, nor radiation. And even when (or rather if , as I don't remember a single incidence) it would come off, it is cheap to replace. According to "the original design" I drilled small holes above and bellow cutting line, thinking of inserting a thin sheet of metal inside the cup and soldering the top and bottom halves through the holes to the metal sheet. But rummaging through my supplies I came across a roll of duct tape, and the little devil on my shoulder murmured: "Take it, just take it"! Many things speak for the tape - cheap, easy to handle, no tooling required, comes off if need be, etc. Wikipedia on Duct (Gaffer) tape

Didn't feel like fiddling with it, so I returned the lot. Figured it is too expensive if I have to bend it to make it fit.

Will work only if your tank does not feature a chinpad. Otherwise the gascap adapter won't fit.

There was a documentary on TV over here recently, where they've shown what's flammable and what not. Neither gasoline, nor diesel did burst in flame when poured over a hot electric plate (the ones you have on an electric stove). However, the break fluid did. Draw your on conclusions out of this one.

On top of my ToDo list now that my Bridgestones have gone past the "barely legal" wear limit.

After some 25,000 km of service my white faced, nice, foggy Veglia tach decided not to put up with being rattled around any longer and quit it's duty. At first it started acting up, displaying from 0-9000 rpm @will, just so that it could, after a few hundred kilometers more, settle for zero. I already it wrote it off for good, as, during one of my last rides, it winked at me. Cheeky! Of course, i just couldn't leave it like that. Had to see what's inside. Already as the tach started acting up I read about how it is nearly impossible to open up one of these for repairs, and how it is even more difficult to close it afterwards. So I came up with alternative approach. No guarantees that you are going to like it though. To start with remove the tach from the bike. If you own a Le Mans it is easiest done by unscrewing the three screws holding the instruments unit to the bike, disconnecting speedo cable, removing the odometer reset knob ("wrong threaded" - turn "wrong way" to unscrew) and flipping the entire unit upside down, back facing you. That way you get good access to the screws holding the tach in it's hole, and minimize the danger of loosing the small plastic washers underneath those screws. Once you are done with that, you can pull the tach out of it's hole. At this point you can pull off the three wires (red = +12V, black = ground and yellow = signal) connecting the bike with the tach, pull out the small light bulb out of it's hole. There is an extra grounding wire attached to the instrument body by one of the mounting studs. You'll need to unscrew the stud, in the process of you will likely get it at least "wiggly" if not broken. Ignore that for the moment, as it is not as bad as it sounds. There is a theory out there that actually this wire and it's good connection with the instrument's body is responsible for it's proper functioning. Wrong!!! It has no connection whatsoever to the electronics, and it only makes the little light bulb work. Now that you have the thing on your desk you can start contemplating how to open it. I was pretty much discouraged by the description of the attempt to remove the decorative bezel of the top, so I decided to cut the tach in half. Savagery, hey!? I used Dremel with one of these small, metal cutting, black discs. I placed the Dremel in a vice, vertically towards a workbench surface. I placed the instrument face down (glass down) on an old Conrad Electronics catalog. Cutting right down the middle seems to be a good idea, so I ripped some pages out of the catalog, until I had the instrument in the precise position for cutting. Start the Dremel, and spin the instrument against it. Now it's open. Make a mark on the body, so you can install the dial properly oriented later on (i.e. knowing which way is "south"). To remove the pointer use a kitchen fork, and pry the pointer gently off the axis. Remove the two black screws and the dial plate will come off too. You'll have following parts in your hands: - top half of the instrument with the glass firmly attached - one plexiglass ring situated bellow the glass. It's purpose is distribute the light from the little light bulb evenly across the tach's face. - one bleached pointer - one aluminium dial plate (opaque, hence the plexiglass ring) - bottom half of the instrument with the electromechanics attached to it. So how does the silly thing work? The "thing" is based on a CS8190, a "Precision Air-Core Tach/Speedo Driver with Return to Zero". In essence it is a frequency to voltage converter, one sine, one cosine voltage on it's outputs, holding the meter in balance at the certain position. Read the PDF for more info. You may want to go on with disassembly further than that, but at this stage I noticed that one of the hair-thin wires of the "air-core meter" was not attached to one of the four studs (four shiny points in the picture), so I soldered it back, placed the pointer back on, and connected the tach back to the bike for a test. Worked!!! Here is how to put it all back together again: 1. Screw the dial plate back on 2. Put the pointer back in place, and align it with 0. 3. Thoroughly wash/clean the glass and place the top half of the tach glass down on your desk 4. Throw the plexiglass ring back in the "top half" 5. Put the bottom half of the tach on the top half. 6. Give it a once-around with a silver duct tape. Don't give it twice-around, because it will not fit back in it's place. Finished. Connect to the bike and check if it is working. If not, undoing the duck-tape is not excessively expensive, so you may go at it again. Mine works! Even the fog is back where it was. As happy as a clam.

ratch, where do you find all these post stamp sized pictures? You must have eyes like a hawk. I keep klicking on them to see them in full size, and you get me every time...

A journalist went to interview a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long,long time. - Pardon me Sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN, what's your name? - Maury Fishbein - he replied. - Sir, how long have you been coming to the Wailing Wall and praying? - For about 60 years. - 60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for? - I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and hatred to stop, I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man. - How do you feel after doing this for 60 years? - Like I'm talking to a fuckin' wall.

This describes pretty much the noise my broken rear wheel bearings generated. The old bearings took the noise with them as they were replaced. Pushing the bike around for a couple of meters (20-30?) in neutral and with the engine switched off may give you a better idea where does the noise come from. I bet on bearings.

Kevin, aren't you using MON instead of RON over there? Wouldn't that explain the difference in octane rating between Italian users manual and US petrol stations? Lowest grade petrol that can be found in EU is 91 RON (being phased out), going over 95, 98 and the highest 100. As I can recall from my trip to US some five years ago, these numbers were in the "80-ies MON range". I use 95 RON and I think I hear slight pinging when accellerating hard from low RPM. However, maybe I am mistaking it for some other noise (plenty of that on a MG). Then again, maybe I should just pay a few cents extra. P.S. Look what I just found: http://www.btinternet.com/~madmole/Reference/RONMONPON.html Apparently, there is also a PON (Pump Octane Number)

Well, do you want your beer served crushed? Imagine you order one and some tit sprays it all over the floor :lol:

Prelude du ....

Well, I had pretty much the same symptoms on my old CX 500 till yesterday, when I exchanged spark plugs for a pair of new ones. It would start OK, run when cold more or less ok, and started loosing/gaining power when warmed up. Made the ride to a local motoshop rather interesting... But i guess you already checked/replaced the spark plugs and set the correct gap between electrodes. Well, now you have it. Two answers saying it is either fuel/air or ignition. Now you know exactly as much as before.

Have you seen this? Maybe Jaap can help you. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1399

Tom Mabe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_PjRXV5l8

No, EU Guzzis don't sport the feature. If you have the parts manual, you can see that there is a different "tank page" for US market. That may be, but there is no requirement to retrofit older vehicle according to new regulations. They are just taxed more.

A doctor, a lawyer and a priest are flying together with three children. The plane breaks down and the pilot announces: - We are going down! I have only three parachutes for the passengers! Doctor screams: - Save the children! Save the children! Lawyer says: - @#!#$# children! Priest: - You think we have enough time?