ozzydog

Hello again, just want to say a big thank you to you all for your advice and give you an update. As some of you said, it wouldn't bleed as the pistons where sticking intermittently on one side of the righthand caliper, we stripped it and found that both sticking pistons were badly scored, we cleaned it all out but it was shot, mild panic then set in but by luck my friend found a caliper on ebay with about 10 minutes left to bid and won it for £15! The caliper was in good condition and so it went straight on and the brakes then bled fine and we made it over for the TT (which was brilliant ) with no further problems. However riding to work the other day I felt the front brake binding and had a quick look and it seems that 2 pistons on the other caliper are now not returning so will strip it and have a look this weekend, don't fancy our chances of getting that lucky on ebay again though. Anyway thank you again for your great advice and tips and sorry for always asking questions and not being able to give anything back thank you again Heather

Hello everyone, I am wondering if I may ask for your help again please? I noticed a problem about 8 days ago,when braking the front felt like it was grabbing at low speed and it made the bike pull to the left. Other than that they were working ok. It was already booked in for MOT the next day and was given an advisory on the front brake, the tester said one of the discs was warped but didn't know which one.I didn't get a chance to look at it till this monday due to work and a mate came over and measured the runout? on the discs and said they are not warped. I then took the pads out and found that on the right caliper one of the lower pistons was sticking slightly in the out position and so thinking this may be the problem I put some copper grease round it and gently worked it back and forth putting a large piece of metal between so the pistons didn't come to far out. This seemed to free it off so I put new pads in and replaced calipers to then find I suddenly have no pressure Since then I have bled the brakes repeatedly but can't get the pressure back only if I pump the lever and then it just goes. I made sure the level did not go down below the minimum level at any point but I can't figue out why I lost pressure in the first place. It does not appear to be leaking anywhere yet its taking in air? Also the piston is now sticking again and I have just found out that there are no seals or anything avaliable for these calipers, does this mean the seals are reusable or that if a seal goes it requires new calipers which to me sounds crazy I would be really grateful for any advise you may have as panic is now starting to set in, I am due to leave for the IOM TT in a few days and its really not looking good Many many Thanks for any help and very sorry for the long post Heather

Hello again, well sorry to be posting once again about my problems but would really like to ask you for your advise on this please. I have a scura with 24,000 miles on it. I went for a run last weekend with some mates and afterwards one of them mentioned that when I accelerated it was blowing a lot of puffs of blue smoke out of the lefthand pipe. It dosen't smoke when idling and I don't want to panic but have had the bike in bits today as had to fit another rear shock as the Ohlins clapped out. I found the airbox has rather a lot of oil in it on the left side and also what looks like milk? is this water mixed with the oil? This milky stuff is only around the breather hose at the top and on the right side of the filter box. I Have checked the oil level and its a tiny bit down but not that much at all really. I don't know why/what should make this happen and have tried using the search button but can't quite find the same thing. I pulled the plugs and they both look rather on the rich side but the left side has a lot of carbon and is very wet with oil, other than the above the bike does not feel down on power and seems to be running well ( for now at least ) I understand from what I've read on here that some V11's might have a tendancy to eat valves and guides at fairly low mileage, could this be my problem or am I jumping the gun? I have a long ride coming up next weekend and don't know if I should just clean up the airbox and plugs and go or if this needs further investigation. I would be very grateful for any advise, many thanks for your help Heather

Hello, I lost the glass out of my righthand mirror on the motorway, think it just vibrated loose it was no geat loss as couldn't make out what or how many were behind anyway. I "borrowed" a mirror off a k75 until i could get a replacement and in fact it was so much better i ended up buying a pair to replace the guzzi ones. Have had them about 2 years now and while i would'nt say they are completely vibe free at all rpms its a great improvment on the stock ones and they have much better adjustment so your not looking at the sky, they don't look to out of place on the guzzi and they were fairly cheap at £15 a pair

Hi skeeve, sorry to hear you had dealer problems to, i hope you got things sorted out in the end? I won't let the bickering put me off, it gave me a few chuckles really although maybe i should'nt say that . no offence taken and hubby is out of hospital and on the mend thankfully ,i may not have a future career as a motorcycle mechanic but thankfully my sense of humor is still intact and just as well as i've needed it recently Many thanks for the link i'm gonna have a read through it Regards heather

Hello Baldini, yes this is my first guzzi, have had many german and jap bikes before but found them rather boring compared to the guzzi, i can't put my finger on why but the guzzi always leaves me grinning after a ride . I am in deepest darkest luton its a bit of a motorcycling wilderness around here, the only good thing about the place is you can get out of it quickly due to airport, motorway and railway I don't know if the dealer was just trying to get the bike done before going away but when i booked it in they did tell me it might not be ready till after they got back and i said that was no problem so i don't feel that i rushed them. I did find a good dealer who i used about 3 years ago in south london but i took it for a service and nearly died of shock when i got a bill of £446 . since then i've done the servicing myself (by the look of it not very well ) i didn't know i needed to strip and grease the gear linkage every so often so i never have . I did do as Ratchethack suggested and have a look at the linkage after the incident, he said "the linkage should be very nearly 100% slop free" well it was but i didn't know thats cause it had siezed . My thoughts then were, well if its not the linkage then it must be something more serious such as the gearbox and that was another factor in booking it in the dealers. I did in fact ride down a flooded road for about 1/2 mile 3 days before the incident due to the monsoon conditions we had at the time and maybe this played a part in the linkage siezing? Anyway as you suggest it would be much better to prevent things going wrong in the first place so i'm gonna make every effort to learn to do this and i may even come to like the guzzi more than i do now by understanding how things work and what i should be doing to keep things that way. Many many thanks for the advice and for the link, i will check it out Regards Heather

Many thanks for that, i got one today from motomecca but can't get bike till he reopens after the holiday. when he does i will collect the bike and fit it myself. Gonna try and turn over a new leaf and learn how to do what needs to be done Many thanks

Yes I did read your post all the way through, more than once and despite what you may think i do agree with what you have said in both your posts but by the time i'd read post 12 i'd already booked it in the dealers and booked and paid for a van to cart it there. Sometimes there can be more important and serious things going on in life that prevent you from having the time to investigate and sort it youself and as its my only form of transport and as it turned out i really needed it that week i thought taking to the dealer was the safest and quickest option. Hindsight is wonderful and i've learnt my first lesson. I understand that if i'd taken your advice then maybe the bike would of been back on the road 10 days ago but 10 days ago i was sat in intensive care hoping my husband would be ok.I have taken steps this evening to address the problem of my lack of maintenance and am glad you posted because maybe it was the kick in the posterior that i needed to get my arse in gear and sort the bike out. I really would like nothing more than to be able to maintain and fix my bike whenever its needed but when you don't know what you are doing it can seem rather daunting and there is a large fear of making things worse rather than better . I know that there is a lot of very good information on this forum and in future i will try and search it more thoroughly before posting a question on here. Now that things are somewhat calmer i'm gonna make as much effort as i can to learn about my bike and what i need to being doing to it and hopefully i won't post anymore dumb ass questions. Thanks for the kick, i consider myself told off Heather

Hello again, just thought i'd give you an update. The gearbox problem turned out to be the gear linkage had seized and needed to be stripped and greased, the mechanic was rather miffed by this as he says he never seen it happen before The oil did come from the large breather hose that goes up under the tank, it had split were the clip holds it on. However the "dealer" decided not to replace it as he didn't have one in stock. i did mention that it had a lot of surface cracks when i dropped the bike off. He said it would be fine. What i found out today when i went to pick it up was that he'd just cut down the old one, he still said that it would be fine. I got 20 miles down the road and found out that it wasn't "fine" as it split again at the other end covering everything in oil. Phoned dealer who reluctantly agreed to collect it off the m1 in about 4hrs time so had to push it up M1 to service area. when we got back to the shop he said "oh I won't charge you for the collection" !! I should bloody well think not considering he bodged it. Then told us it had ruined his day at which point i nearly lost it as pushing a guzzi up the hard shoulder of a motorway for nearly a mile was not my idea of fun! Then had to spend another £70 on a train ticket to get home. While at the shop he said he never checked the rest of the hose or the top end as its usually ok Very Sorry for ranting but have just got back and i'm not impressed with this dealer so far. They are now shut for 2/3 weeks for summer holidays and can't order the part till they return so thats my biking holiday cancelled this August! Guess i should try and be positive at least its nothing too serious Anyway thanks again for all your help and hopefully at some point this year she'll be back on the road Cheers Heather

Number 500 is in England... in pieces at the moment

I completey agree with that, at first I just assumed it was gearbox oil but I've just found a split in the large breather hose on top of the engine, couldn't see it at first too much oil and its right where the jubilee clip sits but now i've got the tank off its definately split. I didn't know were to start looking as had oil all over the fairing, forks, front wheel as well as all over the engine/gearbox and rear wheel. I don't know why that should happen at the same time as the gearbox packs up, maybe it was on its way out and the extra heat just finished it off ? I've found that when this bike goes wrong it always does so in a big way That said when its going well its brilliant, just not having much luck! Anyway the bike is now booked into dealer but I had to hire a van to get it there so we'll see what happens, they were rather miffed on the phone but very helpful. Many thanks to everyone for your advice especially to Pasotibbs and twhitaker for suggesting the hoses, I will sleep better tonight knowing where that oil came from , will let you know the outcome... Many thanks Heather

I was in 3rd gear most of the time, revs were about 5000/6000rpm max, due to it being the M25 the traffic was very heavy so that was lucky in a way. I was travelling two up with camping gear etc. I 'd had the bike about 4 months when clutch stopped working , had alot of problems with dealer getting it sorted which I posted about on here ( had to re-register as can't use my old username for some reason?) The end result was new clutch and flywheel I think. Couldn't get dealer to give me full details of what had gone on but been its been running ok up till now. I am going to go and take the tank off and check some of these pipes to see if something has split. regards Heather

Many thanks for your replies regarding this problem. I thought I'd let you know that after having a better look at the bike and trying some of your suggestions i've found out its engine oil that its throw everywhere, still can't see where its come from though. Removed the drain plug on the gearbox and thankfully no lumps of metal on it, just a few tiny metal filings. The gearbox was full of clean oil which i drained out but I don't know where or how to remove gearbox cover to look inside, my manul for this bike only tells me to remove engine etc etc to get to the gearbox. I checked the engine oil again and found it is lower than it was prior to me going on the trip, dipstick shows it just on the min and it was on max so it must of blown something. I tried it up and down the gears (after refilling with fresh oil) but can still only select 1st,2nd,3rd it will not go up into 4th. I don't think I have the knowledge or skill to fix this and don't wish to make things worse , so I'm gonna phone my nearest dealer and try and book it in. Many thanks for all your comments i'm very grateful and will let you know the outcome asap. Regards Heather