Kiwi_Roy

Carbon finer cans, the only way to go IMHO Sent from my shoe phone!

Ford Taurus, boring as bat-shit but dead reliable so I have more money to spend on motorbikes

If it just pulled the yellow wires off the coils you should be able to re-attach. If the copper is oxidized replace it with some new.

Sculler2x It's a good idea to run back to the starter but the motor/gearbox have even less resistance than a large copper wire. Your #8 wire will probably carry the full starting current without getting too hot if the No 4 fell off. I'm guessing the wire Luigi provided is about equivalent to a #14, it can't handle 150+ Amps as you can see from the picture. Update On further thought that's a very good idea, if the bolt works loose the circuit from the regulator is broken also, there's no path back that way either. Go one step further and make sure that no small black wires land directly on the battery. .

The picture issue seems to have resolved itself.

Looking at the pictures Cottagetone posted of his gasket thread reminded me how poorly grounded the regulator is. All the current from the alternator passes to the battery thru the double red wire but it has to pass back to the regulator case to complete the circuit, The case is very poorly grounded thru a long wire back to the battery and rusty contact to the horn bracket. Any Voltage lost in this connection between regulator case and battery negative is subtracted from the battery Voltage. A short strap between the regulator case and an engine bolt improves the connection, the engine / gearbox is like a massive wire back to the main battery ground at the gearbox. I know of several spine frame bikes that caught fire because the main ground to the gearbox worked loose, the starting current will find it's way back to battery negative through the small black wire from the regulator case, this causes the wire to get red hot and melt itself to other wires in the loom shorting them to ground. Make sure the main battery ground is securely connected to a gearbox bolt and take the time to scrape and grease the battery connections with Vaseline. Here's a picture one owner shared, the bare wire is the ground from the regulator to battery negative terminal. Fortunately the damage was easily repaired but he had to open up 3 feet of the loom to do it. The ground on my bike was just under the 4mm screw that holds the seat release lock, luckily I caught it in time and moved it to a gearbox bolt in full view. Here's part of the schematic first showing the starter return current flowing through the correct path at the top. Then with a loose ground at the bottom showing how the current switches to the wrong path through the small ground wire. Remember, it's not just a loose wire that can cause this, a badly oxidized battery terminal can do it as well, thats why I always rabbit on about greasing the battery terminals with Vaseline, it keeps the Oxygen from the Lead so it can't form an insulating Lead Oxide layer. BTW, another wire that often gets burnt up is the small ground to the ECU case, this happens when owners forget and remove the battery positive first making contact between a live tool and the ECU case.

I'm curious about the blind hole with 3 screws in the top of the cover. anyone seen anything in there?

A 2 Watt resistor will do 82 Ohms is a preferred value (readily available). I just used one of the old lamps in parallel with the LED, keeps things in balance like before. Incandescent bulbs are like magic resistors Low resistance when cold High resistance when hot the exact opposite of the fuel sensor, they work perfect together

The resistor is called a "Pull Up Resistor", sometimes electronic circuits don't provide Voltage they might just be a transistor or other solid state switch. The resistor ensures that when the switch is open the tacho sees 12 Volts, when the switch is closed it seen nominal 0 Volts similar to a tach wired across a set of points. I suspect the Guzzi ECU puts out 5 Volt pulses so the resistor is not required. BTW, I thought the pulse input speedo would require something similar but it worked fine with just a reed switch, Speedhut thought of everything.

I think the oil would overheat only in traffic with low air flow over the radiator. What would work better, a larger radiator with low air flow or adding a small computer fan behind the existing one? A small thermostat on the return line set to about the same setting as the existing thermostat would cut the fan in or if it ran 24/7 the existing thermostat would only let oil in when it gets overheated.

The farking wire has fallen off the spade lug. Sent U a PM

I have mine on the yellow wire to the park/instrument lights. Another option would be the red/black wire to the idiot lights.

IMHO It's best to choose a circuit that's turned off with the key, the headlight circuit would be my choice the small load the USB adds won't have any effect. BTW the USB adapter contains a 5 Volt regulator.

Relay No 1 is the start, look for power at the top Slot (30) I have seen the 15 Amp fuse blow, it really should be a 20 Amp (it draws over 40 Amps for a split second) ---- 30 fed directly from the fuse even with key off ---- 87 | | | If you poke a wire into 30 & 87 it should crank over, make sure it's in neutral first though Later V11s (2004) feed the start relay through the ignition switch which is stupid. Check for 12 Volts at the 30 terminal of relay 1 with the key On then Off, get back.

Bear in mind that the bike is in Europe, your wiring may be a little different than the Nth American version.

Some confusion here, SP838 says 6205 We really need a spreadsheet of all the standard bearings for each model Roy

The melting fuse is a common occurrence. I suspect caused by the regulator setup, it puts out pulses of current well in excess of 30 Amps. The regulator ground is so important because the charging current has to pass back from the chassis to the regulator case in order to complete the circuit back to the alternator, there's too much Voltage drop in the little wire Luigi ran back to the battery. Lately I have been advocating a strip of Aluminum sheet metal instead of copper wire that way it's the same material all the way from regulator case to engine. Sent from my shoe phone!

Scud, 19:39 on the 24 hour clock. On the 3rd day of the trip my riding buddy clipped a car on a blind corner and ended up draped over a crash barrier having slammed into several posts, 7 Broken ribs and a few other bones resulted in a hellicopter ride to hospital, he gets to stay in NZ for several more weeks, still beats the alternative. I have clocked up about 4k on the old brick between visiting Fanau and back to hospital. Sent from my shoe phone!

If you pull it apart and move the tumblers around it might work better, the worn out cogs move to the left. Sent from my shoe phone!

Tomorrow for you guys in Nth America, it's 1939 on Thursday here in NZ Sent from my shoe phone!

And the incandescent lamp is just the opposite when it's cold the resistance is low so it applies almost full Voltage across the thermistor This is the reason I use one of the old lamps in parallel with my LED the lamp applies the full 12Volts across the thermistor until its uncovered. It's a fine balancing act between bulb heat and thermistor heat. Really it would be much better if our bikes had one of the magnetic float and reed switch sensors some of the other Guzzis have. Interesting point about dimming the LED with pulse width modulation, the eyes are fooled by a fast flicker, have you tried that? I like it that the LEDs are visible in bright sunlight and I rarely ride at night, with old age I find I get very disoriented in dim light.

As Stick mentioned it could be the ground but why only on high beam, I could see it if the headlight was dim. I would check the headlight wiring and measure the Voltage on the instrument cases reference to the main chassis or a bolt on the engine. The gauges are insulated from the dash by the rubber grommet. I'm wondering if the headlight is wired incorrectly and you're getting the two filaments in series on High with the gauge ground at midpoint. On High beam the gauge ground might be rising to 6 or 8 Volts reference to the chassis. I always get confused looking at the headlight socket so usually end up measuring the bulb to find which is common Low and High beam connections are the two with the greatest resistance. If the H4 socket shows any sign of heating throw it away. Update: Another possibility is the gauge lamps are somehow grounded to the high beam filament, they would operate normally on Low Beam but have zero Volts at High Beam. The tacho would keep working because the electronics has a separate ground. Update: Remember to check for Voltage on the ground wires for the gauge lights and the headlight referenced to a solid ground on the engine.

That is a weird one, the tail light must be going out also. Narrow it down a bit by checking for Voltage at the fuse 6 on this diagram, check for the correct fuse by pulling the fuse to see if the lights go. If you do have power on the fuse the next place to check is at the handebar switch. Just a note, all those lights are fed from a different ignition switch contact, the wire has been known to break off but I'm leaning more towards the dimmer switch.

So Marty, what's the correct answer eh? At first I was dead against it but our flag does look too much like the Aussie one. it's bad enough the rest of the world thinks we are just a few km away.

Thanks for the good wishes, we will be tenting mostly, the only way to go I recon, I can't wait to wake up for a pee under a moonless Southern sky, the stars are fantastic. I'm going with my best friend Ross aka Galactica (no Guzzi content there, he's a 70s Kawasaki nut), he will be riding a 98 Honda V4. We will be met at Auckland by my bro KiwiKev 96 1000i , I'll try to keep you updated from time to time. Rob, I sent you a PM