Chuck

A 5/4 scale Monza.. My favorite of the older LeMans series.. You don't see many 3s.

My is crimp, no solder. For instance, the FAA doesn't allow soldered connections. Solder will wick up the wire, and it will break with vibration. The difference between cheesy stamped crimpers and *good* crimpers is night and day. Aircraft grade crimpers are mondo expensive. You can get *good* ratcheting automotive crimpers here: http://www.vintageconnections.com/ Not expensive, and they will make reliable connections every time.

Dorcia and I's first date was Yes in the round..

Just for grins.. before tearing your hair out..put in new plugs. If that doesn't do it, *then* tear your hair out.

Wat Scud sez. The local Ducati had the seals.. Ducati of Indianapolis. https://www.indyducati.com/about/hours-and-directions

I have *lots* of Delrin. I haven't taken a serious look at the Mighty Scura's bushing condition, but I'll do that. It's going to be nice today.. (in the middle of February?? In Indiana??) so I'm going to play outside. I'll report back when the weather gets back to normal.

I'm a believer in the PC 545. I replaced one at 10 years and one at 12. They hadn't failed.. but standing voltage was down to 12.3 or so. When I'd had them at any rate, they'd never been on a battery tender. One sat as long as 6 months at a time. (!) I understand that if it doesn't get cold where you are, a Lithium battery might be the way to go. I'll probably put one in the MZ in California when the cheapie AGM dies.

My RC had something similar. It was basically a weldment that raised the bars. You have to be careful, because it will foul the fairing at full lock.

Andy.. if I were Pete, I'd say that you are luckier than a hilarious simile deleted, but he's adamant about low RPM causing spline damage. I, personally, have seen much worse than yours at less mileage.. so I'll have to disagree.

Andy's flywheel looks pretty good.

Yeah, I understand low rpm idle is especially bad. I am *not* a guru on this, but I have read a lot since I became enamored with Guzzi in 99. At any rate, I've never had a problem with idle no lower than 1100 and no prolonged clutch lever held in. I've heard of issues in less than 30K miles with "Harley idle" and treating it like a car transmission. Small blocks? Pay no attention to the above. They are different, and IMHO, better.

The input splines look pretty good. I've seen *much* worse. Uhh.. where you see the wear is on the transmission input splines, and the clutch and intermediate plate splines. You can see light wear on Andy's. About 1/3 of it in the middle. I've seen much worse. His flywheel looks pretty good. The intermediate plate and pressure plate wear there.

The chicken enjoying a little acrobatic flight.. 2017-02-16_11-53-37 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr I can tell you a little about tapered bearings. Aircraft use them, and at every annual inspection, one of the requirements is to remove, inspect, and repack the wheel bearings. So. Wipe up what's left of Luigi's packing job, and give it a good cleaning in the solvent tank. Blow it off. Yes, you can make the bearing spin with air pressure. Avoid that temptation. I've been told that you can get it spinning fast enough for centrifugal force to blow it up in your hand. I don't know that, but I've never tempted fate. Now that is cleaned, you can inspect it with your 10x glass. 2017-02-16_11-52-16 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr What you are looking for are very small flats on the rollers called brinelling. See any? It's toast.. Ok, the bearing has been inspected.. no need for a new one. Time to pack it. Put a gob in your hand, take the bearing in your other, and repeatedly smack the bearing into the grease. It will take a *lot* more than you think. Some mechanics push and slide the bearing against their hand. Both methods work. Just smearing grease on the outside is useless. 2017-02-16_11-52-35 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr You'll see hydraulic pressure force the grease into the bearing, and it will come out the top. Continued whatever method you are doing, while rotating the bearing around until every time you smack it into your hand, grease will come out the top. Wipe off the excess, and you are done. Yes, there are commercial bearing packers, but there is a certain satisfaction in doing it the old fashioned way. For the bottom triple, just do the best you can. I put a bead of grease all around the bearing, and tappety tap/smear, trying to push grease through the bearing. 2017-02-16_11-53-07 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr Patience is it's own reward, they tell me. At any rate, you'll eventually get it done. Hmmm, I wonder if I could invent a Guzzi lower triple bearing packer? I think they all use the same bearing...

Talk to me, Phil. Soap and propane torch? On a casting? I've never heard of such a thing.

Well, it takes a big man to tell you he screwed up. So, I blame Scud. He's the one that brow beat me into checking the steering head bearings. You remember I had the Mighty Scura on the factory work stand and Pit bull front? Ok, to get the triples off, I planned to put my hydraulic jack under the pan and pull the Pit bull out. I've done this kind of thing *many* times when I used to work on Centauros.. but I always had the rear Pit bull stand on the back. Can't do that on the Scura. It would break the plastic on the swing arms. What I hadn't realized was when I put the front stand on, when it went over center, it must have levered the bike up just enough to take it off the work stand for a fraction of a second. As soon as the Pit bull went over center, it settled back down. When I put the hydraulic jack under the pan, as the Pit bull came out, the bike settled on the rear wheel and the jack and fell over. Fortunately.. the chicken started flapping his wings like crazy. He didn't want that 500 plus pounds motorcycle landing on him and heading down to the bottom of the grease pit. He managed to save the day. Now, l had a bike laying on it's side with no front end on it. Fortunately, the fuel tank wasn't leaking, or I'd just have hooked the van to it and drug it out of the Guzzi Garage. ™ Gas fumes and a grease pit are *not* a good combination. Nobody was around.. Dorcia was subbing at school, and Harley Bob was out flying somewhere. I decided it was as good a time as any to see how my back was rehabbing, folded up the cherry picker, cave manned it into the van, brought it up to the Guzzi Garage ™ and picked the Scura up. Need I say when Dorcia came home she bitched me out for that? "Hon, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.." 2017-02-15_07-46-21 by Charles Stottlemyer, on Flickr Damage appears to be minimal at a cursory examination. The exhaust is tweaked, it'll tweak back. The brake lever is a little bent.. it'll *probably* bend back. If so, I'll NDT it. The brake reservoir is broken. That's about it. Oh, maybe a little scuffed paint and a couple of holes in the drywall. That'll be patina. After all this, the chook was seriously giving me the stink eye, but I told him it was Scud's fault..

Haven't gotten in there, yet. Long story..

Uh, yep.. that is locking, all right. Awfully hard to diagnose when half a world away. Pulling in the clutch lever should have let it roll.. did you do that?

Oh, yeah.. holding in the clutch lever is much worse on the input shaft, etc. The first sign you see is no friction zone. It's either all or nothing. I've seen many over the years on WG. Probably most of them by Pete.

I coined the term on my Lario rehab project on WG. If you look for trouble on an old machine, you *will* find it.

You'd know it if the rear wheel locked.

Thanks for that. I probably won't be riding it for a while. Since Scud brow beat me into doing the steering head bearings and I started taking stuff off, finding even more rust and corrosion... ahhh it's a slippery slope.

Welcome, Owen.. I'm having a hard time imagining an engine stalling and locking the rear wheel. Can you explain exactly what is happening?

The Zooks are cartridge forks, aren't they?

Uhh, yeah. He can still do it.

Thanks, Scud. Yeah.. that's about what I need.. an extra maybe 200 ml to be safe. Ran that 1:45 round trip to the Duck dealer, hoping for the best. Didn't realize they were closed on Mondays. Winter hours.. no doubt, you don't have to deal with that. Oh, well. Maybe I can *ride* there tomorrow. It's forecast to be 45 degrees and not raining. Life is good, anyway.