Chuck

See? Piece of cake. The 00s? Not so much.

Rosie has had a little seep on the left jug since I got her. Thought, oh.. valve cover gasket. Replaced that. Still leaking. Put one of the nice thick green ones on there and filed the bottom of the valve cover flat. Fixing the wrong thing. Decided it must be the blanking plug o ring. Put a new one on there. No cigar. Cleaned it up and dusted baby powder all around, and it looked like it was coming from a valve cover screw. The Distinguished Previous Owner had dropped her on the left side, so I cleaned that up, put aviation Permatex on the screw, and called it fixed. Ran 700 miles to NW Arkansas on back roads in 40s weather, and saw just a little oil again. Thought, WTF? Ran twistys at 6000 + rpm for about 70 miles, and had oil clear back to the pork chop. Not a lot, mind you.. but certainly aggravating. This time, I cleaned it up really well and sprayed this aviation leak detector on it. Let her idle a bit.. didn't see a thing. The light comes on.. "Must need to be really hot to leak" so took her for a blast of hard running. Well well. I've never seen this one.. Yep, it's a pin hole in the valve cover flange all right. A pin will go right into it. Cleaned it up with thinner, etc. made up some JB Weld, and tried to squeegee it in. Time will tell...

I think that's a different problem, supposedly there's some bullet connectors under the tank. Mine was acting similar, would only crank at full lock but before I investigated it fixed itself, a picture showing location of these mythical bullet connectors would be nice, my bike's half a world away at the moment. Sorry, no pix. The bullet connectors are up by the steering neck on the left side.

Ok, I got it. Ground up a punch to fit and put it in the drill press to use as an arbor press. Pushed down one tab, and levered the top back. Wrapped some safety wire on it to keep that tab from reengaging, turned to the next one, and cave manned that one, too. After that, it decided to give up. Yeah, there's a broken solder joint. Kind of cheesy.. no strain relief or anything. Probably why the FAA doesn't allow soldered connections. Back together tomorrow, and it'll be good for another 14 years.

Hi, folks.. I'm trying to help out a friend with a 00 greenie. No power to F5&F6, so traced it to the 4 pin connector that comes from the ignition switch. Took off the electrical part of the switch to see if it has a broken wire/solder joint, etc. and don't want to break it. Do you just push down on the three places here with all three hands to pull off the back? TIA

I used this method without issue on Rosie, the 03 Rosso, and the Mighty Scura. My kid had a 00 greenie, and said he couldn't do it. "They said it couldn't be done, so I tackled it with a grin. I couldn't do it, either." Had to pull the rear drive on it for whatever reason..

How could I possibly refuse such an offer? Absolutely we'll setup a "date" and get together. Can't be this weekend, some Indiana guys are headed to Arkansas for some hooliganism.

Here's the on line shop manual.. http://thisoldtractor.com/mg_manuals/workshop_manual_v11_en.pdf

Joe, if you have any problems.. bring it over. I can walk you through this stuff, and I have Guzzidiag for seting the TPS, along with carb sticks for setting the TBs.

Just checking in. Welcome to being as LeMans keeper. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one. I was the same way. Once I "got it" I've never looked back. I'm near Elwood, btw.. we need to get together and swap lies.. Oh, not to worry about the clutch noise. Guzzis make all kinds of noises, none of them fatal except Roper's "Dogga Dogga" noise..

You say it's done it since new. Hmmm. My first thought was the start relay.. the most forward one in the stack.. or the terminals it fits into. My Scura does this occasionally, and all I have to do is pull the relay, spritz the legs (with Caig DeOxit Gold) of it and the relay base, wiggle it around a bit, you get the picture. But you say putting a new relay in it fixes it for a while sometimes? Hmmm again. Maybe it's a combination of corrosion on the relay base, a connector, and ignition switch finally making a click? I'd take everything in the circuit apart and spritz DeOxit in every connector. Now, it could be that it is the solenoid is hanging up. I've seen that one, too, but again, you said it's done it since new, so I wonder about that. At any rate, I'd replace (or clean) it if the above doesn't do it.

Yeah. If you don't get an easy solution, give me a ping on WG, I'll most likely see it there..

I'd do it for you for nothin.. if you're in no hurry.

I think part of the problem is that the bikes are different from year to year. I had no problem getting a (modded) grease gun on the nipple of my 02 and 03, but it was impossible to use on Brad's greenie. ( LowRiders bike now)

Yeah, you can (sort of) see where the cable wears on this out of focus picture..

FWIW, I was having trouble getting it to connect reliably. I plugged the USB cable into the computer before boot. *Then* it recognised it. Go to device manager and find which port it is using. I understand it can change, depending on the computer. It's always com 3 on the little netbook though. Since then, I've had no problems.

While I had Rosie's tank off, I was doing the usual cleaning, inspecting, etc.and found one complete strand broken on the throttle cable. She only has around 20K miles, so I'd suspect that it may be a common failure. The inner cable exits the housing at a fairly sharp angle ... Probably wouldn't hurt to check.

I repaired Darth Quota's "unrepairable" tank with this stuff. I'm a believer..

I did this over on Wild Guzzi, basically because I hang out there, but my guess is a lot of us are going to be doing this as the tanks age.. At any rate, here's the thread. http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=62087.0

I suspected the TPS as soon as I saw your video. The Guzzi diag software is a wonderful tool for setting the TPS and checking all sensors. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17865

I've never seen anything like that on a Tonti..

Maybe working on your core and thigh strength will, too. Just sayin. Not trying to be a smartass here, read on. . As I aged, I had to go from sport bikes that hurt my neck to more upright positions. that hurt my back. A personal trainer worked with me and said, "I can get you back on sport bikes." Worked for me.

Fry's carry it if you have one near. It's magic in a can..

My first thought is clutch switch, but it's late...

My story. I'd bought a Strada that hadn't run in years. A previous owner had decided that di-electric grease was a good idea, and filled every nook and cranny of every electrical connector on that bike with it. Naturally, it never ran again. Another guy bought it, and never got it running. I bought it from him, saw the di-electric grease in *everything*, and cleaned it out. The previous owner had even bought a new Digiplex unit.. $$ to no avail. It started right up, and I was patting myself on the back. Took it for a ride, thinking, "cool scooter" when it quit. That was the first of about 5 times I was standing beside the road. Apparently, when it go hot enough, the grease would migrate down the wires and cause an open connection somewhere. It's apparently ok, now, but I don't want it anywhere (except on the spark plug boot) on my bike. YMMV, of course..