Lucky Phil

I'm now sworn off Fords, forever. Ford Australia are total wasters. I've had 3 new Fords in the last 5 years from the same dealer, 2 focus RS Mk3 's and the wifes Kuga(Escape). 2016 model with 95,000 klms up. Two weeks ago the Kuga failed me visiting a relative in the country. Long story short the selector cable end fitting on the transmission had popped off the selector lever because the 50 cent plastic bush on the end fitting had fallen apart. Managed to get it going again and got home. Tie wrapped it in place the next day and took a run to the Ford dealer I'd bought it and the 2 RS's from and explained the issue and their response? Yea mate that's a new shifter cable, $156 and 3 hours labour and half the dash apart to fit it and the broken clips and dash rattles etc that go with that for a 50 cent plastic bush! Total cost $720. @#!#$# that, I'll machine up a bush before I'll pay that. Back home and 15min on the internet and source a Ford USA tech service bulletin for the updated plastic bush ($1.05) and the new protective cap which is a mod to keep oil off the bush, order from the States and it arrives 12 days later. Fifteen mins work to fit and it's done. Ford Australia are more than happy to ignore the US TSB and rip off the customer and the dealer is happy to go along for the ride. So pay the dealer $720 or do it yourself for $3.50. We are close to updating the Kuga and although I like the car I'll never buy another Ford, ever, period. The fish rots from the head down and here it applies to Ford Australia and it's dealers. BTW if you guys think I've accumulated some knowledge on Guzzi V11's it's nothing to what I've gained on Ford Ecoboost engines after the Focus RS Mk3 head gasket recall issue. But that's another story. Phil

You need Guzzidiag. Strap yourself in for some learnings and use a translator where necessary( these people invented it). No garbage about "I'm a luddite" and don't know computers. Neither did I and I'm conversant with it now. If you can't figure out Guzzidiag you may as well sell the bike, seriously. Without it it's maintenance with both hands tied behind your back. http://www.guzzi-forum.de/Forum/index.php?topic=16809.0" http://www.guzzi-forum.de/Forum/index.php?board=76.0 https://www.von-der-salierburg.de/download/GuzziDiag/ https://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=96957.0 Phil

Here's you answer. Fuel injected, 270 degree crank with balance shaft, ABS, the cheapest spares in motorcycling, and dirt cheap to buy. Quality? outstanding. Phil

Whats your CO set at? Phil

The easiest way to re fit throttle bodies is to individually fit the manifolds to the throttle bodies with the new rubbers and than bolt the manifolds to the heads with the t/b's attached. Ciao

The tyres are a joke these days docc. So teams get their allocation of tyres and have them on the warmers during the weekend and obviously not all get used so they go back to Michelin for later use. All tyres are serialised and tracked and a log kept of how many hours and cycles they have been on the warmers. It's now at the point where a tyre thats been on a tyre warmer at a previous round is in effect a "second rate tyre" as in it's performance is degraded compared to a fresh new tyre straight off the warmers so those pre warm cycled tyre need to be used for non critical practice such as the first session when a riders getting up to speed at a new GP. Miller got caught out in practice 3 a GP ago when his bike broke down out on the track due to a technical issue and he needed to leg it back to the pits and go out on his spare which had new but warm cycled tyres on it. So when a good time is needed in practice 3 he's out on "degraded tyres" that won't cut a fast time. Then we have the choice of race tyre dependent on a variation of track temp of less than 10 deg C ( not air temp but track temp) tyres overheating because a rider is riding and battling in a "pack", overheating due to ride height devices, overheating due to aero. Bikes fitted with on board tyre temp and pressure monitoring that warn the rider when his front tyre temps and pressures are too high. Add to that rides generally have 3 front and rear tyre choices and it's all about tyres these days. When it gets to this level of complexity over tyres then it's gone off the rails. Phil

Yes this is true. Ride height and aero are ruining MotoGP as is electronics. However electronics have a practical benefit for road bikes and is therefor of value in a product sense for the manufacturers to incorporate into production bikes. Aero and dynamic ride height devices have zero benefit to road riders and even for track day riders. All they do is create overheating issues for front tyres to cope with and make overtaking difficult. MotoGP is disappearing up it's own fundamental just like F1. Big moneys involved and it's all about "the show" now so unpredictability is the aim. Most sports are the same. They start out for the benefit of the competitor and interested people come to watch and eventually it becomes a money making enterprise geared around the spectator to generate the capital. Phil

My comment was on the fact that control tyres have run their race and it's not unrealistic to provide a range of different construction tyres to teams that they feel suit their bike and rider at the start of the season instead of manufacturers having to reconstruct frames and swingarms after their next years bike has been designed and constructed to suit the new tyres Michelin decide on at end of season testing. Pointing out that Michelin in the past had the capacity to produce bespoke tyres overnight. Ciao

FWIW the later bikes used an M8 bolt and Daytonas and possibly Centauros didn't use any secondary bolt at all just a very similar bracket with the large bolt. You can't discount morons that sit on their bike using it as some sort of chair supported by the kickstand. I have zero sympathy for these people when the side stand fails on any bike. Phil

God Chuck what did you do to the poor thing. In 40 years riding Ducati's I've never had one let me down on the road or track and come to think of it same with my friends that I rode with on Ducati's. We had a new clutch basket fail in a WSB race once. That bike did the same race with a head gasket leaking coolant into the cylinder as well which we knew about before the race but it was powering our rider to a 10 place finish when the clutch basket failed. Apart from cracking cases those 996 engines were pretty tough and reliable. Our 600 TT2 did all IOM practices and 2 races without missing a beat and onto the TT2 World Championships on the same engine. The 750 engine did cough back through the rear inlet and pop the carburettor off as our rider shut the throttle after crossing the finish line in the senior race but the race was over so that doesn't count. Phil

As a previous poster mentioned, take a Stanley knife blade without the holder and carefully tap it into the joint. Pick a corner to start with and combine this with a soft faced hammer on the perimeter. I have used this technique a few times with success and no damage. I had to use it recently to get the oil pump off a BB engine. The aftermarket pump had the locating dowels a fraction off spec and the pump was impossible to get off in the normal fashion so it was the very careful Stanley blade method around the pump mounting perimeter. Took a good hour to get it off without and real damage to the case thankfully. The pump was also on but I won't be reusing that. The problem you are having is much like trying to work against suction. Try pulling something sucked down away directly and it's impossible but work at a small section to break the vacuum and it's much easier, same here. Once you get a corner to release and then work along an edge to get that to release it becomes exponentially easier. It's not suction holding the sump on of course but the principle is much the same. Phil

I got news for you, they have in the past and they did it all the time. In fact Michelin used to make custom tyres "OVERNIGHT" for the factory guys and fly them in for race day. So during Friday practice Michelin would email the factory and get them working on a custom tyre for each of the top guys whatever they thought they needed to use in qualifying and the race. Stoner mentioned this in his autobiography that "occasionally" in his first year in a satellite team if he was doing well in practice some of these tyres would be "bestowed" upon him and the "lesser lights" for qualifying. It's the reason he would often qualify well or even on pole then everyone would ask why he wasn't up front in the actual race. Reason? because even after getting pole he'd be back on the std "junk" tyres for the race. Naturally he found it quite annoying that Rossi et al would know that although he qualified well they wouldn't need to worry about him or the other satellite riders that qualified well because the top guys would prevent them having the best tyres for the race. The spec tyre changed all that for the good but now it's run it's course and I don't see any reason in the preseason testing teams couldn't choose from a number of different constructions offered to them that they thought worked best for them and their bike and rider and Michelin build those tyres for them for the season. The actual tyre construction variations aren't a big deal to build. Sure it would be more costly but all they need to do is cut down on the F1 style bullshit creeping into MotoGP and they'd find the money. Phil

This is where the control tyre situation doesn't work. Far faster, cheaper for the factories and easier to tailor make tyres for each bike than re design frames, swingarm, triple clamps and forks for each new iteration of tyre construction. All that chassis development out the window when Michelin change tyre constructions. Like tossing the deck of cards into the air and see who wins and loses in the "do they work with my chassis" game. Yamaha's problem is they like all the factories get sucked into the "hiring an old has been rider" thinking there is value in their experience. In fact there is almost zero value in old riders who are set in their ways and want the whole bike designed around their style to make up for their degenerated competitiveness. They still fall for it though. Franki Morbidelli who I like very much as a person has hit the wall a lot of rider hit after a big, big injury, a phycological one that many never recover from. Always the acid test of a top rider, how well they deal mentally with a big injury. Rossi's record was never the same after he broke his leg. Rookies just ride what they got and accept the current situation. The skill isn't cutting fast lap times on these bikes these days, even rookies can do that, it's learning to race them and then dealing with the pressure of being a "factory" rider if you ever get there. Phil

I suspect the KTM will be the end of Millers Career in MotoGP. KTM has 2 things going against it, a tubular frame and it's the only MotoGP bike using WP suspension. I don't think the tube frame is necessarily a limiting factor but when your bike is obviously lacking in performance then reducing the variables is the smart way of at the very least of gaining some comparative data with whats on every other winning bike. Of course politics plays a part and seeing KTM owns WP it's never going to happen but the smart move would be to use the Ohlins on the Tech3 bikes to see what it's like. When you're looking for answers sometimes it's best to be a follower for a while and use whats obviously winning for at the very least an objective alternative data. The only issue with a steel tube frame is consistency. Casy Stoner commented years ago when Ducati went to the carbon box frame that the only thing wrong with the trellis frame was that every individual one felt completely different to the other. So his #1 bike flexed totally different from his #2 bike and a replacement frame different to both. He postulated that with so many individual welded joints in a trellis that that may be the issue. Nobody before or since has had Stoners "feel" for a motorcycle chassis. Phil

Sure everything but the filter. Thanks Ciao

Johann Zarco, you mean the Johann Zarco that caused the biggest crash in MotoGP history at the Red Bull Ring a few years ago and thought he hadn't done anything wrong? That Johann Zarco, lol. I have a ton of respect for these guys that go out and lay it all on the line but It's extremely rare for me to take any view of a racing incident they have too seriously, esp if they have been involved. "Clearly Naka was never going to make that corner because if he was it means he's out braked me and I'm the best on the brakes in motoGP". That folks is how 99% of circuit riders brains work, lol. Phil

A "racing incident" doesn't mean nobody made an error it means the error wasn't stupid or reckless and other factors contributed to the outcome. I watch a ton of racing ( WSB, Au champs, Motoamerica, Motogp, all the irish racing, speedway and much more) and have been involved over many years and I've never had the thought that Nakagami is a dangerous or risky rider. Back in the 90's at the Phillip Island round of WSB I was talking to a well known top WSB rider at the time in the pits after race 1 and he was spitting chips about Nori Haga's riding with whom he had been having a big battle. I went and looked at it afterwards thinking I'd missed something but nope just hard racing no quarter given or taken. Rider phycology has always a been a big part of their success, it just hasn't been understood until quite recently by most. Often there's more gains to be had in the head than the machine. Phil

Racing incident or first corner bunching as Speedway often consider it and no rider excluded. I thought Peccos response was interesting considering he took out Jorge Martin in a bone headed up the inside and lose it on the brakes 2 rider incident at Qatar earlier in the year. Riders have very short memories. I thought Nakagami just made a small mistake on the brakes into the first corner not a stupid move. The other thing of note was naka got a really really good launch and drive off the start and when he went down wasn't from the areal shot stull trying desperately to get it stopped. He had got 98% of his braking done fine and just lost the front trail braking the last %2, certainly not a reckless out of control lunge. There's a massive amount going on into the first turn on the opening lap, cold tires, no .aero, cold brakes, massive compressing of the field and riders trying to improve positions. You have to expect the odd mistake here sometimes. Bagnia said in the interview " you can't overtake 12 riders into the first corner" Have a look at the replay and check out Mir firing it up the inside into turn 1 after the start. Started in 19th position and came out of turn 1 in 5th, so made 14 places into the first corner. Riders, some aren't paid because they're thinkers thats for sure. Alex Rins was winging like a 3 year old about an incident with Naka in the previous race and I watched it a dozen times and Naka did zero wrong. He ran his bike out onto the paint and used all the track and held his trajectory and Rins tried to go up the inside on the exit and lost it. Riders under pressure looking for excuses why they crashed. Ciao

So I finally got these 43mm forks back together save for the cartridge installs. The sliders were re chromed and ground and I re assembled the axle/calliper brackets onto them. I sourced a set of seals and the bushes we in good condition. I also sourced a seal driving tool as well. So my methodology was to cut to size a piece of very thin clear plastic probably only .3mm thick from a Chocolate box as it happens and smooth the edges and wrap that around the end of the sliders to guide the seals over the slider end and upper guide bush recess then feed the dust and oil seal onto the plastic protector get them onto the main chrome section and remove the plastic protector. Work the seals and retainer clip and lower bush and it's washer down the leg then install the upper guide bush and fit the slider into the stanchion. I then used the seal driver to install the lower bush with it's washer on top. This was really only a tap fit and didn't really require any hammering. Next was the oil seal and the driver was used just as a means to push the seal into place. So with the leg up side down on the bench grab the seal driver and pull it down hard and the lubed seal just pushes in without a lot of force. Then a couple of impacts with the driving tool just to make sure it's seated and check the retaining clip groove is clear and install the clip, remove the tool and push the dust seal into place. Installing the bush and seal was very easy and requires no real hammering etc. I had ordered a set of Andreani cartridges and they dont fit. The caps are the wrong thread pitch and dia for the 43mm forks of the later bikes. Andreani and the seller weren't interested in sorting the problem so I've sent them back for a refund. Incredibly, although I sent Andreani and the seller images and measurements and proved to them that their cartridges they claim fit all V11 Sports from 01-2006 dont fit the later 43mm equipped bikes they seem disinterested in helping and are still advertising them as fitting all bikes from 01 onwards. This situation has arising before with another member here in 2019 and they still haven't sorted it. I mentioned that this was NOT a new issue and sent them the link from here and still no interest from them. I may get Maxton to make me some cartridges or I may just use the originals, don't know yet. Forgot to take images of the forks before assembly, sorry. Phil

Thats a deal, airbox and throttle bodies and I pay for the shipping only. Just put them aside for me until USPS resume shipping to Australia which I hope will be soon and we can make that happen. Phil

Carburettors and pod filters as well I suspect. Sigh Ciao

I'm very envious of multilingual people but here's a tip if you're using foreign language forums. If you type SLOWER in upper case it usually makes things much clearer and understandable. Hope this helps. Ciao