68C

Shame most later Guzzi engines seem tilted back in the frame, tilted foward engines always look better, compare a Triumph T150 with a T160. I suppose it is to do with getting the shaft drive to have a reasonably stright run to make life easier for the universal joints. Later bikes have deeper sumps needing the motor to be mounted higher so making things worse. No doubt some clever designer can sort that, even if it just visual by redesigning the heads and valve covers like the later BMW twins to give the illusion of a more aggresive looking engine.

Winter is here so I have started to play with Guzzidiag again, just downloaded v47 onto my XP MSI Wind netbook. When all connected up I can get GuzziRead to download the ECU after setting up the com port. However I cannot get Guzzidiag to connect. My problem is I cannot find the screen to setup my com port for Guzzidiag. I tried clicking on and around the top LH corner on the "v47", it just gives me the Windows minimise, quit options etc. When I left click on the white cross on the v twin engine logo I get a row of options along the bottom of the screen, "connect" etc but nowhere to setup the com port. Right click sends me to the Guzzi De forum! It has to be something stupid I am doing, please help. As an aside, I have used these MSI Wind Netbooks, (models U90, U100 and U135), in the past to connect to Guzzidiag with great success, they are now rather old but are cheap second hand and come with Windows XP. Being only a 10 inch display they are small and portable enough to use in the garage. If fitted with a small SSD rather than a hard drive they can be used on the bike for datalogging.

Not so sure about the red frame around the seat and next to the headlight, nothing some black paint could'nt cure.

Lovely photos, where I live I am lucky if I can walk for 30 minutes before meeting someone, and that includes the New Forest!

Holy flywheels Batman.

I had my 850T3 flywheel lightened by turning a 1/4 inch off the outside, not forgetting to remark the timing positions, and fitted 950cc barrels. Kept the original carbs. After all the time it took to do the work I can honestly say I did not remember any huge change, felt much like it was before the work!

I can see all the Tonti boys locking their swinging arms away in a very safe place.

Possibly the end of the thackery spring/washer had worn to a sharp edge and was catching on the arm or the support, then it wound up a little before releasing. Might be worth rounding the ends of the washer. It used to be a common mod to remove these thackery washers and shim out the gap to reduce friction, it was a little noisier of course but not important when racing. Ideally you only want a few thou clearance when hot, first of all set the gap to around 0.010" then get the motor hot, quickly check the hot gap then add/remove shims to set the gap to a few thou.

Is that the thing that goes up and down in a slow rythmical fashion?

I prefer 6.4mm, too scared to cut a length off her washing line.

You could try temporarily replacing the valve springs with very light springs, then slowly turn the engine over little by little checking the valve can still be pushed down and so are not contacting the pistons. No need to remove the cylinder head. Use the old trick of filling the cylinder with string (leaving a tail out of the plug hole) then winding the piston up so the string compresses against the valve head. Now lever the valve spring cap down and remove the collets, cap and spring. Fit the light spring, cap collets etc. Remove the string and check as described above. Anyone who has done much work on aircraft piston engines will know this one. Edit: Should of added remove rocker arms for access to collets etc, and make sure you are on compression stroke.

I bought that one, had to send it back as it had the common failed mileometer. Gear wheel worn, the needle indicated so the speedo part probably works. He refunded me OK, although I lost out on the return postage. He may relist it as u/s, may be of some use to add a mph dial to a kph item.

Hi, what size gauge did you opt for please.

Found this on the UK Automobile Association website, dated 21 May 2017. https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/fuels-environment/biofuels Basically UK uses 'Up to 5%' ethanol (E5), being phased in is E10 with 10%. Interestingly ethanol fuel has less energy per volume so fuel consumption may be worse!

True.

Thats because good girls always ride side saddle.

Interesting, but as we do not have such high ethanol fuel the tank swelling problem does not seem so great here so maybe not such a need here.

Having reread the topic I think I agree with Coretrevor. "That's always a problem, potentially dangerous. On the Guzzi, I would pull the rocker arms, then do the leakdown test at BDC". It looks like a far safer way to check the valves although may not show a worn bore as that tends to be at the upper end of the stroke.

I agree with all you are saying Chuck as far as diagnostics goes. One must be carefull however, it is a routine operation on a piston aircraft engine with a strong chap holding the prop, much more awkward on a motorcycle engine. as it is difficult to hold the engine at tdc, if it moves just a few degrees either way there will be a lot of force kicking the crank round. Typically 90psi on a 3 inch piston is around 640 lbs pushing down on the piston!

I phoned MCS Engineering this morning. He is aware there is interest in these alloy tanks and has replied to a few people through the info@mcs-engineering.co.uk email address. He was a pleasant chap to talk to but did point out "Those folk over the pond seem to think I have tanks ready on the shelf I don't, we build tanks to order". As a small company they build bespoke tanks for many bikes, cars etc. There is around three months waiting time. He said it is difficult for him to make a tank without having the bike with him as there seem to be differences between frames and what fits under the tank. He did say he was considering buying a frame as a worktool. Perhaps someone near him could help with that. I did not discuss price of the tanks. He asked if we are a club, I explained it is a web based forum covering the V11. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of V11lemans.com could contact him, you may be able to arrange a group deal. I expect the price of a tank would be too high for me.

Have you tried the company email, I picked it off there website, www.mcs-engineering.co.uk info@mcs-engineering.co.uk Website has a dash between mcs and engineering, not sure if that is 'legal' character for emails.

I once spent hours trying to bleed a brake, turned out the seal was stuck to the piston after I had pushed it back to fit new pads. The piston could not slide through the seal to take up the adjustment. Instead it just moved back and forth as I pumped the lever, as it returned back it left a gap between the pad and the disc so when I pulled the lever it only moved up to touch the disc then when I released the lever the seal pulled the piston back again. You could actually see the piston and pad moving to and fro. I had some braking and a very spongy lever which felt like air but was just the piston taking up the gap. Of course don't forget there should be a little retraction of the piston just not so much as I had.

Ref your drawing update, sadly you have now deleted the vertical line from the new red blob to the LH coil, so now no feed to the LH coil. Still, it would stop it smoking. After every post I make I keep seeing miss-prints and errors, funny I don't see them at first so usually end up doing several edits within a few minutes of posting. Must be all those aluminium saucepans my mum used.

Good diagram, although I suggest there should be a red 'blob' where the middle line coming down from the LH coil crosses the the top left to right line (R/N). I think the only way the coil will burn is if the line from a coil to the ecu shorts out. Line VE/N or V/E. If it was a fault within the ECU it would burn out before the coil would.

Not sure if this should be in this thread, some of the above posts refer to 'speed-bleed' brake bleed nipples. If they are the type with a sprung loaded valve inside them perhaps you should reconsider using them. This evening I spent several hours overhauling a set of Brembo calipers, two of the speed bleeders had been sheared off. No problem I thought just drill them through and use a left hand easy-out to extract them. Of course I then found the central sprung loaded valve is made of a very hard steel, it was impossible to drill them centrally. The only way I can to see to get them out is spark erosion, no longer available to me since retiring! I think the main problem is the side walls of the nipples are thinner to allow room for the central piston making it easier to shear them off if stuck. So, I suggest you remove the speed-bleeders while you can before they seize up.