68C

I drilled my Rosso Corsa yoke and used Yamaha TDM850 risers, they are neat and move the bars up and back. I use alloy Renthal gold anaodised bars, the existing cables fit with a bit of fiddling, they run down between the instrument bracket and the yoke, just a touch with a file to give clearance. Looks a lot better than it sounds.

Universal joints are normally used in pairs the cross bearings at each end of the shaft assembly must not only be in line with each other but must also be a mirror image, the centre shaft must have each end at the same angle. If the drive shaft assembly is not in a straight line, and ours is not as the suspension moves up and down, a phenomena known as Hookes Joint Effect or the Conservation of Angular Momentum causes the output from the first joint to move in a jerking action - fortunately the second joint turns this back into a smooth action. This is most noticeable on an unladen large truck, as it pulls away the drive shaft can be seen to rotate in a jerking fashion althogh the input to the rear axle is smooth, when loaded the designer will have arranged the system to be almost in line reducing this effect. If the joints are not aligned this jerking action will occour even when the shaft assembly is almost straight with consequent wear to the transmission and vibration. Altering the ride height of a shaft drive bike by jacking up the rear or overloading the bike can mean the shaft asssembly is no longer straight which can increase wear also. The out of phase jerking action will someday destroy the U/J.

Ask her if you can put the covers in her dishwasher, should get hot enough to shift any residual blast material, the dishwasher that is.

It may be like a 'Rivnut', these are put in a bit like a pop rivet with a threaded mandrel instead of the break stem. Pulled up with similar pliers then the mandrel is unthreaded. They rely on the resistance of the pull-up to stop them spinning, more exotic types have a lug or even a fine spline to stop them spinning. You can sometimes fix them by running a nut and washer up a six inch piece of threaded bar to suit the insert, bend the bar above the nut by 90 degrees. Try and dibble loctite around the insert NOT IN THE THREAD, then screw the threaded bar into the insert, grease the threaded bar just above the insert but try not to contaminate the Loctited area. You then hold the bent bit of threaded bar and tighten the nut down onto the washer and insert - if you are lucky this should reset the insert. Leave overnight to ensure the Loctite sets, as I am sure you know the Loctite sets where there is NO air so may still be sticky on the surface. How tight to do the nut? We used to say 'up until it snaps then back off half a turn'. Seriously, you should feel the torque suddenly increase once the insert is set.Immediately unscrew the threaded bar incase the loctite has got onto it. Good luck, I would send some of ours but the Titanic sailed from here.

No, you lucked in! The tough old bird held together for you though.

Try waiting 'til the wife is out and then putting them in the dishwasher, will probably get hot enought to loosen any residual blast material. I always put bits for engines I am rebuilding into the washer, they come out lovely and bright. Not so sure about the next set of plates and cups though.

I was in the British Army in the early 70's defending our world from the Soviet horde in the then West Germany. I remember one Mad magazine showing a map of europe with those symbols showing what the military forces had at their command, the west side had skiing holidays and cheap sailing in the Baltic, the eastern side had rows of guns and tanks and bombers. Very funny I thought, sums up NATO, turned the page and there was the rest of the USSR totally covered in endless rows of guns tanks and planes - some joke. I say I was in the British Army, despite having a Royal Navy and Royal Airforce we have'nt had a Royal army since Ollie Cromwell's army cut the head off a King. We are the direct descendents of that army. We never had the balls to ride like that though.

Hey Alfred E. Neuman, must be thirty years since I last saw you! Still mad?

I wonder how he made that movie, some kind of clever lens to accentuate the slope either side, is it a computer generated landscape with the bike superimposed? I reckon its more fun to take it for what appears to be - one very scary ride.

Never seen that in a new container, might be worth sending the photo to Agip.

Are you sure, I thought the seat looked pretty clean!

As we always said in the Army, 'It is easier to beg forgiveness than seek to permission'. Just bodge it.

I thought the trade was in the other direction, from the US to the UK. The American annual vehicle test is tougher than in the UK so bikes soon become uneconomical to repair and get sold off to exporters. Here in the UK there are far more bikers as a percentage of the population than in the US, so there are more dealers, specialist suppliers and restorers within a geographical area. Twenty years ago I spent a month on a training course with Gulfstream at Savannah, I was doing up an old ’64 kickstart Sportster that I had bought home from a job in Pakistan, I thought I had a good chance of getting parts near the school. I was surprised to find there were only two bike shops in such a large city, a Harley dealer and a garden machinery shop that also sold Jap bikes. The Harley dealer pretty much ordered in any parts he needed with little on the shelf. My course mates also explained how I was used to having riding buddies just around the corner and several bike clubs nearby whereas Americans may ride fifty miles to the nearest club meet. It’s all so spread out. This all means buying and selling used bikes to a local market is harder. The guys bringing containers of bikes into the UK are doing it for money and not sentiment, they buy in a crate from a trusted US supplier sight unseen. Once here they keep what is reasonable and scrap/melt the rest – naturally they don’t want the market to get their hands on really cheap bikes and bits. Most of the bikes I have seen must have come from the dryer parts of the states as they are usually paint faded and dusty but pretty much intact and obviously not ridden in years. There is a similar situation with Japanese cars, again they have a tough vehicle test and being right hand drive the cars are sellable in the UK. I wasn’t sure if you actually intended to do this restoration business or if it was merely a business project you were doing for University. Oh, here is the website of a local dealer who imports oldbikes. http://www.spikeisla...orcycles.co.uk/ EDIT: Don't know why link came up like this, I tried editing it but still useless. They are spikeislandmotorcycles.co.uk Checkout their '68 V7

I contacted Cliff, he has been under a lot of Spammer attack so has tightened up on accepted IP addresses. He has posted instructions on his website to email him with your IP address if you have the Error 403 sent.

No, won't work in Firefox either, must be something my end. My email and access to other sites OK, including this one of course, so it's something common to IE and Firefox giving me trouble. ??

How bizarre, googling MyEcu lists the website OK but when I click on it I get the error 403. Using your link I go straight to the MyEcu website, but then clicking on the Forum option again gives the 403 comment. Might have a go with firefox.

Is anyone else having problems with the MyEcu website and forum, I keep getting an Internet Explorer error 403, "don't have permission to access site". I changed to IE 9 recently, not sure if the problem is at my end or theirs. (This is a V11 relevant post as it is the website for Cliff Jefferies who makes the MyECU replacement programmable ecu's for fuel injected Guzzis.)

I always stick a thumb over the plug hole and turn the back wheel until I find compression. Then slowly advance the engine until I see the S or D through the timing window, I turn the engine tooth by tooth using a screwdriver on the starter ring gear which you can also see through the timing hole. I used to do it that way on my old T3, I still do it now as it is almost impossible to remove the alternater cover on the later models as the front crossover gets in the way.

Has anyone built the Optimiser with the OPTIM007 circuit board? I am having trouble building up my kit as it differs from the photos on the MyEcu website. The new pcb has the switches mounted directly to the board so should be easier to wire up, but I cannot tell which wires go where as the photos are all from the same angle obscuring some of them. The wires I am talking about are from the board to the potentiometers and to the display. Perhaps someone could post photos making it clear. Thanks.

I stripped back the insulation and soldered two wires onto the loom from the TPS near the ECU, then covered with self amalgamating tape. I now have a two pin socket permanently fitted so easy to check. Might be overkill though as the setting should'nt change once fitted. I am now trying to set up the MyEcu I just built so has come in handy.

Initialy a bit confused by your answer, my fault not yours! So the volt regulator isnt set to a normal 14.4 volts for good battery charging but to a lower 13.8 volts! Then the permanently on headlamp drops the voltage below 13.8 volts at which point the regulator ups the voltage until the dropped voltage is back to 13.8, this needs 14.4 volts on the output to the battery to achieve. The diode effectively recalibrates the OEM regulator. I can feel a John McEnroe moment coming on, I though dear old Joe Lucas (the prince of darkness) had some odd ideas but this Guzzi one beats me. The engineering answer I suppose is to make up a new loom with decent wires and a more convential use of relays, the ignition and light switches only handling the field current to these relays. Might be a good time to add an alarm/immobiliser, power sockets etc. Oh, of course also fit a normal 14.4 volt rectifier/regulator.

What if we relocate the sense wire to the output from the ignition switch, this would be nearer to the battery and give a more accurate sense of battery voltage. Headlight voltage would no longer be sensed so we can add relays without any problem. I believe we cannot connect it direct to the battery as the regulator would then always be live and so flatten the battery.

Another one of your excellent diagrams Kiwi_Roy. Now I can see that any resistance in the lines from the rectifier/regulator to the battery will cause a voltage drop that is not seen by the regulation circuit. The previous posts effectively reduce the voltage reaching D1 so the output voltage increases until the voltage at D1 is satisfactory, although the actual output is above nominal voltage. I assume the battery absorbs this excess voltage and prevents damage to other components. Is that how you see it.

Have a look at this site, has a basic tutorial on motorcycle charging systems, they also sell rectifier regulators. http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/technical-articles/how-motorcycle-charging-system-works