belfastguzzi

"And whaddaya hold them in...........?" • contempt "Anyway why did you buy another?" • no chance of that – took it back to the shop and got a nice up-to-date-orange one in exchange: at least B&D's and B&Q's warranty/guarantee is worth something "the vibrations" • they vibrate? didn't notice – Guzzis vibrate

Yes – there are a number of threads about this. \My bike has spent the winter under an Oxford Stormex(?) not sure if that's correct name. It's strong, big and has a soft liner. Only problem with the soft liner is that if it gets wet, it holds the water and also it leaves white fluffy bits sticking to the mirrors, silencers and other sticky-out bits. A search should reveal recommended USA brands.

With what sort of paint?

I did anyway. It was timely for me that you posted your story just when I was musing over the needle roller bearing. Your post prompted me to take out the too tight new bearing I had just put in and have another go. So thanks, but sorry about your experience in the first place. You'll have to let us know how you get on with the R1, after a while.

They're not hand tools – they're POWER tools.

It was obviously some sort of horrible freak accident/fault. The intake leads right to the commutator on the motor. There isn't any attempt to filter or divert stuff. It did suck in paint dust just before the big bang and spark, but surely that didn't do it? These things are meant to create dust. Of course it could be that Guzzi sprayed the bike with whatever happened to be lying around – perhaps gunpowder? With a final coat of nail varnish? It could explain the 'limited edition' Scura run. I'm afraid that I had taken the Mouse to the plastic rear body of the V.11 Pretty brutal, eh? You'll be proud – no room for softy feelings in that approach. Actually it all started in an innocent enough fashion. I peeled off the 'Scura' lettering, but it took the topcoat of clear varnish with it. I'll spare you the various attempts at remedial action. The upshot is that I ended up with one side right back to the plastic last night. I've got another mouse now, so the whole thing is going to get a good seeing to.

Well done Martin. Have another point for spotting that one – Seeing that no one won the tech. quiz, you might as well have it. BTW, how did you get all those other ones? Confiscated? Gone missing from the Evidence store? Backhanders? Or Genius?

Rub it in , why don't you!

I'm going for spray cans and elbow grease and I reckon it'll be alright.

Modern Rubbish!! I've been using sandpaper all my life and it hasn't let me down yet. Some time ago I bought a Black&Decker 'mouse' sander and tonight I plugged it in and put it to work (yes, I'm attacking the V.11). Two minutes later and there's a huge bang with flying sparks and my thumb feels burnt. So that's the end of that. Even quicker built-in obsolescence than a piece of sandpaper! Modern Rubbish!!

I can tell (by your photo) that your immediate guess was an educated (and personal) one.

For a minute, I actually considered the possibility that it might be. Davidb "I wonder what other surprises you will find after the warranty runs out? I have lost all confidence on riding my guzzi more than a 100 mile radius. I will most likely trade it in on a jap bike or take it COMPLETELY apart and reassemble it." Db, don't lose confidence: as people keep saying, anything mechanical and anything assembled by human beings is going to wear, break and be put together wrong. Some of the 'wrong things' sure are surprising though – so far, on my bike the problems have been because of parts produced to the wrong spec. i.e. too short, too small, too big...no grease... That's bad, as well as surprising, but fixable and hopefully when these things are fixed, the bike will be pretty well sorted for a long life. The V.11 is a good bike, mechanically, because it is fixable and generally over-engineered in the first place. We all know that most modern bikes and cars are just far, far too complex and are made to be scrap in less than 10 years. It's not that modern stuff isn't better made, it's their complexity and their dependence on electronics. I think that would be the weakest spot of the V.11 – its nod to modernity in the form of an ECU: but I can live with that, its not like everything is controlled by it. My wife's car stopped starting (if you know what I mean) last week. I could see that it wasn't getting petrol and it wasn't getting a spark – and there was nothing else that I could do about the situation. It turned out that a sensor on the flywheel was faulty. If any of the dozens of sensors on a modern vehicle can stop it dead and you are a hundred miles from home – there's nothing you can do, except get out the credit card and mobile phone. My cars have generally been around 20 years old and no matter what has happened to them out on the road, I have never had to leave one, there's always been a way to fix or bodge it to get home. For me, that's part of the 'fun' (sort of). Calling up a recovery service isn't. And, for me, the MG Warranty doesn't mean a great amount as there isn't any local dealer here to sort the 'wee' things. The last bit of your post is attractive. The best thing would definitely be to take the bike apart and reassemble it, lovingly. Most of us don't have the time or space to do that. I reckon I will end up doing that over time, in bits and pieces. Probably a lot of other people here have done that too. Then there'll be a really nice machine that you can be confident in and that will run and run. I should add that if I was using my bike or car for business and knocking up a BIG mileage every week, like Brian R, then a 'modern' efficient car/bike would probably be best. Its 'disposability' wouldn't be such an issue then either.

Here's the give-away clue: You know that forward grease nipple on the transmission shaft, that's so hard to get at? Well even with the wheel off I was having trouble. The grease just didn't want to go in. When I looked closer at the grease nipple I saw a little bit of yellow spongey foam stuff sitting in the hole. I couldn't make sense of that. I pulled it out a bit and there was obviously more inside. Was this a new/different type of grease valve? I decided that it wasn't and pulled it all out. How did this get in there? This is the first time that I have greased this joint. Do Guzzi clean and polish every grease nipple by hand, outside and inside, and in this instance a bit of the cleaning sponge got left behind? Did the factory run out of little ball-bearings for the grease nipple one day and so they improvised with a bit of foam instead? In 2002 did they experiment with sponge-foam balls in the rear wheel bearings as well? It could explain a lot. GuzziWorld

Only when I'm having fun.

What's this? It's related to an awkward area that gives people a lot of trouble, near the back wheel. Size clue – It's beside a socket T-bar, for scale (and it's not a maggot or caterpillar).

And the sun stayed sunny and the wind got only a little windy and things got – even better. Look – two wheels now! Yippee! And these bikes look better without seats and stuff anyway, so I might as well just leave it like this. I wonder will tomorrow be so good? Oh, it's gonna be Monday.

Yep, it was a rather good day, with a bit of sunshine. I looked at my bike through a bush and it looked just fine. A big bag of sand hid the fact that it had no back end, so that was pretty jolly hockey sticks.

But I thought you're 85?

But invasive exploration is so much fun. On the same theme: I've got an old Range Rover sitting at the side of the house, rotting away. Half the front end of the car is lying inside the back of the car. It all started when the windscreen wiper blade fell off in the rain one day. I took off a panel to make the repair, then thought I'd fix something else in there and...one thing led to another..you know how it is. It looks a bit like that with the V.11 at the moment. I started to put on a new exhaust system, but got as far as installing the cross-over before I couldn't help myself and found the whole backend of the bike was in bits. Bodywork here, bearings there, shock-bolt somewhere else, brake parts, nuts, washers. Oh well – as long as they don't get mixed up with the Range Rover bits...

Inner ball bearing and spacer now in place. The spacer does push the needle roller inner ring out. It now sits very slightly higher than the outside washer.

Thanks Paul. The inner bearing and spacer are not in place yet. As you have reminded me, I will know what the final positions will be when I put them in.

I have taken some photos. Drive box, needle-roller bearing inner ring position, photos here. You will see that with my housing, the inner-ring sits below the other faces. However when it is pulled out, to the maximum distance that the inner captive washer (that the bearing ring sits against) will travel, it appears like Paul's photo. I guess that when fitted, the ring and outer washer should pull into position to be flush, with both sitting against the swingarm. Paul, does your inner-ring naturally sit the way that your photo shows, when it is fitted? Can you push it further in? I may have introduced a bit more movement into my inner-washer assembly when I tried to knock out the needle roller by hammering on the inner-washer, before I discovered that the inner-washer does not come out. It is certainly bashed and cupped but I'm hoping that won't matter too much when everything is tightened up. This is one of the pics where the bearing-ring and washer faces are sitting flush, but above the drive-box housing and sleeve. Does yours go like that. Paul, with the washer on and the ring pushed in?

That is helpful. It looks like the inner ring will still sit proud when you put the washer on. Should the swingarm tighten against the inner ring or the washer, or both? Maybe it all pulls together so that they are flush when the axle is tightened. If you have a washer and can take a photo I would be interested to see what it looks like in its location, compared to th eheight of th einner ring. I will take a photo shortly. Brian, my drive box inner bearing had a very slight bit of play, but nowhere near as much as the bad wheel bearing. I suppose that you have replaced your wheel bearings before but not the inner drive box bearing, so it could have been slowly getting more damaged over a longer period of time? It seems to me that the needle roller bearing has a lot of potential for easily and quickly getting damaged and causing trouble.

'The pipe wielding man swung at Natsumi, who pushed Miyuki to safety as she agilely side stepped the blow. "We're police!" she cried out, then she flashed her badge...'

and the rest of the bulletin confirms what we worked out some time ago, and what MG weren't telling us at the time: In case of breakage of the pawl spring in vehicles with frame numbers before KT111435 - KS112350, the pawl should be changed (when asking for the spare part, you automatically receive the pawl updated version). The change consists in the reduction of the diameter on which the spring rests from 16 mm to 15 mm. Precisely.