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Oh, man you're going to get Pete Roper started now. Yes, the design is very similar to the engine which debuted in 1967. The engine itself is fairly bulletproof unless the bean-counters substituted a crappy part for the proper one (there's been issues with soft valves for instance). Bulletproof...hmmmm....I've got almost 400,000 miles out of one of my Guzzis. Top end needed some work, the ujoint was toasted. I couldn't see any wear on the main bearings. How's that? Guzzis require periodic maintenance and/or attention. Give them that, and they are stone-axe reliable. let me know what airline you get a job with :!:

Absolutely. It's tedious, but you should probably check any connection you can get a hold of, particularly ones associated with the headlight/switchgear/ignition.

I think he's dodging trees about now, though.

That's never a problem. put some lubricating ointment on it occasionally.

dammit. I wrote up a great description- including a quantum mechanical analysis of footpeg installation vs. inspection and then accidentally quit my webbrowser before hitting submit. Damn, I'm an idiot sometimes. OK- let's see if I can do this again. I couldnt find the instruction sheet, but I did find the bag that the peg lowering kit came in. From this and the two attached pictures you can see all the parts you need and some parts you won't need. The contents of the kit are: 1) 10X40 bolt (I was way off on my estimation of their size in my previous post) 1) 10X60 bolt 1) bushing 1) shim 2) plastic (nylon) plugs Refer to the first picture (~200K in size) for the parts I took out. I numbered the bolts #1 you will remove two of these buttonhead 10X40 bolts- one from each side- and remount the pegs in their place #2 the 'old' brake lever bolt. Note the shoulder on this bolt- you need a bushing that takes the place of the shoulder #3 not sure.. I think this is to bolt the brake lever to the actuating rod. Use you old one since it is a chamfered hole #4 a 10X40 bolt- these bolt the peg hangers to the porkchops. Note the flat head (it has an allen drive) yes, there are two of them I happen to have two, and I'm not sure why. The gray stuff is antisieze that I haven't cleaned off yet. General instructions: remove both pegs from the bike- set the 10X40 bolts aside remove the brake pedal remove the two 10X40 button head bolts that attach the porkchop to the lunchbox (the tube that runs crossways the frame- so called because early spine frames had this tube open and someone said it was the perfect place for a sandwich). You won't use these buttonhead bolts again. reattach the left (shifter) side peg down and back in the hole you just opened up. Use the 10X40 (#4) bolt that originally held it in. using the 10X60 bolt, attach the right (brake) side peg hanger. The bolt goes through the peg hanger, through the bushing- the brake rides on the bushing- through the shim and into the porkchop. The shim takes the place of the shoulder on bolt #2 in the first picture. I don't know the outer diameter of the shim, but the inner diameter is 10 mm. You can measure the bolt when you take it out. The bushing needs to be just a smidge wider than the brake pedal, so that the brake pedal actuates easily and doesn't bind on the peg hanger when you torque it up. Use grease on the moving parts, of course. - while you have the pedal and actuating arm off, take a tip from Carl Allison and put some grease up into the rubber accordian on the brake master cylinder. Helps to keep it from rusting- Put the plastic plugs in the old peg mounting holes if you wish- I left mine open after the plugs fell out FWIW, the right (brake) peg does sit out a little further since the brake is between it and the frame. It doesn't bother me at all. My only complaint was that after doing this, it is harder to shift because the pegs are further back. I had to take my foot off the peg to reach up and shift. So, I made a new shift lever. I didn't find a picture of it, but I DID find a picture of when I was making a new brake lever. See picture #2 I've attached (75K in size). part #1 is the shim, part #2 is the peg hanger and the new 10X60 bolt you need to acquire, part #3 is the bushing. I think this picture explains better than my description above. The new parts you need are the 10X60 bolt, the shim, and the bushing. You can reuse the old bolt for the left (shifter) side. The plugs are nice, I guess, but not necessary except for looks. If you want larger (800K or so) pictures, just email me and I'll send them off list. If you do this mod, you ought to send a thank you note to Ken at Evoluzione- he's the one that did all the research and work to put it together. Or just buy something from him. He's a nice guy. hope that helps J

Adam, Test ride both on as long a trip as you can. Then you'll know. Bikes are an emotional purchase, so get the one that will be emotionally more satisfying. Ace Mallot works at Jackson's- he's also the club represetative for the MoKan area: http://www.mo-kanguzziclub.com/ He's a good mechanic from what I hear. Oh- why get a Guzzi? All the cool people are doing it. You DO want to be cool, don't you? seriously- what db said. Do a couple searches and you'll find the info you need. J

Martin: pink. Actually- I find the thought experiments kind of fun. Fermi questions like 'how many horsepower does a fly produce?' I'm a real charmer at the pub, eh? Ratchet: I could, but do you think he'd listen?

Somewhere...somewhere at home is the original sheet of instructions from Evoluzione. I'll see if it has a bill of parts on it. Otherwise- it was a bolt that was identical to the one that already fits the peg to the frame, a spacer, and two plastic caps to plug the holes. Pull out one of the button head bolts to get an idea of the thread size and pitch (~14? X 1.5) and thread depth. aw heck, I'll write myself a note. No promises, though.

Haven't done the cat experiment. No one has that I know of. I like cats. Can't see doing experiments on them for no real gain. I do a few experiments with bacteria, but no one cares when you murder several billion of them. Here's the original description: http://www.mtnmath.com/faq/meas-qm-3.html btw, the paradox is originally designed to illustrate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which states that you cannot simultaneously measure any more than one attribute of a (very small) particle. Or simultaneous velocity and direction of a 'no-hands' Guzzi. Where's that string theory when you need it? The thought experiment is flawed since it assumes that the radioactive particle will actually strike the Geiger counter tube. Radioactive decay is isotropic- so the probability of going in one particular direction (toward the tube) is fantastically small. Maybe that's his point? I dunno. Of course, all this came from Max Born's idea of probablistic wave functions to describe electron localizations. The problem being that the electron is so small in mass that it doesn't follow classical Newtonian physics- so quantum physics has to be invoked. The Eigenvalues of the electron wave functions (from Born) give three dynamic but covariant variables which describe the motions and state of the electrons- energy, momentum and angular momentum. Perturbation or measurement of any one of these functions collapses the others- so- you can't make a simultaneous measurement. I'm sorry- I can't do differential equations in this web editor otherwise it would be more clear. You did take differential equations, right? Schrodinger recast this problem in a time-independent function that relates time and radial momentum. That allows you to expand the differential equations into their individual energy states (the eigenstates) and by the mutual orthogonality theorem- the eigenstates (well, the "real" parts) represent radial probability densities of electron occupancy. Check out a picture of various orbitals at: http://www.orbitals.com/orb/orbtable.htm (n is energy level, l is momentum, m is angular momentum) Anyway- all together it gives us an idea of how atoms behave. We use that to predict chemistry and we use chemistry to more fully understand Nature. And make a really crappy oil return line out of a material that spontaneously decomposes.

I doubt it. What's the wattage on the lights? I have heated gloves and while they are 'ok', they aren't the best thing in the world. Still, I'm good down to about 17 F myself. I wear a roadcrafter and a warm fuzzy pullover- no need for a vest.

Oh- one other thing. A couple years ago I did some work on my bike and had taken the starter off. Put it all back together, everything's good. A couple weeks later (and it's more into hot summer), I'm riding along some Wisconsin backroad and BOOM! Something blew. Scared the heck out of me. Come to find out, I pinched the vent hose that comes from the frame (the one you can see just in front of the tank) by routing it behind the starter. No blood, no foul, but it did scare me. Apparently, that is THE vent.

And then put a mark on the dipstick so you can measure it on the sidestand and not threaded in

I'm surprised there's not more trailer park jokes. Thanks for setting this up Todd- you're a good friend! I'll send a PM.

Famous mechanic from the '60s. Descendant of some Welsh poet.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The bike will pull if you let off the throttle because the spinning crankshaft is decelerating. Other factors- road camber, assymetric wind resistance, steering geometry (quick-steering bikes are less stable), but most importantly- the rider. There's also a quantum mechanical effect here. Simply by doing the experiment you have impressed your prejudices on the measurement. Like Schrodinger's cat- (a cat is put in a box with some poison and the question is asked- is the cat alive or dead?)- the only way to answer the question is by perturbing the system. Left alone, there is equal probability of the bike pulling left or right (or the cat being alive or dead). If you do the experiment and let loose the handlebars, or look at the cat, you've perturbed the system and the measurement is invalid. Next up, belfastguzzi and string theory.

ditto. Let's not forget the area north of Tx and La, it was looking like Ar and Tn are going to get a lot of rain. J

Yeah, I bet she does still hate you. Even still, she's a woman and the pelvis is supposed to separate during childbirth.....but not for MEN. Ow ow ow ow ow ow. Sonya (my long-suffering and now pregnant wife) is now hitting me and telling me how, uh, insensitive and irrelevant I am. Mike-hope you heal up soon. I'm really sorry to hear this news. Dlaing's advice sounds good to me, except the 'stay off the opiates' part. Just take more and you won't even feel like eating. Everything's cool then. I've got 'Faster' on DVD if you need it. J

Well, I hope at least "solex" parts are cheap. It's hard to buy new family or friends. I hope you and Mike fared well. Let us know if we can help- seriously . Despite individual instances, Houston dodged a bullet. I just got off the phone with my dear, sweet, gray-haired mother in San Marcos, and they got nothing. She said it's just hot and hot and dry and hot. For the international crowd- SM is ~200 miles (300 odd Km) inland and just south of Austin/north of San Antonio. Hey Antonio- did ya' know they named a city after you?

Jaap, can't you replace that picture with some other hot chick? Like

I saw a hand-written ad down at the local motorcycle shop for an '01 Sport for (I think) 5900. Dunno anything about it, but dang- that sounds like a great price for a Coppa.

I'll second any suggestion that doesn't involve me. Is there a 'lazy' emoticon? There's a couple places that data is scattered here and there. RacerX (Todd) runs www.guzzitech.com, which has as a LOT of cool info. A compendium of sites (I know- it's scattered) is at: http://www.webbikeworld.com/Moto-Guzzi-mot...maintenance.htm

Aw, man- and you just started getting that bike in the shape you wanted. I'm sorry to hear about that- and I'll echo the others- heal well and quickly. Ultimately that's the important thing. Well, that and the drugs they'll give you. Maybe you can be our forum interpreter for BelfastGuzzi. It is a good idea to find out what went wrong, so it doesn't happen again. When you get up and moving around, go back to the scene and look for radiator fluid- it's hard to see and slicker than goose sh*t. Best wishes, J

Good luck TX. Ya'll stay safe now, hear? That picture is awful, though.

Lovely! Absolutely lovely!

I don't think so- I do this all the time also. Obsessive compulsive tendencies.