Bjorn

Thanks for the tip Tom. Today we disassembled the gearbox vent thingie. Before rebuilding I could not blow air thru it. Fingers crossed this is the problem for the output seal. But the good old guzzi had another surprise for us in store..........lot of oil on the underside of the bell housing. With the color of red rust I recall the crankcase vent hose was a weak part. We found traces of oil weeping from the top of the engine around to the underside. This gave us some hope the problem lies in a failing vent hose. After disassembly and inspecting the hose we could not find any traces of cracks. Looking into the clutch housing thru the inspection hole, I could see residue of oil as well. Im really hoping it was a loose lower hose clamp that is causing this and not the gasket of the little elbow behind the clutch. It looked like the opening in the top of the engine case where the vent elbow goes thru is not a tight seal. So in theory oil from the hose could find its way to the ground thru the clutch housing. Im keeping the saying: ''Moto guzzi, turning motorcycle riders into mechanics'' ALIVE!

The video was posted a few months ago guys.... My last post is about the seal (again). I took the gearbox to TLM (moto guzzi shop) during the winter. They inspected the gearbox, have replaced multiple seals, polished the outputshaft and completely rebuild the thing. They even ensured me the play in the driveshaft (video) was OK. If I cant take their word, who can I trust .

This Godd*amm oilseal is not giving up We went on a 4 day trip to Germany, after the 3rd day I spotted oil weepings coming from the seal again. Thankfully did not screw up the trip but very disappointing non the less. Before calling the shop I want to ask: Are small oil weepings on this seal normal? should I accept this?

TLM.nl All you need

What do you mean with this? Are you talking about hiccups or cut outs of the engine? Maybe you could clarify the symptoms a bit more.

http://www.thisoldtractor.com/moto_guzzi_misc_workshop_manuals___shop_manuals___service_manuals.html

I just ''forgot'' what the manual stated and used my common sense (maybe I can slowly start calling it knowledge ). anyways the whole bike is back together and im a happy camper. @ nobleswood: there is a update manual for the later types. Im sure you can find in on the forum, but here is a different (excellent) source: http://www.thisoldtractor.com/moto_guzzi_misc_workshop_manuals___shop_manuals___service_manuals.html Just scroll down until you see the ''updated'' v11 version of the manual. this version has some updated info about the bikes but often falls back on the original manual. It might be a bit confusing since we mentioned pumping the forks and all. But the manual for this bike does not state a airgap. It only states the required volume per fork. I cannot tell you the effect of different volumes in terms of handling etc. Im not really home in the whole suspension settings stuff anyways. Good luck wrenching!

Almost forgot: Best wishes to everybody! May it be a year with lots of (non-mandatory) wrenching and a lot of save miles!

We bought new bearings for the front wheel and fitted them. The old one were not keen on leaving the wheel haha. Anyways i want to reassemble the whole thing and have serious doubts about the write-up in the Guzzi manual. I have posted a picture below of the ''updated version aka post '02'' manual. They quoted parts of the original manual. See the picture below >> Now if you look at the last 4 points, the say: tighten the locking nut onto the wheel spindle. (not to the required torque??) tighten the 4 clamping screws. Then set the wheel spindle to the required torque. To me this makes no sense. If you tighten the 4 clamping screws before setting the torque on the axle wouldn't you pinch the entire forks?? My commonsense tells me to fully tighten the axle nut to the required torque (90Nm), and then tighten the clamping screws. This way you can never pinch the forks. Detail: the axle and wheel are only clamped together to the LHS fork. The RHS of the axle can (in theory) move freely throughout the fork. And is only held in place by the clamping screws.

Thats why i made a small how-to, because i could not find pics or diagrams of the late version marzocchi forks. @luhbo, You are right. We used a measuring cup for the volume of oil. Pumping is required for bikes with a prescribed oil Level instead of volume.

Almost forgot! While servicing the front forks we inspected the wheel bearings. We where quite shocked about what we found on both sides: Bike is 50k km old. Bearings look OEM. Thankfully they did not fail completely during a ride!!!

There is something about front forks that make me not want to work on them. I dont know what it is, maybe the abundance of delicate parts, seals and o-rings. Anyway, i wanted to replace the fork oil for a long time but took every chance to postpone it I could not find a how-to for this job with pictures, so i shot some: See the manual for details regarding the removal of front wheels etc. 1. jack up the bike. I used a mini jack under the front side of the engine. remove the front mudguard and wheel. 2. unscrew both the small brass screw and the 22mm nut (fork adjustments). And count the turns in order to restore your setting later on. Don't know if this step is absolutely necessary, but I thought it would relieve tension from the fork. 3. Measure how much the forks are protruding from the top triple clamp, and write it down somewhere. Next you want to unscrew the top of the fork(s) see the red arrow. On this bike (ballabio) you need to remove the handlebars in order to fit a socket. Don't know how this works for the clip-on versions. One turn is enough, you want to do this now because the forks are held securely. 4. Loosen both the top- and bottom triple clamp and remove the fork(s). Next you can completely unscrew the top of the fork. I choose not to clamp anything in the vice in order to prevent damage. I did have a extra set of hands helping.... 5. This is the tricky part. You need to remove the top from the rest of the fork. You need to get a 22mm wrench for the top part (also described at point 2 above) and a 19mm wrench for the bottom nut. This bottom nut is hidden underneath the spring (see red arrow, note that the bottom wrench is not fitted on the described nut). You need to push down the spring in order to access the nut. Just screw off the top bit. 6. remove the spring, plastic bushing and dampening rod. Pump out the old oil. I had no history of any fork oil change. I was expecting lots of crap....... but surprisingly the oil did not look half bad. 7. refill the forks with the required amount of oil. and pump several times to get the air bubble out. 8. reassemble in reversed order and see the manual for details. Pay attention to the alignment of the forks. Don't forget your settings. The only thing i haven't found is the torque setting for the hollow front wheel axle. I did find 90-100Nm for the solid version. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I know that for some bikes they sell something called ''torque cones''. Dont know if they really make a difference, but they tend to increase.....torque (go figure) in the lower RPM range. Maybe the narrowing on the guzzi headers have a similar function?

In case everyone ever wondered how normal play of the drive shaft spline looks like..... I shot this video before removing the gearbox. The Guzzi workshop confirms this is normal play. He only advised to replace the two bolts (high tensile strength ie 12.9 grade) apply loctite and secure tightly.

next steps in the gearbox revision are quite easy: Take one gearbox, drop it in a crate. Put the crate in your car. Take care not to damage the spare tire!! Final step: hand over the gearbox, let the shop wave their magic in exchange for coins ......................... and take it back home

Disassembly went pretty smooth. Only one bolt did not came out. The bolt in the swimgarm that holds the rear brake bracket in place. Weird thing is that i have removed this bolt less then 6 months ago..... (maybe forgot to apply some mounting paste??). Used a few straps in combination with a jack and a homemade wheel clamp to keep everything in balance. This worked quite well! did not need any extra hands. I knew that the clutch cylinder needed to be removed. After draining the fluid and trying to remove the hose, came to the conclusion this was not THE right way . I thought removing the cylinder was going to be messy, schematics showed some o-rings/seals were involved so i wasn't sure. Since I saw no other way I just unbolted it, came right of. Easy a that. Haven't looked into it, but i dont really see how the cylinder works. Looks like a magnet ? (no the engine/gearbox was not always this clean .......) I really took my time not to f*ck anything up during the disassembly. I only wanted to take parts off unless I had no other choice. One of the necessary parts was the throttle body connecting rod. This sucks (a bit) because I will need to re-synchronize everything afterwards. The main fuel line (looping between gearbox and frame) can stay in place! You just need to reposition while your shifting the gearbox rearwards. One last note about ''crabbing'' the engine and frame. I loosed the front engine bolts a bit to allow rotation. In the beginning I was unsure if the two bolts of the front engine bracket should remain in place or if one should be removed. Im talking about frame to bracket here. I decided to remove the most rearward bolt. See the large yellow Allen key in the picture. This worked perfectly. I had one of those small rattling straps to i could gently hoist the frame upwards. After loosening the engine to gearbox nuts, it pop'ed right of! Tuesday i will take the gearbox to the shop, see you soon

Yeah thats the plan! This is not a pic of my bike! I tend to lift the rear of the frame, keeping the front engine mounts bolted down tot act as a hinge.

Just found this picture in my guzzi stack (not mine btw, found it here somewhere). Its handy to keep relevant info in this topic for future use. A practical question: Can you move the bike around when the gearbox is removed? Cant tell if the engine is supported well enough to move the bike.

Thans for the link Doc! And i have worked on the swingarm before

Alright This topic will het a follow-up: Since the last post the bike behaved itself quite well. We (bike now belongs to my l. brother) took the bike on a long holiday and tie-wrapped a piece of polyester foam around the u-joint guard. This absorbed all the oil and was quite a succesfull but temporary fix. Now the temperatures are dropping and the riding season is coming to an end. My brother asked me to fix this weak spot. The plan is to remove the gearbox, take it to the dealer. They will polish the protruding part of the Axel and rebuilt the box including a new seal. I will start this week and will try to shoot some pics along the way. I remember a topic with pics were the box was removed by "crabbing" the frame and engine. Updates follow soon

Here in the Netherlands most motorcycles will be unsellable after reaching 100.000 km (~62k miles). The only brand with some resell value will be BMW motorcycles. The tend to hold their value past this mileage. I think most of this is in our brains. I had a Suzuki V-strom 2 years back. It had done 60.000km and im betting it would easily do the 100.000km. Cant say im free of the whole high mileage judgment..... I know that proper maintenance will get you there. I could argue that i would rather have a high mileage bike with a good maintenance history vs. a low mileage bike w/o maintenance history. But most the bike I have bought lean towards the last

Dont focus on the symphtoms, try tot find what causes this

I Need to do this to the bike as well (03 model). Last winter I got the same idea you have, replacing the seals. Mine dont leak either. The guzzi shop did not have the seals in stock and mechanics strongly advised me not to change them if they did not leak. So im with Docc on that one. Shoot some pics if you can! Never found pictures of the inside of the forks of post 2003 models.

Ai, sad to hear you crashed. Hope you get it back on the wheels!

How did this end czakky? Its always nice to share your findings here.....