not-fishing

Well after riding the Lemans in the 100+ California heat with it being almost unrideable I've decided to "fall back and punt" on the fix. Today I just got back from a 10 hour round trip to deliver the V11 to The Zen House in Point Arena, Ca. David has experience with V11's so I'm hopeful he'll find the problem. Report in a few weeks on the results.

Returning with my son on a multi day trip from Tuscon to home in Folsom, Ca my Lemans gave out. I was able to nurse it back into Beatty Nevada where I got a room for the night and sent my son the 500 miles on home to get the pickup. We loaded the Lemans the into the pickup next day and have taken it home. The short regulator conversion harness from the two yellow stator wires to the Regulator connection wires was crispy. The Battery voltage at 11 volts so I charged the battery and tested the charge coming in. Nothing. I already had an Electrosport Regulator (not a plug and play) so I cut off the bullets, soldered on bullets that fit tight (used in electric RC cars for high load) and spliced in the good portion of the old Regulator harness. Always having the belt and suspenders mentality I wired in two relays at the headlight bucket and installed a double USB charging port with voltage gauge so that I could see the charging voltage. After rereading the posts I checked the two yellow leads coming from the Stator and have infinite resistance. My next thought is the Stator is Shot and needs to be replaced. Am I traveling down the right rabbit hole??

I had a misfire / backfire that I chased on my Rosso Corsa for 3 years. If your bike has the balance pipe in the front I'd check for air leaks into the exhaust first. I found the gaskets rotten and exhaust coming out. I figured it might mean fresh oxygen getting in between pulses and causing the backfire once the exhaust heated up. I ended up cutting off mine, cleaning up the headers, making plugs out of the the crossover tube and having a local Stainless welder weld them up. After a trip to a local Duc tuner my problem may have been fixed. It only backfired when the weather got above 80 and the engine was hot so I'll know for sure on a trip to Tuscon Arizona in May.

Has it really been since August 2018?? Rode to Utah and Nevada rallies with the poor state of tune. I lost the tach bezel somewhere in Nevada along Hwy 50 - downside of extended triple digit speeds - the only way to make Hwy 50 interesting. My Duc mechanic said he needed bungs for his sniffers to tune so I cut the balance tube off the stock headers and after waiting 3 months for my #3 son to weld them. I got tired of waiting and found another old stainless steel fabricator to weld the holes closed. I downloaded Guzzidiag and found the cylinder temp gage was working. Yesterday I dropped the bike off with the Duc Mechanic and he just gave me the bad news. The TPS is all over the place and the tune won't hold. He gave me the litany of possibilities but I suspect the TPS (even though it's maybe 4000 miles or 1 year old) and the ECU. So I'm going to purchase another TPS from Ca-cycleworks .... and send my ECU to Jeffries at MYECU for a rebuild. The saga continues......

Or at 65 I just rode my commuter bicycle more and worked my arms/shoulders with dumbbells. The stock clip-ons don't bother me even on 800 mile days. Now I must admit that I put on knight designs 1" drop pegs and adjusted the stock foot controls. I'm really sensitive to any knee discomfort after damaging both badly and not getting the surgery. Both of my brothers have had knee surgery and mine are better even though I've damaged them worse.

Didn't work on my son's V50. Didn't work on my Griso. I like the Green paper gaskets but I've just learned to live with a little drop once in a while when it gets close to valve adjustment time.

Mate, New Zealand is a different country than Australia, if you are talking about that Dec 2016 shipment. Kiwis are a bit sensitive about the distinction. Apologies, you know how dim some of us Rednecks can be....... Although you must know that many in the US think of NZ as the "Land of Hobbits" and not the land of All Black. The rack is great and I "tested it" last month with 40 lbs at 111 mph on Highway 80 across the Great Salt Lake (Utah, USA).

You mean one like this?? I paid $200+ for mine shipped from Australia to California. They are pretty rare.

I fitted the Knight Design drop pegs that I took off my G11. I was able to "adjust" the brake down with the use of a dremel - shortening the threaded section of the rod that drives into the master cylinder. It was the shifter peg I was having trouble with. The Knight Design peg looks nice but being cheap I ordered one (nonfolding) from Guzzitech at about half the price. http://www.guzzitech.com/store/product/gt-eccentric-folding-toe-peg. Now I've ridden the bike with the knight Design drops and the position is much more comfortable. Downside is the added "bow legged" - still not as bad as a Griso-bow-leg. The Lemans roughly measures narrower than the Griso when sighting a tape measure. (not very accurate) After a little disassembly of the shifter I find it is not a peg & shifter arrangement but a single cast piece with rubber cover for the toe peg. The Guzzitech eccentric toe peg will go in my "extra parts" box. After riding the Lemans with drop pegs I see I need a centimeter or two extension on the shifter toe peg so I'm going to visit Ace hardware and pick up a longer allen screw to act as an extension, wrapping or dipping it to prevent the tearing up of my boots. I'm considering adding a couple of nuts on the screw extension to keep the screw from bending, making all the force shear. I've been known to stomp firmly when agitated. From my test ride I know I have to lengthen the brake rod by unwinding the ball joint, because I actually have overshot where it feels good. I'm not sure if I'll put a peg extension on the brake. The idiocy of this whole mod is I purchased a sheepskin pad specifically for the Lemans to raise the seat and thereby relieve some of my hip / knee stress. Well after this I'll report my opinion for others to use or toss as they wish. Mark

Resurrecting an old thread: After removing the Motobits assembly didn't like it & shifted lousy I remounted the factory peg-brake-shift. Shifting improved immensely but the pegs are uncomfortable (says then old man who did a 700+ mile in one day on the Lemans ) I had a pair of Knight Designs drop pegs that I removed from my Griso because of poor braking performance so I'm experimenting with dropping the Lemans pegs a little. I don't like the Cowboy leg/foot position but that's the compromise with Knight Designs pegs. The brake side needed the actuating rod trimmed a 1/4 inch or so to get the brake to drop enough. Staying with the stock shifter your options are limited. I'm trying a new eccentric shifter peg on the stock shifter arm from Guzzitech. When it comes in I'll post a report. I wonder how hard it would be to heat up the stock shifter and bend it a little.... Mark

To answer my own question they're modified Centauro shifters and pegs. http://www.guzzipower.com/LeMansErgos-Ian_J.html http://www.obairlann.net/reaper/motorcycle/guzzi/ergos/ Butt ---- it does require some machining. Mark

They're off a '02 Lemans on Craig's list. They look like a forward mount and an 25mm or so lower. The shifting mechanism looks stock butt.......... Mark

Fed, you're a better man than I..... I replaced all the instrument lights with LED's and the fuel warning light didn't work. Yes I did put the original incandescent in parallel but it still didn't work. I switched back to the "low glow" of the incandescent (along with the ever-present trip meter). One other downside I found is now my green blinker lights are blinding - even in daylight they overpower the rest of the display, As an aside I'd changed out the instrument lights in a V50-III a year earlier and every thing went well butt - there's no low fuel warning light in a V50-III just the manual petcocks with a reserve setting.

Rats! You can only download the article on a smart phone or tablet. My eyes are to old and I'm to lazy to deal with my "smart" phone. Well now I can "kill" two birds with one stone. A smaller bike than my Griso 1100 and an adventure bike. I'll keep both the Griso and my Lemans but I keep looking at small blocks for a lighter bike. Something that I can take fly fishing would be good also. Most of my fishing trips are deep into the woods in search of the "uneducated" fish. Mark

Also you have my V11 Rosso Corsa where the "balance pipe" was leaking air badly into the headers. The engine still coughs but fitting a set of Mistrial headers reduced dramatically the backfire / cough so that now it's actually rideable. I have a Not-A-Rally want to go to in the next couple of weeks. Still I'm going the next step of cutting the balance pipe, plugging the holes and re-tuning the fueling by a local Duc shop. I could just have bungs welded into the Mitsrial headers but the old headers has bungs installed and my son can have a little stainless steel stick welding practice.

My Lemans came with Motobits on it and the original shift linkage in a box. I cleaned and adjusted the Motobits but still found them to sloppy. I went back to the stock shifter with much better results. Downshifts are crisper, upshifts are less vague but the shifter does hang every so often downshifting into third at lights. I've just learned to let out the clutch and the shifter always returns. The 3-4th false neutral also became much less frequent with the stock shifting mechanism. I'm looking at replacing the long shifter attachment allen bolt because even though it seems to allow the shifter to work it looks ever so slightly bent and that might just be my 4th to 3rd return problem. I've done the transmission springs so I'll just live with the shifter hang going down at third. Mark

Why? I just bleed the entire system every five years or so mainly to get all the black particles out of it. My "specialty tool" box is overbrimming and I'd have to get a second box. For those of you who have the tool you might consider removing the battery for those long periods of disuse. Mark

Checking the Exhaust system at home I found the stock headers were leaking at the balance tube - "big time". So I pulled the exhaust system, ordered a set of Mistral headers from MG cycle then waited (not in stock). The crossover is a Stucchi -------Why a balance pipe and crossover? I received the Mistral headers used permatex exhaust seal and put it all together. The exhaust is much quieter (so that's why...) butt (always the big butt) the Cough is still there, substantially subdued. So down the rabbit hole I continue. I received the Lonetec cables, checked the Rosso with Guzzidiag and have seen that the cylinder head temp sensors and air temp sensor are working. (The readings moved as things heated up). My CO trim is set at 27. The TPS is 4.71 at idle. Idle varies around 1350. I was not happy that the throttle reads 2.38 degrees open when at idle but I'm not where I want to change it yet. Now that I know the sensors are working and the exhaust leak is taken care of. Back to the Duc shop for analysis although there is this nata-rally coming up in Utah that the youngest son and I were looking at. Mark

I tried to drop the Lemans off at the Duc shop Monday but he's booked out two weeks so once again I go down the rabbit hole. My plan is: 1. Pull off the exhaust and seal all the connections with Permatex high temp. ---The Duc mechanic said to seal all exhaust leaks first---- 2. I ordered a Chinese Guzzidiag connection harness then found out I should order one from Lonetec so I did. The Lonetec cables should be her next week. my chinese cables are taking a slow boat...... 3. Download Guzzidiag then get it up and running 3. Heat up the Lemans and see what the cylinder head temps is to check the sending unit & wiring. it wouldn't be the first time a bad wire was the problem 4. Attach the tps breakout harness and see what the TPS does when I wring the throttle. I figure it's fine because the behavior of the old TPS on the meter was why I bought the new one this year. 5. Check to see if the CO is set to zero. So I have guzzi chores into next week.

Update: At the local independent Duc shop I had the Power Commander removed and reflashed the ECU. He also calibrated the TPS (electronically), balanced the throttle bodies and set the idle. The Lemans ran better and was improved for a longer time butt always the big butt, the "coughing" (backfire?) came back with a vengeance when hot. It's been over 100 for most of the month and with the stop-n-go traffic it's tough on a Guzzi. Time to fiddle with it at home again before I take it back to the shop. I checked the intake for leaks with no leaks. The tune was decent so I figured I had to go at it from a different angle. Maybe the valves were still to tight? I readjusted the valves to Raceco specs (.20 & .25). The cough is still there when hot,subtle, hiding and now at 1500 to 2400 rpm. -- a sneaky little Gremlin--- The Lemans is now rideable and I can finally take it on long rides with some confidence. It's tough buying a touring machine and not being able to tour on it. I'll probably ride it for a month or so and cogitate opening up the suspected exhaust valve to .28 or taking the Lemans back to the Duc shop to have them check the ECU behavior for heat inputs from the cylinder temp sensor and maybe increasing the fueling at 1800 to 2400. Mark

No it's a FAKE that someone was trying to peddle in the California Bay Area. Just put a couple of stickers on the bike and voila' a "Nero Corsa".

This is a plea for forgiveness from the board on my Rosso Corsa. My "fixes" have not worked so I "punted" and took the V11 to a Duc Race / tuning specialist that is close by. He put a new map on it, removed the power commander III, set the lower end of the map +22 whatever that is, balanced the throttle bodies, reset the TPS electronically and set the air bleed screws correctly. My CO at idle is 3.5%. I made a check run from the shop and found it to run better than it ever has with a little detonation at 1/4 throttle and medium load in any gear, so i paid the man and rode it home. 1/2 mile from home the V11 was hot and acted as nasty as ever. I trust the tune. Once home, I checked for exhaust leaks and found sizeable ones at the inlet to the x pipe on both sides and at the head to exhaust manifold on the right cylinder, the nut needed tightening. I suspect it's an exhaust problem so now I'm going to go down the exhaust "rabbit hole" with new exhaust manifold gaskets, permatex copper spray gasket for reseating the x pipe and adjusting the valves once again to .15 / .20. Previously they were .10 and .15. I'm also going to check for intake "backfire" by sliding the airbox boots off the throttle bodies to see if there is a "flash" when the engine coughs. Another test ride ------- and if that doesn't work it's back to the Duc tuner for more experimentation. The "getting it run right" adventure continues....... Mark

Ach du lieber himmel! Your Griso is so clean! Mine, on the other hand looks like a proper raufbold. It's all grimy after 50,000+ miles. Thanks for the post it's getting close to time for me to replace the rear shock.

I've been thinking about how much better my Griso 1100 runs than my V11. I've been hearing how the dual plugs run better and been thinking that rather than deal with all the trouble of modifying the heads..... Has anyone tried using the Breva 2 valve / Griso 2 valve - dual plug heads? Or are they that much different than the V11? in search of another rabbit hole to explore. Mark