pete roper

It's a figure of speech. Generally pertaining to the uncivilized and, in this case, the not so technically advanced. If you want to get into an argument about whether the term is racist? Bring it on! I can assure you I have enough ordanance in my armoury to blow anything you might have out of the water Pete

I was talking to Dave Ward, the tech boffin for the Oz Guzzi importer and felt that I should pass on a piece of info that *MAY* be useful to owners. Here in Oz there have been several cases of the crownwheel bearing closest to the wheel breaking it's cage. This it seems was the result of Guzzi getting cheap bearings made by cannibals, the cage is pretty piss-poor and the rivets that hold it together come loose. Indications of a problem are that you'll get oil spatter on the rear wheel rim. While if the cage breaks up and gets pushed through the seal it will obviously gush, if the cage just loosens up it will simply allow the crownwheel flange to move and leak a few drips. So far none of the machines that have had this problem have experienced crownwheel or pinion damage as the problem was addressed early on. The GOOD news is that the cannibals have been sacked and the post December '05 bikes all have bearings made by SKF to a much higher quality than the cannibal offerings and a better quality bearing is available, off the shelf, at your local bearing factor. Fitting this and a new seal will completely resolve the issue but it's a classic case of Moto Guzzi bean-counterism! I hasten to add that this problem has NOT occured universally and is still, in numerical terms, a rare event but it's something that owners and dealers should be aware of. So far there has been no recall and Dave didn't have any production numbers to say which bikes may be affected. I stress this is NOT something to panic about. It's just something to be aware of. If you find oil spatter on your rear rim? address the problem immediately. While it will obviously be a warranty problem, and one that the importer here is addressing with no qualms or hesitation, getting to it early will result in a quick and easy fix rather than running the risk of rooting your crownwheel and pinion which might cause an extended riding hiatus!!!!!! Will it stop me buying my Griso? Pig's arse!!!! Pete

Wrong! You don't know Bill. Bill is not allowed anything even remotely like tools to play with unless he has a note from Kathi. Kathi is far too sensible, and since she sometimes goes on the back and has a sense of self preservation, is never going to allow Bill to ever touch anything. If he's been naughty she also slips out to the shed at night while he's asleep and sticks a nail in his rear tyre as punishment . He has a wonderful shed, the Garagemahalo, but if you look closely at any of the pics he posts up you'll see that all the tools are actually made of rubber. You can't get the full picture because if you pick them up and squeeze them thay also squeak! This keeps him ammused and harmless while Wayne is contacted and can get over there to fix things up. Once Bill has a few mates round it's fine, Kathi can go off and cook up a storm with the relatives without having to worry about Bill playing unsupervised and Bill can do what he excells at, being an awesome host and plying everybody within a 300 metre radius with food, Perroni and Grappa. All in all it seems to be a win/win situation. Bill's bike gets sorted, Kathi gets the afternoon off from keeping an eye on him and picking him up and rubbing his knees when he falls over and scrapes them and kissing better the numerous little 'Hurties' he accumulates if alowed to play with anything sharp and the whole of the Inman Park area of Atlanta sort of degenerates into mixture between the Mardi-Gras in Rio and the Watts riots. The authorities don't mind as they've been looking at a way of facilitating the slum clearance in the next 'burb over so Bill is seen as a cross between an avenging angel and the Personal Hygiene Fairy. All in all it's a fairly satisfactory situation for everyone involved Pete

Picking teeth? Cleaning under fingernails? Nah! Use it for chopping things up into bits small enough to fit on the barbie!!! Cows are a good starting point and they don't usually complain too much. Pigs are sods and screech while you slit 'em up but they make the best sausages! Get the caul fat and then stuff all the lips and arseholes into it. Yum! There is a wonderful Italian Deli just up the road from where we lived in E3 in London that made the most sublime snags. I reckon they were made from ground up print workers from the Times building over the road but they tasted GREAT! Pete

Psst! It's running really good! We can't have that! All the pissers and moaners who say that Guzzi's are unreliable will choke on their custard. I suggest that you start off by taking the dipstick out and puting a handfull of gravel in the sump. Then you could fill the cells of the battery with bi-carbonate of soda and pry the seals out of the wheel bearings! That will prove how terrible they are and everyone will be happy! Why do you lot have to do this ? If it's working well then LEAVE IT THE F*CK ALONE!!!! Otherwise Jaap will send one of these round to see you Or worse still Tex will turn up and show you his holiday snaps Pete, "I'll spear a whale to make a sale!" Roper Pete

Yup, he's got a cousin in vietnam called Not Mai Folt pete

Torino? We know it as Turin. One of the nice things about the Italians is that they insist on their city names being used in THEIR language internationally. So do the Chinese, or at least they're trying to. Look at what the wogs call Florence? Firenze! (I hope that's right Antonio ) Firenze has Brio and Spark! Florence sounds like a pooftah's dog!!!!! Pete

I really don't want to buy into this but hey. While I don't kill things or fun I also brush my teeth and when I do it's easy to see I have some longer, sharper teeth! these aren't evolved for crushing grain or masticating grass. I, as a human being am an omnivore. I'm designed to eat other creatures when the oportunity arrises!!! While seal clubbing may be distasteful as long as the suffering isn't deliberately prolonged and the result is something that people EAT I can live with that. Slaughter for the sake of slaughter is daft, but vermin erradication, (Sorry we are the pre-eminent species on the planet, we make the rules!) and killing for food are fine by me as long as it doesn't lead to the extermination of a species and the population levels are kept sustainable. Whales? 'Cows of the sea!' By all means harvest them, but don't hunt them to extinction. Seals? Yup, they're cute when they're small but???? C'mon, you don't find them discussing Plato in Cafes do you???? I don't need to shoot or spear things to live, near me we have this thing called a 'Supermarket' where I can buy lots of stuff, not only to eat but to do all sorts of stuff like clean my house and clothes, even clean and lubricate my motorbike!!!! If I collect a 'Roo on the way into town in the truck though? Well it's one less I have to worry about when I'm on the bike, the bloody things are huge, hopping, rats!!!!! Before anybody who eats meat starts whining though I suggest you go to a slaughterhouse some time, (Yes, I have and I still eat meat.) It's not nice, but that's the price you pay for being an omnivore. Pete, (Never eat anything that doesn't have a face.) Roper

That's why some of them are known as cuntstomers Pete

Dunno what the *official* line is here but I do know that my mate John was charged somethig absurd like $450 for a first service on his LeMans and they didn't even follow the service scedule and charged him an hour and a half for 'Checking lights, indicators and horn!'. I've actually completed several PD's on bikes sold by this mob of loons since it wasn't done properly by the dealer but I essentially charge nothing, even though I'm not an *official* Guzzi dealer simply because I reckon if you pay big bucks for a new bike you should at least get it set up right. OK, so I'm a lousy business man but it helps me sleep at night. Pete

Several factors at work here. as Jason said the earlier models had cast iron rocker carriers so there were differential thermal expansion issues. Does this really make any difference? Dunno really . As for the newer models? Well it's my opinion that nowadays at the factory the head nuts are initially over torqued. In fact on some of the 1100 Sport models thare was a spate of stud breakages that would tend to support this hypothesis. Anyway, I've generally found on the V11's that when you try to crack off the nuts it is obvious that they are done up WAY tighter than 34 ft/lbs although I haven't tried to stick a torque wrench on 'em to undo 'em and anyway that would give a false reading as static friction is greater than sliding friction. So, while it is probably not neccesary to re-torque the heads it will certainly do no harm. The process is pretty simple, there are six nuts including the sleeve nut under the plug covering the stud closest to the spine that will require a 10mm allen key socket to get at. Crack all the nuts off a bit at a time. Once the nuts are loose you can just wind 'em right off. Make sure the threads are lubricated and re-install the nuts and re torque 'em in two or three steps to 34 ft/lbs. Re install the plug over the sleeve nut, re set the tappets, stick the rocker cover on, go ride. The Kingerlite gaskets used on these motors are a bit prone to collapsing but on most engines it isn't really an issue. On any motor I rebuild though my modus opperandi is to start the enw motor and get it hot. Allow it to cool down overnight and then re-torque the heads. then at the first service at 500 mile/800Km I retorque 'em again with the engine cold after which I never touch 'em again until the heads come off again. Oh, and for the record the washers and spring on the rocker spindles, from the *top* go steel washer, spring, brass/bronze washer, rocker, bronze washer. Note that the Breva/Griso now use non compressible steel gaskets so te-torquing should be a thing of the past! Pete

I don't think that everybody on the road *is* that much of a moron. But by assuming they are I gthink I give myself a greater buffer of safety! I'm afraid I do see incredible idiocy on n almost daily basis, we had a pregnant woman loose her small SUV in between Bunged End and Queanbeyan the other day, Busted leg and I don't think she lost the kid but the reason she lost it was because she was texting her mate in Canberra to arrange the post-strut Latte or some such, drifted over the centrelines, (It was in a no overtaking zone.), looked up saw she was on the wrong side of the road, yanked the wheel left, then over-corrected, (All with one hand mind, the other one was till busilly texting!) and rolled the horrid little shitbox into a paddock! I'm pretty sure I know the woman involved by sight, she was one of the many I hear on a regular basis complaining about how *terrible* the road between Canberra and the Coast is! I personally think that the coast road is fine, it's certainly better than a vast majority of the lesser known NSW goat tracks but then again I suppose any road is *terrible* if you consider driving to be an activity that can be combined with texting your friends. She is also one of the small cotterie of plonkers who have publicly stated that they find me *scary* and wouldn't let their children play with mine so you can see what sort of imbecile-quotient we're dealing with here! If I assume that everyone out there is as microcephalic and inattentive as her I think that I'll increase my chances of survival far more than if I dress in a clown suit, keep my lights on the whole time or have a very loud exhaust! As for blaming everyone else for their own mistakes? Happens all the time. Guzzi riders are no exception. Lets face it it takes a certain degree of maturity to fess up when you've made a complete dolt of yourself. There are lots of people who haven't reached that point yet and never will, whether they ride a Guzzi, or ride a bike at all, has nowt to do with it IMHO. Pete

I've never understood this reputation Bimmers have for reliability? Horrible shoddy things built down to a price and engineered by monkeys I'd rather stick red hot pins in me @#$$#! than take one on a long journey. Yeah, yeah, I can hear the howls of outrage from here, fortunately I couldn't give the tiniest little tinker's cuss. (You may also of heard that I don't like alloy timing gears ) Pete

Those of you who sometimes visit Wildguzzi, the board for sad old farts like me might of seen my post from a couple of days ago where I extolled the wonders of having parked my truck, (A 3 Tonne, 4.2 litre turbo diesel, Nissan patrol, scarecely the worlds least conspicuous vehicle.) outside the local supermarket to get some milk for work. When I hopped back in and started to pull out from the centre of the road a woman in a sedan whipped out of the centre park a few cars down and almost ploughed into me. I was already moving before she was so it was, theoretically, my 'Right of Way'. We both stopped, luckily without contact, but when I peered over to to examine the mongoloid involved I saw that she actually had her laptop computer between her torso and the steering wheel and was doing her f@cking e-mail as she pulled out of the park!!!!! Guy's it doesn't matter if you dress like a fireworks display, have pulsing lights, ride within the speed limits at all times, have loud pipes or quiet ones the only thing that will save your sorry arses is believing that every other person on the road, no matter how many wheels they're traveling on, is a mentally deficient mouth breather who can only feed themselves accurately if they lie on their backs and use a funnel in their mouths and a really big spoon!!!! You can call it 'Defensive Riding' you can call it 'Anti-Moron Travel' you can call it any damn thing you like but the fact remains it's no good pissing and moaning if you're lying on a porcelain slab with a pathologist tut-tutting over you. Don't worry, I'm no 'Safety First' dropkick. I only ever seem to have three points remaining on my licence at any one time and I loose them all through being caught *Speeding* on deserted country roads I know like the back of my hand. I've also had my fair share of prangs over the years. Most of those have been self inflicted and I've never broken a serious bone but I'm convinced that the reasons for that are simple. I don't speed in town. I treat other road users with respect even if they are checking the form guide on their steering wheel or think that they are proving a point by rounding up the fat old geezer on the Moto Guzzi on their CBR600 or R6, (Like? They're proving what exactly???? ) and most importantly I think you're all a load of brain-dead dropkicks who don't understand the laws of physics, aren't trained to control your vehicles and have a pathological desire to see me dead, (Don't worry, lots of people out of vehicles feel the same way!). Safety is a complete non-issue. If you ride a motorbike believing it's safe? BOY, HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU! Motorbikes are more dangerous than cars, sorry, sad but true. If that worries you f@ck off and buy whatever four wheeled conveyance currently comes out tops in the *safety* surveys and drive around never exceeding 30KPH and wear a bicycle helmet at all times to protect yourself from head injury in the event of an *accident*. If however you chose to ride a motorbike because it's bloody good fun and you think that al the current road rules are basically useless because everybody else drives and rides like shit don't try and blame everything on other people as if it's an *excuse*! You know their blind wombats and c*nts! treat them accordingly! But stop whining that it isn't safe! It's your choice. If you don't like the heat? Get out of the kitchen!!!!! Pete

as you know Paul you can always get around not having special tools but Rolf's really are very good and they make things so much easier! Pete

I think Rolf's contact details are linked in with the engine rebuild article? If not I'm almost certain they'll be on guzzitech dk. Gimme a bit of time and I'll dig 'em out. Pete

actually you don't really *need* the flywheel/ring gear locking tool either. If you get a bit of flat steel bar about 20-30cm long and drill an 8mm hole in either end you can hook it over one of the bell housing studs, remove one of the ring gear retaining bolts and replace it with a longer one going through the other hole in the bar. That will hold everything quite adequately to get both the rest of the ring gear bolts and the flywheel bolts undone. as Paul sez, you use the *new* clutch hub with a washer over the end that goes into the gearbox and a long 12 x 1.25, (I think?) bolts with a nut on it as the compression mechanism. Install the pressure plate and springs as shown in the engine rebuild article. Then place the clutch hub over the centre of the pressure plate. Wind the nut all the way up to the head of the long bolt and then slip the washer on after it. You can then screw the bolt into the threads in the back of the crank and then wind the nut down the bolt until the washer is sitting on the back of the clutch hub. Lock the flywheel with your bit of flat steel bar again and the wind the nut down the bolt so that the springs are all compressed to coilbind. Slip the first friction plate onto the hub, then install the intermediate plate, then the second friction plate. With both the friction plates the raised bits of th steel centres need to be towards the gearbox, not towards the engine. Remove you locking tool and install the ring gear. Re-install the tool and then insert and tighten all the bolts bar the one holding the tool. When all the others are done remove the longer bolt that you've been hooking the tool on and install and tighten the last ring gear bolt, (You can brace the ring gear witha screwdriver on one of the bell housing bolts and stuck into the ring gear teeth for this last one.) The Centauro ring gear is retained by ten, short 6 mm bolts I believe? Use new schnoore washers under the allen heads of the bolts and a dab of blue loctite 243 just to be sure. Once the ring gear is in place hold the bolt in the centre of the crank and unwind the compressor nut until the plates are seated on the face of the ring gear. The bolt can now be removed from the crank and the clutch hub removed from the centre of the plates and the new thrust cup inserted into the centre of the pressure plate. When you remove the Clutch hub from the gearbox input shaft and install the new one it is wise to replace both the seal and the o-ring that lives between the hub and the front input shaft bearing. On five speeders the bearing is a sodding great angular Contact 3205 and I assume since the shaft size is the same the same bearing is used in the six speeders? If so examine tha cage of the bearing closely for cracking. The later type 3205's used in the five speeders are notorious for lunching thei cages. It's not a problem I've heard of with the six speeders but since you can see it it's worth checking. Note that the hub is retained by a peculiar peg nut, (Unless the six speeders use a different retaining nut?). The Guzzi tools for this are absolute shite! Don't even bother thinking about buying one! Rolf Halvoorsen in Denmark makes a whole series of brilliant special tools for both the five speed and six speed boxes including all the weird peg nuts. They're worth their weight in gold! If you don't want to shell out for the whole set alone how about clubbing together with a few other folks and buying a *Community* set? Pete

OK, since nobody else is biting I'll take a stab. Firstly I've got to ask whether it will work because the clutch pushrod might be the wrong length. The Scurras used a single plate clutch ex-factory and this *may* mean that a different length pushrod is used. I'd check part numbers becaue the last thing you want is to get it all back together and then find the pushrod is either too long or too short for it to operate the clutch correctly. A pushrod from one of the V11's witgh the twin plate ex-factory would work but one from a Centauro or any of the five speeds won't as the V11 gearbox is much shorter than the old five speeder. OK, that being said there are two schools of thought on tackling the clutch on spineframes. Carl will probably be able to offer his advice too and he's done more of 'em than me probably. The first way is to disconnect all the crap from around the front of the engine, remove the inlet manifolds and exhaust etc. Thn remove the front sub frames and undo the bell housing nuts and pull the motor forward off the transmission. I have to say that this method seemingly has a lot of advantages because it doesn't require disturbing the swingarm, final drive etc. The biggest problem I can see is that I'd think it would be an absolute frontbottom to get it all lined up and back on again. I have never done it this way but that's because I'm an old school traditionalist who's been working on Tonti's and Loops for years so the way i do it is more closely akin to the old Tonti method of gearbox removal which is..... Support the motor on it's sump. For this purpose I've got a special *stand* which is essentially a plywood box with two wooden *Rails* running fore and aft in line with the bike's wheelbase. I get a pair of burly oafs to help me lift the bike up and plonk it down on the rails ith the slight 'V' of the broad sump in between the *rails*. I then lash the front of the bike down to the workbench with tie downs to prevent it toppling backwards due to the fairly heavy rearward weight bias. Disconnect the battery! Once it's secure it's time to remove the rear wheel, driveshaft and everything rearwards of the gearbox along with the exhausts, airbox etc. but the TB's etc. can be left in place. Once the driveshaft is off it can also be easily and very effectively greased, much easier than doing it on the bike but remember when it goes back on it is VITAL that the trunnions are aligned proerly or you WILL bust expensive bits!!!!! Remove the pork chops and loosen the bolts that locate the front sub frames to the timing chest. Remove the bolt that goes through that plate-like casting that's bolted to the top of the gearbox, disconnect the speedo cable etc. and make sure that nothing is still connected that is going to get stretched. Remove the starter motor at some point during all this! When everything is loose or disconnected and the two uppermost bolts in the bell housing have been removed you should be able to pivot the spineframe and it's still connected rear sub-frame *up* on the two front sub-frame bolts until the whole sorry lot is sufficiently high that you can stick a block of wood between the frame and a rocker cover to hold it in place. You can then undo the rest of the bell housing nuts or bolts and pull the gearbox off the back of the motor. With the V11's with their hydraulic clutches I imagine that before you 'Crab' the frame in this way you'd have to remove the slave cylinder fro the back of the box, I haven't actually had the box off a V11 yet! Once the box is off you have free access to the clutch/flywheel and the fragmentary Scurra single plater can be removed and flung into the nearest paddock and whatever you are sticking in in it's place installed. Before yoy remove the old flywheel use the timing marks to set the engine up at TDC on one side. That makes it very easy to ensure that when you put the new flywheel on it will have it's timing marks in the same, correct, places. If you're going with the Centauro 10 spring twin plater it is VITAL that you use a clutch aligning tool of some sort to compress the springs fully before inserting the pressure and intermediate plates. If you don't and try to just align them by eye and then tighten down the ring-gear bolts and hope that it will all slide into place I can almost guarantee that you'll bend the intermediate plate and a.) the clutch will drag when the bike is back together and b.) you'll have to do the whole job all over again! It simply isn't worth it! and it'll cost you $60, (25 quid!) for a new intermediate plate. Once the clutch is assembled with the ring gear on DON'T whatever you do forget to put the thrust cup into the centre of the pressre plate before re-install ing the gearbox on the engine. You'll feel like a right dolt when you've got eveything back to gether and grab the clutch and there's no resistance at th lever. A few moments looking will reveal the thrust cup sitting somewhere *safe* on the bench This usually results in weeping and a large increase in beer intake . Reassembley is a reverse of the disassembley. As I say, this is only the way I tackle spineys, I'm not saying it's the best way or even the easiest way. It's simply the way I do it because its the closest to what I'm *used* to with working on Guzzis of all sorts over the years. I hope that helps? if you want to see pics of the clutch installation and required tools go to the Guzzitech dk sire and have a look at the last chapter of my engine strip and rebuild series. That clutch is only an 8 springer and the Centauro's flywheel and ring gear design is slightly different but the principles and parts are essentially the same so it's still a good indicator of how to do things. Pete

Speaking as one who has gone through the fathering process three times, (I tried lots more but it doesn't work every time Make the most of every minute. You only get one bite at the cherry with each of them. Love them, nurture them and never loose faith, no matter how awful they sometimes seem! Mine are now 21, 19 and 12. They have probably taken that combined number of years off my life! Would I be without any of 'em? Whaddayouthink???? Good on ya Mate! And all the best to the Missus and Bub! pete

The mesh on the screen is far too big for it to stop anything but really *big* stuff. The oil filter and sludge trap in the crank take out the little bits. In the event of a major blow-up the screen *may* save your oil pump, apart from that it really has little use. The thing is that there is nothing inside the Guzzi donk that in *Normal* use is going to shed bits of a size that the screen will pick up. In fact the guzzi motor is a very *clean* motor all round. It doesn't get contaminated by bits of friction material from the clutch, there is no shared transmission to have bits biffed off the selector dogs, the cam drive is by chain and sprockets, where are these *bits* going to come from? Even the piston rings are running on nicasil so wear is slow and any material that comes off them is microscopic, too small even for the filter, it ends up in the sludge trap or is drained out at oil changes. The 'Manhole' in the sump was put there specifically to allow removal of the filter without removing the sump as on earlier models. The problem is that the filter is prone to sticking very tight which makes it very hard to remove sometimes, even with the filter wrench you need that fits up through the 'Manhole'. If you do the 'Bash a screwdriver through the filter and wind it off.' trick there is a risk that as you turn the screwdriver it will scrape against the side of the 'Manhole' and damage the threads. If this happens it is very hard to get the plate back in square and it's easy to cross-thread it with expensive consequences. You also need a 27mm allen key or similar to turn the plate out, not a lot of people have one of those so for a lot of people it's actually easier to drop the sump than use the 'Manhole'. There is though no need for the screen to be cleaned and inspected with anything like the frequency recommended in the book though. How often do you drop the sump in your car to clean off the strainer? My guess is NEVER! Pete

Do a web search for Moto Guzzi Maintenace. It'll show you how. Honestly it will take you 15 minutes and cost you a 5mm allen key t-bar an 11mm ring spanner a plug socket to take the spark plugs out and a set of feeler guages. It might be a good idea to buy a pair of rocker cover gaskets,an oil filter and a sump gasket before you start as you *will* be changing the oil and if you read the book the bike came with you'll see that they recommend removing the sump at every filter change, (Which makes the externally changeable filter a bit redundant!) . After you've checked it the first time though there should really be no need to take the sump off for the next 50,000 miles though so Do it once. Do it right. With a Guzzi you get bugger all power, weird handling and the oprobrium of all other motorcyclists. You also get spud-thick simplicity that anyone who isn't a complete imbecile can cope with and service. That explains how I can make a living out of fixing 'em Pete

Moto Guzzi! So weird that not even thieves want it!!!! Pete

Correction! they weren't 32205's. I think that they were whatever the Tonti's use which ISN'T a 32205. I got the spacers made and needed some slightly abnormal seals to go with them. pete

Oddly enough, the few I've done this is EXACTLY the proceedure I've used Although I usually get the einner race and balls out and then shrink the outer race out of the arm with weld, it's still a frontbottom of a job. As I said before I've also replaced the AC3 bearings with 32205's, a seal and some spacers to good effect. pete

Hey! Bloke! Yeah! You with the gut and the poofy shirt! Fuque off! Happy now? Pete