pete roper

I am the importer for Ghezzi - Brian and received a phone call today that a Ghezzi Brian Supertwin was stolen yesterday in Southern California. This bike was a one of a kind Supertwin with Gold OZ wheels, blue body, red frame and an underslung exhaust system. If anyone sees a Ghezzi for sale, please send me any info to my e-mail at ratdog@centurytel.net. Since there are less than 30 Ghezzi Brians in the country, this bike should be difficult to hide. Thanks for all of your help Keep yer eyes peeled blokes, one of these should be bloody difficult to wreck out without someone getting a heads-up and then the lowlife can be given a kicking Pete

Dunno about Ca. but in Oz it varies from state to state but basically in NSW to register a vehicle , unless it's new in which cased documentation comes from he importer stating it meets the current ADR's, (Australian Design Rules), you need to take it to a certified inspector who will issue it with a 'Blue Slip' which says it meets the requirements of the Roads and Traffic acts, post '72 (?) machines must also have a VIN plate stating year and model. After you have your 'Blue Slip' you have to get a 'Green Slip' which is he compulsory third party insurance. This covers injury to individuals but nothing else, if you want cover for property damage this is NOT compulsory but it's obviously wise to have. Armed with your blue and green slips and another wad of cash you then go to the Motor Registry where you wait in a long queue to talk to a disinterested and obstructionist idiot who will search their database for an identification code for your machine, (Great fun if, like me, you try to register something like a Motobi that was never officially imported!). Sometimes they can't even find Moto Guzzi but that is getting rarer. They then separate you from the wad of cash and stummble off into the back of the registry and return with a number plate made by a criminal at Goulburn gaol and issue it to you along with a document with a removable sticker that has to be displayed in a holder either at the rear of the machine or on the left hand side facing the curb. If the registration is allowd to lapse the plate has to be returned to the motor registry and then you have to go through the whole sorry rigmarole all over again next time you register the machine. If the bike has been purchased un-registered you also need a bill of sale from the previous owner or some form of proof of ownership. If you want a personalised plate, say TO55ER, you can be separated from yet more cash on a yearly basis! Pete

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN10035.txt Pete

Could one of you clever buggers who speaks both Dutch and English give me a hoy? I have a mate with a Nuovo Falcone, (And a V11 LeMans Just to keep it relevant.) and he wants me to buy and fit a few parts that Teo lists but we both find his website virtually un-navigable, (Perhaps it's a cultural thing!) and when he's tried to email them the replies he gets, usually after and age, are incomprehensible, garbled, nonsense. Obviously it's a language thing but if one of you'se nice blokes, (Jaap?) could act as an intermediary/translator it would be a great help! Thanks. Pete motomoda@optusnet.com.au

Well, it seems my suspicions were unfounded. After removing the camplate cover it was obvious that there were muffs in the box that fitted Todd's description so I have to assume it's OK. Thanks to all who offered help and advice. The rest of the bike was OK apart from the rear wheel spindle which had been done up to 28 gazzillion mile tons and has crushed the spacer so the bearings are on the way out. Just call me Mr.Stupid but the spindle has a sodding great nyloc nut on it. Why the hell would you do it up so tight that it needed me, (Fat bastard #1.) and Mr. Davies, (Fat bastard #2) with 1 metre breaker bars, huffing and puffing with all our might, while Ian, (Fat bastard #3!) held the bike to get the bloody thing undone?????? I'm not kidding, I thought I was going to have to get the Oxy on it and we all nearly had coronarys!!!!!! Pete PS, Yes, you can simply *crab* the frame and yank the gearbox off the back of the bell housing. As Carl says it's not terrifically easy the first time you do it but it's a damn sight easier than a lot of jobs on other bikes. If you do a search on the net for details of frame crabbing you'll get the picture.

Yup, I'm sure you can but you seem to have become the world expert on 'Musical Gearboxes' on spineys . The thing is that this shop is the same one that charged my mate John an hour and a half labour on his first service on his V11 LeMans for 'Check lights, indicators and horn' so I imagine the challenge of getting a gearbox off a spiney might take 'em a bit longer Incidentally which way do you go to get the box out? Will reckons it's easier to pull ther motive unit out the front. I still go the 'Old Fashioned' route and crab the frame. I've got fairly good at that now.so 2 hours to pull the box would be about right. Probably 2 & 1/2 to get it back in but since I'd be doing muy first six speeder I'm pretty sure it would take me more than a couple of hours to guarantee I'd done the job right, at least first time around. I thnk on this occasion the answer is simple. Pull the cam-plate cover and have a squizz at the muffs. If the muffs have the groove the job has been done, if not then they've been telling porkies Pete

Great! Thanks Todd. At least that makes identification easy. I'll be real pissed off if he's been bulshitted! pete

I'm pretty sure that for the sliding muff recall you'd have to have the box out and apart. I don't see how you could replace them otherwise? My feeling is I'll look at it and try to make an educated guess as to whether the box has been out or apart. Whatever happens I'll get witnesses to verify that the customer won't hold me responsible if the dogs go tits and if we're pretty sure it hasn't been done I'll give the importer a call and see what the word is from them. It's a nasty one Pete

Thanks. that's the sort of info I need. I have yet to have a V11 box apart so I don't know what's what. While I'm not completely mongoloid actually asking others with more experience always seems like the sensible option, to me at least, the local *official* dealer seems to think otherwise Pete

OK, Tomorrow I'm supposed to be getting a bloke with a V11 in for a service and examination. He hasn't been happy with the service from the local *official* dealer so he thinks he'll give me a go. OK but his bike is one of the ones subject to the safety recall for the exploding shift dogs. Now, the bike went into the *official* workshop after an considerable length of time waiting for parts and then, voila! it was done and he got the bike back a day or so later. Now, I dunno, I know this shop don't shift a heap of Guzzis and even I think that I'd be hard pushed to remove a gearbox from a V11, replace the all the warraty bits and get it back to the owner in 24 hours, especially if I was less familliar with the bikes than I am???? The owner also is suspicious because he can see NO SIGN AT ALL of the box having been opened. Perhaps I'm particularly hopeless but if I take something apat and put it back together again there ill always be evidence? A slight nick in the finish? Oil stains, (even after de-greasing and steam cleaning.) little tings that are noticeably different, a trace of gasket goo where there was none before etc? My dilema is what can I actually do? The exploding shift dogs is a rare and isolated problem, it was only encountered on a few of the production run BUT it is a major safety issue. If they do let go the box will almost certainly lock up. But I can't tell the bloke it has to be done again and the parts *look* identical as it's a treatment problem apparently. That makes it my word against that of the local *dealer* and even though at last count his 'Chief Mechanic' was a second year apprentice working unsupervised I can scarecely confront them about it. As I say tough I'm really concerned for the blokes safety if it hasn't been done, (The prevailing attitude I'll bet was 'Take it out for a ride, feels OK, give it back, tell him the work has been done!' Not only does it make me worry about his safety but what about mine? I work on the bike, it goes out, the gearbox explodes and he's seriously injured. Who's at fault? The last person to work on the bike I'd guess So what O great wise ones should I do????? Pete

In the tool kit there should be a 14mm hex piece about 25mm long. I've used them and after one use they appear to be very ordinary. I think they are made of 'Potty Putty'! Why they can't just use a sensible bolt and nut I have no idea but it seems they can't so we're stuck with it. I bought a vastly overpriced and very shinty Snap-On 14mm Hex socket 'cos I expect to see a few of them but for the average Joe or Josephine Tex's trick with a bolt is fine. Better yet id you weld the nuts to the bolt. It'll work fine. You can do the same to make a 27mm allen *key* for that F*cking stupid plate over the oil filter too if you like. Pete.

I take it that the V11's use the same double row angular contact type as the 1100Sports etc.? If so I've seen several earlier bikes with stuffed swingarm bearings, usually it does look like water intrusion as they are almost always rusty. The way I've got them out is with an expading puller and a sodding great slide-hammer pluss lots anmd lots of heat! The problem with this is that it does the swingarm paint a whole heap of no-good. Having said that the paint is pretty ordinary to start off with so perhaps if the bearings do need doing the trick would be to powder coat it properly before installation of the new bearings. With any 2RS type bearing in an application like this I always pry a seal off and wash out the crappy silicone grease they put in there at the factory and add a dribble of oil and a goodly smear of bearing grease before re-installing the seal and puting the bearings into the swingarm with the side that has had the seal removed and replaced on the *inside*. I've also in the past swapped the AC bearings for tapered rollers with no problems. Pete

Next time I have a fuel injected model in for a rebuild I'll add an addendum to cover the ignition triggering/crank position set-up with the 'Phonic Wheel'. Other than that the basics of the rebuild are exactly the same from Ambo to V11. It's a pity that I didn't think to do a photojornal on the Daytona RS top end I just did but I've only done a couple of Hi-Cams so people like Paul would probably be far more accurate and helpful, and know more *tricks* than me. Pete

He's also about ten feet tall, skinny as a rake and rides the fastest Eldo in the west! The man's a freak! Always wash your hands after talking to him or you'll end up with a horrible disease! Pete

Marketed here and in Western Europe as the 'Jupiter' I believe. Not even I, who have a perverse admiration for bizarre and horrible bits of shit, can really find anything nice to say about a Jupiter. They were in almost every way known to man, absolutely vile Pete

http://www.guzzitech.dk/english/ Top of the left hand column. I hope people find it useful. Pete

Which part of the yak do you boil down to get the fat? Also with the rhino jizz? Do you prefer the black or white rhinos' product? or perhaps you're one of those rich people who only uses the jizz from the Indonesian pygmy rhino? Being near the coast in the antipodes I usually dispense with the rhino and use sea-lion jizz. While slightly smellier to collect and in some cases more dangerous the higher fish oil content helps with high speed gear protection. Anbody interested can buy from me, very expensively, a bottle of pure snake oil, lovingly squeezed from the snakes that infest my back yard. For you'se blokes $25,000US per litre, and I'm robbin' meself! Pete

Yup, the six speeders use not only a different gearbox but a different bevelbox too. There is virtually nothing in common between the two. pete

It means rhino jizz. It compliments the yak fat you put in everything else. pete

Commonly known as a 'Turd Scoop'. Why on earth would you want to put such a hideous thing on a prety bike like a V11 YOMV Pete

(Sigh!) Yes, the book is crap. Engine oil is checked with the bike upright and the dipstick screwed into the case. Gearbox? Bike upright and filled to middle of sight glass. Bevelbox. Use the level plug if you wish otherwise just drain it and put in the specified amount of EP90 and a squirt of snot. Change it, check it, stop bloody worrying. People carry on as if their oil level drops in any part of the bike by more than 20cc it's going to fall in a molten heap. It's not. Overfilling is also unlikely to cause a major problems as long as it's not extreme. Stop worrying. Go ride! Pete

I'm sure I wrote a relatively long and detailed explanation about why, if your oil light flickers under acceleration, you're already well on the way to destroying your engine in a previous thread. Do a search and see what turns up. I've got to go and cook the barbecue for supper. pete

Look, as I understand this, and I'm really flying blind here, the bigest issue with the new 'pooter is that there are no readily available maps that are downloadable via the axone tool and that tool will only probably deal with stuff, (At more than a basic level.) if it is offered by the factory. I'm hoping that Cliff will decide to venture into this area with a version of his myXXX control units for the Breva/Griso models but this sort of stuff is very new to me so I'm not sure about the how's, why's and wherefore's of such a thing. As it stands it seems like the current system is very dependent, more so than earlier versions, on everything being *standard* to get it to be easily tuneable due to the fact that the engine runs at closed loop for the early part of the rev range before reverting to an open loop map after the initial phase. While this doesn't mean that a simple map change won't improve things above this point I see a problem in matching what could be seen a s a *Sweet* swap from the closed to open loop parts of the EM system. Having said that I realize I'm punching well above my weight even talking about such things so on't take what I'm saying as having any credence at all Pete

Like everything else, if assembled correctly, out of decent parts made of the right materials and then used within it's design brief there is nothing wrong with these old Wermacht designs. The problem with the Russisn bikes, especially during the years of the old Sov Un. was inferior materials and a disinterested labour force. Not entirely different to Guzzi in the '90's! No, they aren't fast, no they aren't stylish, but they can be great fun! Back in the early '80's me and me mate Nige used to roam around Brixton, Peckham and Dulwich on/in a grey Ural outfit dressed in grey greatcoats with a broom handle stuck in the Klashnikov mount hurling abuse at coppers and the yuppies who were moving in! If we tried it nowadays we'd end up getting shot!!!! Pete

I ride a 'vert currently but I suspect when my Griso arrives the 'Vert will get less use. I wasn't saying it was a bad bike, far from it, as a track tool it looks pretty damn good, but as an everyday ride? In my humble opinion, (and remember, it is just that, my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.) racebike performance on the road and the way it's sold to young, inexperienced, punters is dangerous. I'm not saying that these machines should be banned or any such thing, just that I think the marketing of them is irresponsible and the vast majority of young turks who buy them are completely out of their depth. As for going fast? I love it! the only reason I don't ride our racebike is because a.) I can't ride to save my life! I'd be a horrible mobile chicane on the track! and b.) I get a lot of pleasure from building the motors and transmissions and that's where my enjoyment of racing comes from. As far as riding is concerned I far prefer going for a fang in the country to circulating competitively on the track. No, I don't 'Observe the speed limit at all times' , even my 'vert will crack 100mph if I find a well greased mine-shaft and a following wind but I'm accutely aware that I have to share the roads, (Some of which are in pretty poor condition.) with errant wildlife, farmers towing dead steers along behind tractors, livestock that still is, livestock that isn't, and any number of inattentive boneheads who are probably doing at least half a dozen things that have NOTHING to do with controling their vehicles! I'm not going to ride any machine with race performance anywhere near it's limits on the public road, to do so is suicidal and to ride them well below their limits is BORING! Pete