pete roper

I posted my thoughts on this in a reply on WG but I'll copy 'em here if people are interested. Unless there is a discernable leak between the bell housing and the block or it's dripping from the drain vent underneath I'd say it's unlikely to be a leaking seal on the pushrod but I'm not sure what sort of seals are used on the six speed pushrod???? Rear main seals very rarely blow and when they do you're in 'Blurt City' territory, the thing would be sitting in a pool of oil. My guess is still that if you use the clutch hard the poxy sintered bronze plate has gone tits-up. Pete

Goran. Why is that man hitting that woman on the head with a stick????? Can I post pics direct here or do I have to have them up on Ofoto or one of those sites? I've got some nice pics of a beautiful bit of road they've just sealed between Bermagui and Tathra on the south coast of NSW. I had a ball down there the other day, the caravan and creeping Nissan Bluebird brigade haven't discovered it yet so even in peak holiday season I was able to have some fun , at least until I got stuck behind a group of the 'Old-Sillies' club out dragging the chrome off their collostomy bag holders on their Viragos and Vulcans It was 40*C in Bungendore 2 days ago, I would of welcomed a bit of snow!! Almost!!!! Worst thing was the 'Mighty Convert' blew a transmission line!! Bloody cheek! It's only 24 years old, you can't get anything that lasts nowadays, (Moan, Grumble ) Pete

If anyone wants more detailed shots I can take a few when I next visit Phil. He's got one of these too. Pete

It's stupidity! You have to remember we're talking about a bunch of hopelessly inbred, genetically damaged, semi-morons who have never had to do a stroke of real work in their lives and survive as a parasitic excrescence off the side of the British ecconomy. Up until a few years ago Betty didn't even pay tax, despite being the richest bint on the planet The Sachs-Coburg Gothas, (For that is their real name, they changed it to Windsor during the First Great Unpleasantness because they didn't want to appear hypocritical supporting all that codswallop about baby-eating Huns.) have a long and illustrious history of being attracted to proponents of totalitarianism and yes, this dill's great grand-pappy used to get on really well with the likes of Hitler and Mussollini. It's important to remember that it's not just Betty, Phil the Greek, Chaz, Anne, Andy shagalot and the Poofter who are kept at the nations expense but all their relatives to about the tenth step removed as well as the hereditary peers in the House of Lords, (A bunch of dribling, incontinent, retards!) and the life peers who get elevated to the UK's (Unellected!!!!) house of review for the rest of their miserable, worthless, lives. The bloody Windsors though! What a pity they weren't in that cellar with their useless, haemophiliac, Russian cousins back in 1919 off in Siberia. This bunch of crooks and wasters are, for our sins, also our heads of state in OZ! It makes my flesh crawl but at least we don't have to pay for 'em most of the time. (Rant mode off) Pete

Ahhh! There's where you made the mistake. You should of asked him if he was a 'Technician' Being thought of as a 'Mechanic' shows that you are a member of the 'Lower Orders' and contemptible whereas being a 'Technician' means that you have a forehead with a very high dome and a piece of paper that says you're allowed to charge three times as much as a 'Mechanic' . Personally I'd rather have my bike worked on by As for Suzuki? I love their gearboxes. Works of art! But I had a huge fight last year with a 250 Bandit and hated every second of it Pete

Only the brainless boneheads can't tell that it's a loopy so it's more likely a 1970 than a 1980 as the loops ceased production in '74. Just call me 'Mr. Pedantic' Pete

Jason, just some archive experience here . When i built the first itteration of my hot-rod I spent a LOT of time and money lightening and ballancing things. OK, so it was an old roundfin donk and I'd short stroked it which intrinsically made it less vibratory and the rod/stroke ratio was better too BUT.... After I'd torched the big ends for the third time and been given a 'Walking Licence' for three months by the local wallopers I decided that it was time to stick all the go-gear into a race bike and de-tune the hot rod. I didn't want to sacrifice too much though as the hot-rod is fun and I wanted to keep the short stroke format simply because I love the way they perform. SO! I ended up building a squarefin motor to hog it out a bit, 90mm is about as big as you can go, safely, with a roundfin with the squarefin I was able to get a suitable 92mm kit from RAM designed for a 78mm crank throw SPIII with mid-valve heads. With a bit of farting about I found that this gave me very nice compression with smallvalve heads and a 70mm crank plus a couple of other unexpected benefits. Thing is that as well as weighing considerably more than the super-marvey Wiseco slugs I was using before I changed flywheels and never bothered ballancing anything, just ensured that the reciprocating components weighed the same as each other. Result? Barely any detectable difference in vibration Yes, I'm sure if I'd gone to the trouble and expense of doing the 'Full Monty' to it all over again I might of got it a smidge smoother and probably would of gained a poofteenth more power but really the difference between the motor that had all the careful ballancing and the one that hasn't is negligible. I'm aware that this goes against all engineering convention and good sense, yes, we do get the race bike engine components ballanced dynamically to 52% but really I'm beginning to doubt whether that is really worth it at this stage of development. I'm not saying that people shouldn't ballance things, simply that a change of piston, and therefore reciprocating weight, of 25-30 grams seems to make very, very little difference to the way the motor feels or performs so I simply wouldn't die in a ditch about it, I'd consider it to be way down the list of 'Important Things To Worry About', that's all. Pete

I'd suggest either a casting fault in the eye or damage caused by, as somebody else said, abuse, ie Guiseppe using the shock eye to get the top off his early morning bottle of Nastro Azzuro in the assembley line. One of those rare and unfortunate things I'd guess I wouldn't think it is an endemic fault. Interesting about the lack of lube on the shock mounts, I'll add that to my list of stuff for PD that I'm compiling. Pete

While it's impossible to say why this occured I don't think anyone has noted that when the V11 was launched one of the things that Guzzi tried to do was quicken up the steering, (at the expense of stability, there's always a trade off.) as for years Journo's had been pissing and moaning about how slow the steering was on the Tonti's. So The early V11's had a shorter frame and wheelbase and much more *modern* steering geometry. What happened? Journo's pissed and moaned that it was flighty and not nearly as stable as the old Tonti framed bikes or even the Sporti . After, I think but youse blokes would know better than me, 2001 the frame was lengthened a bit, I dunno if the steering geometry was changed though. This was done to combat this percieved flightiness! I've ridden comparatively few V11's but the first one I rode was a very early model 98-99???? The demo that was sent to Oz. Now this had been thrashed mercilessly by Journo's so it wasn't in the best of nick and I didn't have time to play with the suspension either front or back but I gave it a fairly good pounding over some local goat tracks and loved the fact that it was almost skittish at times but it never got out of hand. Given that I know very little about this bike really I'd suggest that if you do have problems altering the weight distribution by fitting adjustable bars and experimenting AND using a decent steering damper would seem like the way to go but as I say there are plenty more more knowledgeable people out there than me on this topic. Personally, when they get cheap enough, I'll probably look for a V11 and I think I'd like an early one although the LeMans is a lovely bike too. Pete

If you bent one of the circlips I'd say get the thing apart quicksmart and replace 'em. If one pops out you'll trash not only the piston but the bore as well! A Couple of points here. The pistons *look* very similar to the ones we were using in the race bike, I imagine that Wiseco has a series of blanks in various bore sizes that can be addapted for use in a variety of motors. They are a very nice piston and the three part Deeves scrapers are a joy but as you've found out the circlips are a pain. The new pistons we had made here in Oz for the racebike are a bit lighter than the Wisecos but use the same rings and circlips, (which I believe you call 'snap rings' in the USA?). I also detested the inconvenience of trying to install the second circlip with the piston on the rod, it's a right frontbottom of a job, but I got out the micrometer and found that, at least in our case, the wire diameter of the clip was identical to that of a standard Guzzi circlip with the installation *ears* on it. So I used one of these for the end of the pin that had to be put in after installation. I worked on the principle that the weight increase was going to be so small as to be irrelevant but the ease of installation was worth it. If you go this way DON'T just bung 'em in, mic up the circlip and make sure the wire diameter is the same for yours as this is vital. Also it should be noted that circlips should always be installed with the split in the clip at eaither 12 O'Clock or 6 O'Clock as in this position there is no likelyhood of the clip being forced closed by inertial forces at TDC or BDC as the piston stops and changes direction. While this is unlikely it's worth avoiding the risk, especially on motors that are reved hard. Pete

Basically that's it for squish clearance and valve to piston clearance. You just use modeling clay or plasitcene on the squish bands and valve pockets and measure the clearance after 720 degrees of rotation. For valve to valve clearance simply cut a couple of pieces of wood the thickness of the barrels and assemble the heads onto the case so the barrels are *missing* and you can see the combustion chamber from underneath. It doesn't have to be torwued down or anything, just tightened till the head is firm against the wood and won't move, don't over tighten or it will warp, (do this with the rods and pistons out obviously!) install the rocker gear and pushrods and turn the motor over until both valves are on overlap, (TDC exhaust/induction.) and measure the clearance between 'em. Pete

What was it Bill ? Death, but not for the first offence I'd personally favor three weeks in a cell with the large Tongan sodomite. Recidivism rates for people who have undertaken this punishment are, I understand, very low Pete

Really??? I read it back in the '70's and found it boring, self-indugent and turgid. I tried to read it again a couple of years ago and was still confronted by the same things. Certainly when I'm riding my bikes, or working on them, I'm not in the least bit concerned with quasi-God-bothering nonsense of a very sophomorc nature. I thought the book stank! One * Pete

Very bad luck. Good point about the protective gear, for real humiliation try my little trick just before Christmas. I has a Pee-Wee 50 in for a pre-sale, (To a new owner .) service and after I'd steam cleaned it the poxy thing wouldn't run right above a certain RPM, turned out to be the weirdo 2 position kill switch wiring had water in but in my attempts to clear out the carb, (which I initially thought was the problem.) I took it for a brief flog around the back yard of the workshop, hooked my trousers over the left handle bar and highsided off into the gravel at all of about 10KPH What a top of penis :-) I did more damage to myself than I did sticking the SP into a culvert last year!!!! It's now a fortnight later and I've only just got rid of the scabs and some of the bruising is still there. There is something deeply dis-satisfying about injuring yourself by trowelling a PW50 at 10KPH, I don't recommend it Pete

Books! Don't talk to me about bloody books! We've had our house extended twice and there are still sodding great piles of the things everywhere because we can't bear to get rid of 'em Most of them are 'Read Once and Never Read again" specials but there is some pearl among the swine. While I'm currently reading a set of Victorian detective novels my good lady wife has discovered by a bint called Anne Perry. I'm also very fond of the roman detctive novels featuring Falco written by Lindsey Davis. For travel writing though you can't go past Eric Newby. Anything he's written is brilliant. While I'm particularly fond of 'The Big Red Train Ride' his account of a trip on the Trans-siberian in 1977, my favorite is still his first book 'The Last Grain Race'. Newby was an apprentice on one of the last of the sailing ships to work commercially in the grain trade to Australia from Europe. His account of the voyage, in 1938, is compelling and hillarious reading. A couple of years ago Jude actually found me a 1st eddition which I treasure and re-read frequently. His account of his last major venture, 'On the Shores of the Medditeranean' is also fascinating and brilliantly researched. I love travel books. I'm generally less than pleased with motorcycle travelers simply because, to my mind an account of travel is worthless without some sort of historical perspective. One exception to this is Peter Thoeming's 'Motorcycle Touring' which I still find an entertaining read after 20+ years. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never went anywhere extraordinary when I was younger. Alas If I tried nowadays, even if it was politically possible, my poor health would proclude it . The world at the moment is not a place for the lone traveller on a bike. If China is an option? Take it with both hands, likewise any of the former Soviet nations as long as there aren't separaist wars going on. South Asia is a bit dangerous at the moment, the middle east is a shitfight and South America is very patchy with many countries being no-go zones. To me I find it stultifyingly boring always being surrounded by the decendants of blood-nut Irish convicts, one of the things I really miss from the UK is the cultural diversity. While I haven't travelled for a while outside of English speaking countries I've almost always found that people the world over are essentially the same. A possible exception being the Icelanders???? Who else can excuse a nation that foisted Bjork on an unsupecting world?????? Pete

Me neither, the thing is it costs >$1500 to set up for K-lining and about the same to set up with a decent set of Neway valve seat cutters and valve cutting tools, for a business as small as mine it's simply not viable. I have a very competent machine shop I trust implicitly to do my valve work and the only real problems I've had have been with the horrible chalky alloy of really early heads tending to let new seat inserts drop so I always peen 'em in. Pete

I think most relevant points have already been made. I too see some form of moderation is quite reasonable otherwise things quickly spiral way out of control and forums tend to degenerate into hostile groups of warring tribes and it's all very unedifying. It's perfectly possible for people who have differing opinions and beliefs to also have things in common and even, heaven forbid, enjoy each others company! I'd imagine that I and Bill Hagan are about as different as you can get from a 'Political' standpoint, that doesn't mean I can't respect the man and his beliefs, it's just theat he's wrong and I'm right You'll usually find that if you actually look beneath the surface it's possible to find large areas of common interest with the most extraordinary and diverse selections of people but this is primarily a Guzzi forum and consequently if things get too far from the point it's I think reasonable for somebody to slap us back into line. I've not visited Enzo's site, mainly because I don't seem to be able to access it, but if it is mainly a forum for name calling, vitriol and bile I can see little point in visiting, I can get that down the pub on any Friday night I choose! Both the WG site, (which is populated mainly by older, dyed in the wool, republican voting types.) and this one I enjoy greatly and have *met* some great people through although I can generally contribute less here as my knowledge of the V11 models is slim. Both of them seem to be successfully and unobtrusively moderated, evidently this works for me. Whether it works for others???? well if they don't like it the web is a big place, there'll be somewhereelse they can go. As for worries about racism and homophobia? I haven't seen or heard anyone talking about nigger or poofter bashing, or encouraging it. I find Tex's posts hillarious, the man is obviously far too intelligent to allow himself to be posted into somebody elses tiny box. It's very easy to make glib assumptions about people based on a few lines taken out of context from a message on a bulletin board, yes, over a period of time you can begin to get an idea of what people are like and you can probably pick the one's you'd like to meet and those you'd like to avoid, but remember, it *is* only a bulletin board, not one of the great houses of debate where the issues of the world are discussed. Enough ranting from me I want to talk Pete

I regularly use K-lines in guides. Our race bike runs K-lines. because of the scrolled nature of the liner it actually retains oil better than the parent material and generally they last better than new guides. Replacing guides is always a PITA and oversize guides become less efficient at dumping heat. As long as the original guides are still firm in the head I'd ALWAYS go with K-lining over re-guiding. It also keeps the valves concentric with the seats so less material has to be removed to get a good seal with the newly re-cut valves. Pete

Thank God for that. I did race a couple of times in the UK in the late seventies or early eighties but I was so pitifully slow and such a scaredy-cat that I was a menace to everybody else on the track. Nothing much has changes since then apart from the fact I'm a lot fatter and my reactions are a lot slower . I thought I might be being confused with the bloke from Team Obsolete. Sorry, but I can't even bask in reflected glory, as far as I know there is no family relationship between my family and his, Oh, and I'm adopted too which probably makes any similarity of names even more irrelevant Pete

Todd, I've heard of this but never directly experiened it. I certainly used to have problems with mayonaising with Castrol engine oils in the UK and there it was very definitely related to moisture build up, both from the water produced in combustion getting past the rings and valves but also due to condensation build up due to heat cycling and in the case of a 3 mile ride to work I'd say that condensation will be a significant problem. It's exacerbated by the V11's not having rocker breathers but I always thought them pretty useless anyway If you don't want to use a pushbike to get to work, (although that would seem a sensible solution and it'll help keep you fit!!!!) but a Honda step-thru, a C70 or C90 these are a hoot, they handle so badly and have tyres made of bakelite so you can two wheel drift 'em around roundabouts and use the pegs like Rossi uses his knees . They also cost nothing to run and you're unlikely to get speeding tickets, (Unless you happen to have radar set up half way down a well greased mineshaft near where you live?). Pete

If this is the one I'm thinking of the previous owner bought the wheel along to the National rally in South Dakota last year where I and others were able to have a good look at it. I've got some pics at home so I can send 'em to someone to post when I'm back from the coast but to me the wheel definitely showed signs of having hit something, not only on the side where the rim has split away but there were distinct markings on the other side too. To me it looked like it had been gutter-jumped by someone fairly enthusiastically and without much care and then he didn't inspect it afterwards and it then failed in service. I didn't meet the owner in person but a few of those who did seemed to infer he was a bit of a dill and a mouth breather. I've never heard of another case of a wheel cracking. certainly not in the way he described. pete

Why you'd bother with a 1/2mm increase in valve size is beyond me??? The gains made would be absurdly small in terms of flow. If the valves are of a better material and/or different/better shape then maybe but from a size point of view alone it's certainly not worth paying a premium for. Pete

Yup, afraid so. made doubly difficult on Guzzi big blocks due to their never smoking even when their top ends are comprehensively 'Donald Ducked'! I agree wholeheartedly with what Jeff says and would hasten to add that there would seem to be something seriously amiss here. While I have not a lot of experience with the 1100 Sport/V11 top ends I do have considerable experience with earlier models up to and including the Big Valve LeMans models and it has been my experience that the bigger the valves the greater the wear of bott valve and guide. The question is why? OK, here's my take on it. If you look at the various different designs of valve it is fairly easy to *roughly* assess where the centre of mass of the valve is. As the heads get bigger this moves closer and closer to the head and further and further down the stem/neck of the valve. Also the larger ports mean that the valve is unsupported for further up it's stem the bigger the induction orifice. As previously noted the rocker sweeping across the top of the valve will impart a side thrust on the valve which will try to rotate around it's centre of mass. This will set up a rocking motion of the valve in the guide and the greater the distance the C of M is from the bottom of the guide the more extreme these loadings are going to be. Another factor is the cam profile. The V11 cam is very close to the old P3/SS grind that has been around for yonks and is, in Guzzi terms, a fairly aggressive profile that will impose condiderably greater side thrust on the guides and valves than the old 'Bumpless' cam us old farts have been giggling at for years. Before you think that this problem of rapid wear is new let me inform you that the 'Big Valve' models with larger than V11 valves and the B10 cam have always been murder on their guides and *sometimes* valve stems. I rarely take the heads off a big valver without having to K-line the guides and quite often, nay, usually, replace at least the exhaust valves. Anything over about 45,000km/25,000miles and they're usually well knackered. Having said that the odd thing is that they very rarely drop a valve!????? They just seem to get floppier and floppier and, yes, performance drops off appreciably. My guess would be that Mike Rich would get valves made by Manley or one of the bespoke valve companies and would probably specify valves of his own design with a different back-shape to the standard units, (My own experimentation with small and mid valve heads has led me to believe that it is largely the back shape, especially of the exhausts, that enables smallvalve heads to flow better than the mid valvers without a lot of radical work!). These amy even have the advantage of moving the C of M a bit further up the stem of the valve, I dunno, Mike's 'The Man' on this stuff. One point though that is worth considering. If you catch the guides before they become loose in the heads, (Rare on Guzzis I've worked on.) then K-Lining them is a far better option than replacing the guides. The scrolled nature of a K-line insert not only holds what minimal lubrication gets in there better than the parent material so it wears more slowly but it maintains the concentricity of valve with seat meaning less material has to be removed from the seat to re-seat the valve. Looking at the pics it certainly looks to me as if there is something not right with the valve stems there though. That sort of wear seems to be uniform along the length of the valve stem where it travels in the guide. As suggested by John or Jeff I'd think insufficient clearance on assembley and the fact that the FI bikes tend to run hotter plus the greater diameter of the port preventing such a long length of stem being available for heat dispersion may be an issue too. Can't really say much more than that. I hope it gives food for thought. Pete

What were the Paiolis off? One of those Laverdas??? With the extra weight of the Guzzi it might just be possible to get them to work right When I rode a Zane Laverda I thought somebody was trying to hammer a treetrunk up my arse with a pile-driver!!! If anyone ever got the springs wrong in a bike it was that one. My bum gets sore just thinking about it!!! Don't say it Tex Pete

Goran, don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not trying to discourage people from modifying their bikes, far from it, I'm all in favor of it. It's just that I don't want people going into it thinking that it will be either easy or cheap, nor is it likely that any gains made are going to be earth shattering!!! Look, I'm responsible, (if you can call it that?) for the construction of the engine and gearbox that came 2nd in the NSW club championship (Period 4.) the year before last and 3rd the year before that. It wasn't the fastest bike by any stretch of the imagination but it was a damn sight quicker than it originally was when it rolled off the line at Mandello but it was reliable and consistent in it's finishes. I agree completely that we should be playing with them and making them go better but the V11 donk is already in a pretty high state of tune. I honestly think that more can be gained by getting the suspension set up properly, THEN start on the motor. Pete