pete roper

Sounds t me like the idle trim is off. This is adjusted electronically using the diagnostic tooling. Pete

Very bad up there at the moment. Ten confirmed dead with scores missing. At the moment Wyvenhoe dam isn't in danger but if it does spill over the dam it apparently will undercut it and there is a severe risk of dam collapse. The possibility IS remote but if that dam goes so does Brisbane, a city of a couple of million. Pete

Gavo, if you're coming down the coastal route we have beds, beer, scoff etc. You'd be more than welcome for the night. Two or three comfortably but a few more at a push. Jude and I are off to Tassie on the Mana in Feb for a bit of a flog but check up first and we have a pretty 'Open Door' policy for Guzzisti. Pete

OK, next thing is check alignment of the headers. It is more than possible that one or t'other of them is touching the frame at the front. That'll cause vibration in the boards as well. The boards should pivot on their mounts rather than being *solid*. Try Nylocks on the bolts and a wavy washer to enable them to move a bit. Also for improving the gear-shift re-locate the rod that goes to the cam off the arm off the back of the gearbox to the FRONT hole if it isn't there already. This gives a greater throw and will help elliminate false neutrals. pete

All I'd say is that if you are trying to travel anywhere and are accelerating with anything other than the tiniest of throttle openings below 3,000RPM of course the wretched thing is going to shudder and vibrate. it's not supposed to be run at such low RPM. Try keeping the engine speed higher unless you are just trickling along in traffic and be prepared to change down quickly in that circumstance if you want to make a quick getaway. Even the Calis with their heavier flywheels don't like being asked to take big throttle at low RPM. As the owner says it smooths out over 3,000 RPM. There's a reason for that. Also lugging it around down low like that will beat the 3205ATN9 bearings on the gearbox input and output shafts to bits. their cages will break up and spit bits of themselves through the seals and, at the back of the box, the speedo drive.The entire driveline will tke a pounding too leading to damaged splines and potential crownwheel and pinion damage. Stop trying to ride it like a Harley or a big Japanese Cruiser and start riding it like a Guzzi. Pete

Yup. It's pretty serious in Queensland at the moment. Rockhampton, which is one of the larger towns on the North Coast is underwater. Good news is that loss of life has been minimal, I think ten deaths recorded so far. It's seen as a 'Once in a century' event and typically has come at the end of a ten year drought. It's overall been a queer year. Down South where I am we haven't even had a summer yet! It's been very wet and quite cool with only a few days over 30*C. And before anybody starts ranting about 'Global Warming' remember that what has been predicted is greater EXTREMES in weather which would seem to tie in with this sort of oddness. Not saying its 'Evidence', simply saying that using it as an excuse to pooh-pooh man made impact on the environment might be premature. Pete

Latest mapping for the 8VG is still the #68 map that has been around for yonks. It's a big improvement over the original mapping removing the big 'Step' in the power at about 5,500RPM and significantly assisting with light load/throttle running where the motor will have a tendency to 8 and 16 stroke making it feel like its lurching and causing transmission chatter. The really important thing to remember is that especially the A5 motor will NOT run well with an open pipe. In fact it'll rob it of about 8 RWHP and make it run like a three legged donkey with a spear up its arse. Pete

Also it's a constant mesh box and has no Synchro clutches. Pete

They are very nice BUT in real terms, apart from the fact it's a MkI it isn't anything 'Special' so please don't be tempted to hop it up or hot rod it. If you want to do that buy some beaten up old SP or G5 and use that as a platform.The fact that it has a VE frame and VE engine number means it is a desirable beast. There are plenty of things you can do to restore it to its former glory WITHOUT compromising its MkI-iness. Obvious among these will be new fork dampers and shocks, then a brake overhaul as the Mk I's used the shitty chromed steel pistons in the calipers, (Easily checked with a magnet!). Other than that? remember it IS a thirty five year old vehicle with I imagine a limited, if available at all, service record. If it was mine I'd strip it to the last nut and bolt and go through it with a fine tooth comb but I realize that this probably isn't possible for many people. They are a lovely old thing, but please, love it for what it is. Don't try and make it into something it can never become. It's not a 'Modern' bike and while it will still punch well above its weight if it is well maintained and serviced it should still be seen as what it was. A 'Top of the Class' rather than a 'Class Leader' from a third of a century ago. Enjoy. Pete

Good grief! How long are you talking? Three or four weeks? Three or four YEARS and yes, a bit of care might be needed but for this length of time just pull the battery, take it inside and hook it up to a tender or, if you have a garage, just hook it up to the tender out there. Yes, in places like the USA where they may well leave their bikes for up to five months without riding them a few simple precautions are worth taking but for a few weeks in the UK??? Please!!!! Pete

Tony, on my now sadly defunct Griso Pinko I found that once they were warm, (I removed the stickers in LA in June, it was pretty warm if you left the bike in the sun.) and soaked in some sort of lizard piss of the WD-40 variety you could attack tem with a credit/charge card type thingy and they came off with no damage to the paint underneath. I think it took me about 40 minutes all up but I did them one at a time with breaks in between to avoid frustration and the risk of damage. Why, since they insist on this 'Information for Idiots' be available with the bike they can't just put it on a label that can be shown to the customer on purhase and then cut off I don't know?? Stupid nanny-statism at its worst!!! Pete

It may be the closest thing in the current line-up to a 'Sports' bike but the Griso definitely isn't one by any contemporary definition of what makes a 'Sportsbike'. Still a great machine. I wouldn't be without mine for quids, but a 'Sportsbike'? Nah! The Trumpy is much sportier and Buells are/were an absolute ball-tearer! Loves me some Buell!!!! I still say that if I was mad enough to want a current TOTR sportsbike I'd be buying an RSV-4. I just think they are sexy as all get out. Pete

Ah yes. Sports! (Cough!) Pete

Well they have sold at least one. There is some Finish geezer who posts up on a host of boards saying how wonderful and fantastic it is. Personally I'd expect to go through clutches and driveline components like a speedfreak necking little blue pills but what would I know? Personally I think it is a hideously ugly, overweight, under-engineered shitheap. Did I mention that it's ugly. Oh, yes, it's ugly too. The Finish bloke says that to look really good it has to be covered in chrome. Hmmm. Uglier still. Brilliant. I'm nore than happy with my 8VG. If I wanted something with 135 RWBHP I'd go and buy an RSV-4. It would not only do everything a zillion times better than that great chunk-O-munt but it would look drop-dead gorgeous too!!!!!! Pete Linky http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,58450.0.html

Kewl! As the young people say Pete

I know some really clever, helpful people who love Ducatis. They have NOTHING to do with the selection of chinless wonders, cabbage-fondlers, tofu-eaters, dentists, closet gender-benders, onanists, used typewriter salesmen, oxygen thieves and micro-masochists who make up the majority of todays Ducati owning classes! Your ST2 only set you back 3 grand. I suggest you rattle-can it black and apply, really badly, several 'Deaths Head' type stickers to the fairing and hang a set of 'Truck-Nuts' off the back and then go to the next 'Ducati Concorse' or whatever they call their little 'Show and Tell' sessions. It won't really knock much off its value as it is pretty much at its 'Lowline' now but it would be worth it to have the fun of watching all the tryhards heads explode Pete

linky. http://www.thisoldtractor.com/guzzitech.dk/gb_en_complex-technical_windage-plate.htm Pete

Well, yes, and the answer lies principally in cost. To move it elsewhere would of involved a pretty major re-design of various bits like the crankcase, something that the factory couldn't afford at the time. Far easier to design a system that could be hung off the sump spacer and add the 'broad' sump. This had two benefits, firstly it lifted the sump higher off the ground allowing the whole engine to be lowered and therefore allowing a lower centre of mass. Secondly it allowed the fitment of the 'Manhole' in the sump plate to allow access to the filter without removal of the sump, something that many owners had bitched and whined about for years. Almost certainly all preliminary testing of the new desgn would of been done on a stationary test rig or on a dyno so oil surge would never of been a problem. It was only when it went into production and was being used hard on the road that the problem became apparent. The 'Broad Sump' was originally used on the 'Old' Hi-Cams, Daytonas and Centauros, with the five speed gearbox. Despite being more powerful than the average V11 they do not seem to have suffered as much from the pick-up exposure problem as V11's. Why? Not sure, but V11's certainly have lower first and second gears so acceleration from a standstill and therefore oil migration, will be more pronounced than on the earlier bikes. While Guzzi have never officially acknowledged there was a problem it is interesting to note that in the publicity blurb issued when the 'Nuovo Hi-Cam' used in the current bikes was launched one of the things made mention of was the complete re-design of the oil pick-up and lubrication system which would 'Elliminate problems associated with the previous design' or some other such obfuscating twaddle. The new design has a pick-up closer to the floor of the sump, more central and there is a 'Dam' on the rearward side to help elliminate rearward oil surge. Make of that what you will but Nuovo Hi-Cams do not expose their pick-ups or exhibit the 'Fickering oil light of death'! The new engine's sump is also narrower and deeper neccesitating the lifting of the block in relation to the roadagain. Partly I would assume this would be because with the 'High Mount' alternator the centre of mass was going up again and it was decided they might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb but it would also mean a reduction in oil surge and allow a greater 'Depth' of oil above the pick-up. That though is another reason, along with the difference in wheelbase, that a V11 steers and changes direction quicker than a Griso. Swings and roundabouts. Pete

You have underwear! Jeez you're civilized up there!!!! Down here we jut go through the dip a couple of times a year and pick all the obvious burrs out of our pelts before we go to work!

so youre saying thats a bad thing I take it I get it, thats bad but how big of a problem is that? would it be extremely optimistic to get 30k on one of these? I've seen many aprilias in that range without a single problem ducati scares me because I haven't seen many over 20 without lots of problems. Not saying its a bad thing. Simply go in with your eyes wide open. The air cooled two valved belty engines are both reliable and robust as you'd expect of an engine that has been in production since God was a boy but they are hard on valve guides. Access for servicing is a bit less than wonderfull due to the plastic but if the price is right, and three grand is pretty low by most standards, then why not? Pete

A mouse studying to become a rat. Engine is easy enough to work on but a pig to get at. Expect it to devour valve guides, especially on the rear cylinder. Pete

I didn't really start saving until I was about thirty and I too only really did so seriously because when we bought our first house, even though it only had a $75,000 mortgage on it, when interest rates went up to nearly 20% in the early nineties we came within a bee's @#$$#! of loosing it. That convinced Jude and I we would NEVER go into debt again. We paid off the mortgage on that house a couple of years later and bought the econd one for cash a couple of years after that. we do though live a very 'frugal' lifestyle comared to what most US citizens consider 'Normal'. Or hous has one bathroom and a separate dunny, no en-suites. No big plasma TV, crappy old computers, (Hey, they do what we need them to do.) no boats or planes or other *serious* toys. We have nice but unexceptional vehicles, (Apart from my collection of 'Oldies' I own the 8V Griso and an Aprilia Mana but usually drive a big, white, serial-killer van. Jude has a VW Eos we're about to turn over.) We own no stocks and shares but we do now own three houses, they are our superanuation fund. We're probably about to buy a forth. Apart from that our only 'Luxury' is that we love travel and like to take an expensive foreign holiday every couple of years and make sure that our kids don't starve and can afford to study where and what they like. We also hang our clothes on the line to dry, rarely go out for eats and buy our clothes from 'Working Gear' type shops or, in Jude's case, department store sales. Saving money isn't that hard but you have to 'Do Without'. Thing is you soon discover that most of the stuff you are 'Doing Without' is worthless crap that isn't worth having!!!! The reason why we have what we have now is simply because we DID start saving when we could. Yes, our parents are dead and we did inherit some money but we were already secure before that happened. To my mind puting a 'New' bike on the back-burner now will pay dividends not only for your future finances but your long term security in terms of home, family, the lot, (well, all the *Important* things.). Of course there is always a gamble. You, (Or I, or any of us!) could find out tomorrow we have some sort of repulsive, incurable didease and we'll never get to enjoy our retirement or the benefits of our past frugality. Well, sometimes shit happens, but for most people it doesn't. The odds are good that you'll live a full and active life and enjoy yourself well into your seventies. I certainly hope to. KLR's are a good tool. You can have enormous fun on something like a KLR! No, it won't attract admiring glances from your neigbors and the Wimmins won't jump you, (Mind you I've never been jumped because I was on/with ANY motorbike! ) but who cares about that shit? You ride a motorbike for YOU not for anybody else. In ten years time you'll be well on your way having a decent nest-egg for retirement, your house will probably be paid for and your disposable income will become 'Disposable' again. You'll only be 40, the US ecconomy will almost certainly of recovered by then and as long as you haven't done anything monumentally stupid, (Like getting divorced!) you'll be able to buy as many new bloody motorbikes as you want!!!!! Pete

Um?? Ben. I'm not 'Rich' by any means. I am comfortably off, ie I'll probably never go hungry again, but the reason for that is precisely because I DIDN'T do things like borrow money for toys when I was younger. To me that is a very 'Realistic' piece of advice. My Griso 1100 purchased in 2006 was my first new motorbike. I was fifty then. Prior to that I'd never owned a bike under three years old and for the best part of a decade in the eighties and early nineties I couldn't even afford to register a bike for road use, well I could of but it would of meant taking out a loan. Something I wasn't willing to do. Surely if nothing else the financial melt-down of a couple of years ago proved anything its that you can't live on credit. Pete

Yes. Never take out a loan, even if its against yourself, for a 'toy'. Pete

To answer the questions in order. No there aren't a 'Lot' of them about but I think we got several crate loads, (Three to a crate I belive.) I just happened to have two owners who were on their way back from the GP drop in on the same day. Had another one in the day after!!! As for the motor and mapping? Nope, it seems it is still the A5 motor with the same cams and the same GRS8V01 map in 'em ex-factory. They do seem to run better out of the box but perhaps that is just that they have got a bit more experience of setting 'em up at the factory now. Throwing the #68 map in them still improves them a lot. Dunno about the weight of the wheels, the three spoke Brembo/Marchessini wheels are quite light, I would think the spokes are close or maybe a fraction lighter but using individual spoke o-rings is an idea that leaves me cold. I'm happy enough with the cast wheels on mine. As for the 'Why aren't they faster' issue? Well, they are a LOT more powerfull, they'll get up to top speed a damn sight quicker than the old ones, even a well set up V11 will loose out in a drag race. It's more to do with gearing than anything else. I've had my G8 hit the rev limiter in top, it took a while and I had to really tuck in but it got there! That's 247kph from memory. Not many previous Guzzis would get there and none of 'em in 'Stock' form which mine basically is. The whole thing is immaterial anyway. Nobody rgularly does that speed on the road. If you really want something faster why not just go out and by an RSV-4 or an R1??? Most of that sort of queerying and criyticism comes from dyed-in-the-wool corn cob pipists who think that all development should have stopped with Watt's first steam engine! Pete