pete roper

(Sigh.) When was the last time it had a decent service/tune? If you do your own servicing what exactly does that service/tune constitute? I'm not being nasty or cruel, simply asking because black plugs, especially on a bike with a poor ETS refference, is commonplace and no amount of 'Cheap and Easy' mods will cure it. The really GREAT thing is getting it set up properly, not neccessarily by a proffesional, but by someone who knows what they are doing, or yourself if you are willing to buy some tools and get stuck in, will in the long run work out CHEAPER than chasing the chimera of a 'Quick-Fix'. But what would I know> Pete

Look, it could be anything! If it's lost it's Zing though the obvious first step would be to give it a tune up! Then fit an orgone accumulator and check out the henweigh. From there on in it would probably be best to get a Crystal Therapist to have a look at it Pete

Dave, couple-a things. Fitting the plate where you have is a fine and splendid thing. My guess is that where it is will probably give you closer to the original specified oil capacity and that will give the seals an easier time although to the best of my knowledge there have been no seal failures as a result of my original design? I'm happy to be corrected on that. I WOULD though recommend that if you are using the plate in this location you cut one up that fills in the *bit* at the front that you've removed. While this may not have any real issue as far as rearward movement of oil is concerned the irregularity and lack of support circumfirentially worries me a bit. Whether this worry is justified is of course a matter of conjecture. Finally, before all the usual suspects start getting stuck into me, I'm very, very happy to see people 'Rolling their own' on this issue. I KNOW there is a starvation issue in certain circumstances. I've offered a sollution but I'm more than happy if my design is superceeded and improved upon. If Dave's, or anybody elses, is an improvement I'll be the first to aplaud it. As in most things the real issues are cost and complexity. What we want is the best 'Practical' design. Get yer pens out boys Pete

Dave, having lowered the plate you may well find that you'll need to enlarge or change the shape of the dipstick hole. Best to check this before ou whack the sump back on. Secondly I would strongly recommend AGAINST the use of aluminium plate, previous experience with similar trays on the earlier motors has taught me that plates made of aluminium flex in service, fatigue, crack and break up! Yes, you could no doubt keep on increasing the thickness of the plate until this no longer happens but by then any weight advantage would be negligable to non-existant. Pete

Look, it's very hard to give a definitive answer to which is *Better*. They are both very different. The Breva 1200 Sport is still basically a Breva witha bit of bling. No fault in that, but it's not nearly as rip-snorty as a V11, although it will probably be *faster* at the end of a very long straight. The *new* bikes ARE a lot better finished, more sophisticated and more comfortable than most V11's. But they don't, at least in my opinion, have the character of the older bikes. Of the *New* pushrod engined bikes the Griso is the pick of the bunch as far as performance goes, it may not be the fastest but it has the best suspension and the stiffest frame, far better than the Breva in whatever form it takes. At the end of the day you can only make a decision based on your own observations. Take both for a test ride and see what you think? Pete Having now got an 8V I have to say that compared to it anything, ANYTHING, (With the exception of earlier Hi-Cams that have been set up excellently.) previously sold is just not even close to the ball park!

No worries. Dave, the filthy midget builder who's doing our kitchen, (He posts as 'Wepotaylor on the Oz board and makes constant unseemly refferences to rubbing his groin on my bikes ) is de-linking his Mk III at the moment so I'll be doing one for him anyway if he needs it. If you decide you'd like to try it give me a hoy and as long as I haven't lost the 'Dead Master Cylinder Bucket' I can turn one over for you fairly rapidly Pete

Keith. I trawled through the shed-munt yesterday and found a rear M/C. Do you still want me to get it sleeved down to 10mm for you? pete

General consensus among folks who've done a lot more spineys than me is that it is better to pull the engine off the front rather than the gearbox off the back. I'll leave it to someone who has done it that way to explain but it shouldn't be very hard. Pete

Shit. He was one bloke I was really looking forward to meeting. My condolences to his friends and relatives. Pete

Dave, remember that the prototype is mild steel. While it will be prone to warpage there is nothing to stop you welding baffles and other such stuff on it if you wish. I simply didn't think that for any *normal* usage that would be neccessary. As for the *Ideal* height of the plate? I have no idea! Perhaps there is some magic formula that allows people a lot cleverer than me to work it out, (My guess would be that this would be based on some swept volume to crankcase volume ratio.) but I work on previous experience of what has worked and hasn't in the past and I KNOW that running the oil higher than the bottom of the block, even on smaller capacity engines, is a recipe for disaster. I also know of not one single case of a motor being fitted with one of my plates having blown seals due to excess pressurisation of the case or filling their air-boxes due to excessive oil expulsion, no matter how hard they are used. I have not a shred of doubt that someone with much more money, time and interest could design something more technically perfect than my plate. I also believe that for the vast majority of normal human beings riding their bikes *normally*, (And by this I mean caning the freckle off them! ) on the public road my sollution is all they are ever likely to need to save their big ends/crank. I have NEVER put pressure on anyone to buy my plate. Yes, I publicise it because I think it is a worthwhile addition to a flawed factory design but many, many people never have problems without one. I've supplied free samples to people I respect and admire as having knowledge of the Guzzi motor for the simple reason that I believe in results proven by independent examination and empiracle analysis. I'm NOT a believer that your fucking V11 will run better if you align its sodding 'Chakras' or sing the 'Ommmmm!!!' song to it for long enough. Most of the people who spend so much time trying, usually without cause, success or reason, to denigrate my work have owned one or two Moto Guzzis. Many of them have experience of precisely ONE! Theirs! I'm not a fucking oracle. I make no claim to being either a magician or even a spectacularly good mechanic. I DO though have 30 years of experience of working on Guzzi twins in both a lay and proffesional situation and have probably worked on as many if not more V11's than anyone on this board with the exception of Greg and a couple of other posters who I suspect of being proffesional wrenches who just preffer to keep quiet about it. One final thing. I don't have to gouge people or trick them into buying crappy products of no worth. Why? Because I'm more than rich enough not to have to. No, I didn't win the Lotto. Jude and I worked our arses off for the last 25 years and you know what? It paid off. We could retire tomorrow an live very comfortably thank you! So if you want to criticize my product at least do me the favor of doing it with some sort of scientific or engineering analysis rather than just sniping from the sidelines and making accusations of skulduggery 'cos quite simply I can't be pissed nough to care. Sorry Dave, that little rant WASN'T aimed at you, re-reading it it looks like it might be read that way. sometimes even the bunny gets sick of being the bunny though.... Pete

I dunno for sure how steep it would have to be to expose the pick up. If you're getting to the point where its that steep the rear crank web will be throwing a lot of the rearward settled oil about anyway further diminishing that sitting near the front of the sump where the pick-up is. Do remember that the plate DOES have holes in so the oil WILL still migrate rearwards. It's purpose is to slow the rearward movement sufficiently that pick-up exposure doesn't occur in hard acceleration situations be they on a flat surface or a hill. The fact that the plate DOES do this has been independently verified by Greg who gave his bike, which used to regularly expose its pick up, the 'Torture Test' he described in his installation write up. Up a steep cobbled street in Seattle, hard on the gas, and no pressure drop I really don't know what I can do to further prove my point. Individual evaluation by a third peer party or parties and repeatable results achieved under a variety of conditions would seem like pretty good scientific evidence and proof to me but obviously I have a hidden agenda and have nothing better to do with my life than deliberately try to make people paranoid about non existant problems. Can I categorically say that in the conditions you've described above there will or won't be pick up exposure? No, I can't. But knowing what I do about the exposure problem I would think that living in that sort of environment is exactly the sort of place where it could be a problem, if not in this exact circumstance then at least on a regular basis. Pete

Yup, it's possible and in many cases quite easy. The oil pick up is in the front right hand (? this is from memory at 4.30AM.) corner of the sump. Uphill and banking to the left is the most risky. It's a problem that Guzzi finally, obliquely, acknowledged with the launch of the Breva/Griso/Norge motors which have a far better sump design. Yes, there is a cure, but since I'm the one that designed it I always get accused of venal motives and charlatanry when I mention it. Pete

Have a good squizz at the timing chest gasket. That seems to be the most common culprit.If it's leaking at the bottom LH corner it could look like a sump gasket I suppose. Bloody hard to diagnose this sort of stuff over the 'net'. pete

Good grief! That does surprise me! I've only got a temp guage on my SP and as soon as you get a light sprinkle of rain, even in really hot weather, the oil temp just plummets. Apart from the obvious issue of lean-ness I wonder what it is makes the V11's run so damn hot??? Pete

It's the 1956 Guzzi V8-500 GP bike. Guzzi retired from GP in the year I was born, 1957. That engine would NEVER of gone into production for a road bike. While it was a wonderful piece of engineering the Honda 250-6 of only seven years later is a true 'Tour de Force' and a much more spectacular and iteresting motorbike. it's a lot pretier too . That should stir up a hornets nest..... Pete

Ah. Aesthetics have never been my strong suit. If you'd ever met me you'd understand why. There are few people as ugly as me so anyone who meets me is so goggle eyed with horror looking at the sight I could have the most beautiful motorbike in the world and nobody would notice, even if they were retching on it! As I said in a previous post the main thing I worry about in removing the cooler is not that the engine will get too hot but that it will have a tendency to run too cold, especially in the wet. If you don't ride in the wet very often, or hard, this won't be a concern. Do remember though that the deep sump was designed to address a completely different set of engineering problems on a similar, but different, engine thirty years ago. It'll fit on the V11 donk one way or another, that's not the issue, and there are lots of people, Jaap among them, who have them on V11's but I still maintain they are not the best sollution to the inherent problems of the V11 sump design. Pete

Why???? If you want to dump the cooler, for whatever reason, that's simple. You can either remove it and put in a loop pipe between the inlet and outlet or with a bit more frigging about you can probably gut the thermostat system so that the oil just circulates through the primary circuit. Once again though? Why would you want to dump the cooler? Pete

I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work as all the oil galleries etc. are the same on all the cases from the time the sump was designed in the 80's through to the V11's. There is the sidestand issue, I can't think whether the stand bolts to something on the spacer of the broad sump? I suspect it does and that might be the problem but re-locating the stand shouldn't be that much of an issue. As I've mentioned elsewhere the greatest problem in my book is the loss of the oil cooler. Pete

All squarrefins have the same stud spacing.

They will fit, but I doubt they will work very well. The mid-valve LeMAns heads have a smaller combustion chamber so the compression ratio will be too high, the ports will be too small and there may be clearance issues between the valves and the piston at the end of the exhaust and begining of the induction cycle. Not sure whether V11 heads have breather/oil return spigots either? LeMans III ones don't. Pete

Thats what I reckoned, I've told Mike and Todd to stick whatever they see fit in the Scura. My guess is that will mean some sort of ester base synth squeezed from atrificial Yaks somewhere in Texas! Pete

That's how I read it too Steve. Also the greater mass of the Cali wheel means that it's *ring* is lower. Pete

Yup, they're available, but if you haven't had the problem before check the other stuff first. Loose filter, oil level, bolts holding on the filter/thermostat munt and perhaps most importantly the sender switch. For those who want them in the USA MPH may still have a couple and I've just ordered another batch for Greg at MI but there is a bit of a lead time on these as the business that makes 'em for me is run off their feet with work! Good news when our ecconomy is one of the strongest in the developed world! I have about three still on the shelf here if Todd doesn't have one. I'm coming over to the National in Ca. in a few weeks, I can bring one for you then or post it if you feel you need it sooner. Incidentally, I'll be riding my Scura from MPH to Ca. for the rally in the company of Sean Dunstan, (Maybe others?) so anyone coming across the 'Bottom' of the US is more than welvome to tag along. And yes, my Scura WILL be wearing a slopage sheet, even though I ride like a wanker and probably don't need one! Pete

Yup. Buy a new 8 valver Pete

I did mine at about 800kms/500 miles like I have on every bike I've ever worked on/rebuilt, (The 1200 is only my second ever *new* quality bike. The first was my 1100.) Given my concerns about the lack of valve clearance when I did the PD I didn't want to leave it longer. Only thing I've noticed since the 1st service is that if I ride it from home to the centre of Bungendore, about 1.2Km. it is then reluctant to idle. it seems like the stepper motor can't compensate for that not-quite-warm-oil-still-cold situation. Ride another three or for Kms? Everything is peachy! Weird! That doesn't worry me. I mean it's not like it's an *issue* it's just a quirk and not one I can be bothered doing anything about. It could be simply the fact that i've changed the oil I'm now using a 10/70 rather than the AGIP 10/60 and it dooes seem a bit thicker when cold so viscous drag will be greater. Just spend a couple more minutes pobbling before opening the taps. No problem. Pete