pete roper

Dimitris, on the V11 you *can* swap out the oil filter without taking off the sump. There is a round, (about 130mm?) diameter plate in the botom of the sump with a 27mm hex in the middle of it. this is commonly known as the 'Manhole', a slang term from england for the plates they put over access holes to sewers . It has a VERY fine pitched thread on it and is easy to cross-thread on re-installation. Once that is off you need to have a suitable filter wrench to get the fiter off. There are many types but you WON'T be able to unscrew it from the bottom with your fingers, or you shouldn't be able to. Far easier is to drain the oil and actually drop the sump plate by undoing the 14 or 16, (can't remember.) bolts around the outside of the sump itself and dropping it off. this allows you to accest the filter easily and you can use a conventional strap or filter wrench to get it off and re-install the new one. Buy a new sump gasket along with the filter. You probably won't need it but having it handy means you won't get stuck if the original does rip. Whether you fit a clamp or not is up to you. If you do you butt its screw mechanism up against some part of the pick-up/thermostat housing so that if the filter *does* try to unwind itself then the clamp screw will prevent it from turning more than a few degrees. Even if the clamp comes loose, (very unlikely.) It can't slip off the bottom of the filter when the sump is installed. It's just a bit of insurance for those who are a bit worried about their filter loosening, which does happen but no reliable theory has been established 'Concretely' as to why. A hose clamp costs pennies. A crank costs a lot more. Individual choice. Changing the oil and filter IS simple. Just THINK about what you are doing rather than seeing it simply as a sequence of actions you're carrying out and t will take you half an hour the first time and then about fiften minutes next time. Welcome to the world of Do-It-Yourself Pete

Needed a quart of oil? No sloppage sheet? Fried *engine* (I love these specifics ) after a 'Spirited' ride? Who'da thortit! So it was the oil pump? Never seen a Guzzi pump collapse in thirty years. Seen some failures, always due to other causes. Not saying it isn't the pump, but I doubt it! Sounds like poor maintenance, lack of knowledge and skills by the rider and faulty diagnosis to me but what would I know? That or a loose filter, but that never happens, right? Pete

Jesus H Christ on a bicycle! This one is going to run and run! It might even eclipse the f@cking global warming thread!!!! I was considering finding and linking a nasty pic of an arsehole from somewhere on the net as an indicator of how anal you'd have to be to worry about this stuff but decided instead to try and hijack the thread by asking that wonderful old question........................... Just how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin? Pete

60 degrees? What? It gets to -20 and up to +40? In Sunderland? Good God! Times have changed! I suggest moving out of Sunderland Mike Pete

The smaller the clearance you can run the less it will rattle and you're less likely to be getting the follower lifting on the flank rather than the ramp. To be honest though it probably won't make a ha'porth of difference. The biggest advantage of closing up the clearances a bit comes with the roundfins which all tend to rattle like a sack of chisels with the stock clearances. Throw in a bit of rocker spindle and bush wear and a bit of tappet bore wear, (Which for some reason never seems detectable by feel but going to oversize followers helps!?!) and these will make a deafening racket! Newer squarefins don't seem so prone to being noisy. I assume because they are manufactured to slightly less sloppy tollerances. pete

Kevin, the modern Duc motors, (At least the 2V ones.) are a lot easier. You have to take the shock out to get to the rear head but the closing rockers are now spring loaded and just pull to one side rather than you having to go through the awful embuggerance of the early system. They still shag out their valve guides like a priest with a novice choirboy though! Pete

OK, I'll try again and attempt to behave meself this time. This argument is an absurd storm in a tea cup. Everybody will have s different idea of what the correct *feel* should be. As long as the guage isn't flapping about between the bits being measured and you don't have to brace your leg against the cylinder head to yank it out it will be fine. The amount of difference the change in the valve timing is going to make to the way the engine behaves as long as the gaps are set moderstely accurstely id going to be so small as to be virtually undetectable, especially on a horrible old ditchpump like the Guzzi donk. Using a DTI to measure the clearance is the sort of thing I'd expect the very worst sort of Ducati owner would insist on doing You know the type? They buy 25mm M6 bolts and insist they come in a bag with 'Ducati' written on them. the only point for having a clearance is to allow a period of rotation of the cam where the valvetrain isn't under load so that oil can get between *bits*, (And it's not strictly the cam/follower interface that is going to suffer neccessarily.) and that the valve isn't held off the seat and that it isn't so large that the cam has the opportunity to turn past the point where the follower should be lifting, (on the ramps.) and slamming it into a more agressive part of the opening flank of the cam. Why do I say that th actual cam/follower interface isn't neccessarily the part most at risk? Well, firstly I've seen lots of burnt valves but I've never seen a cam lobe or follower destroyed even if the clearance has closed right up and the machine has been ridden for ages in this condition, (Yes! People do this! They ride around on a 500cc air compressor and think it should feel like that!!!!!) and secondly it is the pushrod tips and the bottom of the inside of the tappet wher they sit which is going to take more of a beating as they will be revolving and rubbing together but no oil will be able to ge between them. The cam and follower don't have this issue, the cam rotates in a a molecular fog of oil. Unless you've seen it with your own eyes you have no idea how much oil there is being sprayed around inside a motor! Everything is happening very fast and great streamers of oil, globules and droplets, are bouncing off everywhere. In this the cam is rotating and rotating fast! 30 times a second at 6,000RPM! I'll get coated in enough oil every time it rotates to form an *adequate* wedge betwixt the cam and the follower. It is certainly BETTER that there should be a period where the tappet is un-loaded but it is NOT in my opinion as super-critical as many people imagine. No doubt this will lead to enraged screams of 'Burn the Heretic!' from people who don't actually want to think about what is occuring and don't have a particularly good grasp of how lubrication occurs but follow the logic and you'll see it stands up. Working oneself into a lather over whether a valve clearance is set at 5.5thou or 6 thou is a waste of time, bandwidth and inteligence. Go and have a beer or something useful!!!! FWIW and just to agravate people I'll tell you that all my roundfins, regardless of cam, run a tight 5 and 7 thou when the factory used to specify much bigger clearances, especially on the loops, (8 and 10?) and all my squarefins run a tight 4 and 6. The Racebike uses ChrMo pushrods and they're set at 2 thou inlet and exhaust and it runs a silly cam! OK, now have another pointless fight over that Pete

The reason why you'll find most engines have a 'Setting' or 'Timing' clearance that differs from the running clearance is that most cams have what are known as 'Quietening Ramps' on the bottom of the opening and closing flanks of the cam where they meet the base circle. When the followers are on the ramps the opeing is incredibly gradual for several degrees of the cam's rotation so it is very hard to time it accurately. By opening up the clearance for the timing proceedure the valve won't start to move until the follower is past the ramp and actually on the base of the opening flank making timing more accurate and easier. Pete

Jeez! didn't take long for my reply to get taken down! Who's the moderator here!? Pete

What are the valve clearances set to? If they are set to the very tight US specifications and/or haven't been adjusted in a while the clearances may of closed up. When this happens after a long run when the engine gets good and hot one or more of the valves may get held off heir seats a fraction. While the engine may still run when you're on the throttle it won't allow the maintenance of adequate compression when the crank is turning slowly so the engine will die. It is also very bad for the valves as holding them off their seats allows the super-hot combustion gasses, (Rather than the much cooler spent charge gasses.) to shoot past the edge of the valve. These gasses are the same temperature as an oxy-acetylene flame and valves don't tend to last long in their presence. Whip the rocker covers off and set the clearances to 4 thou (0.1mm) inlet and 6 thou, (0.15mm) exhaust and see if the problem goes away. pete

Yes, you're supposed to smear it with this disgusting slime. That doesn't work very well. When I was despatching we, that is I and a bunch of other blokes, used to go and get pissed and then go to a 24 hour laundromat. We'd all throw our jackets and trews into one of the big, industrial driers and then chuck in a couple of the cans of the waxing treatment and then go back to the pub for a couple of hours with the tumble dryer going hell-for-leather. Needless to say it rendered the tumble drier useless, if not downright toxic, for anybody who simply wanted to dry their newly washed clothes but it DID ensure that our poxy waxed cotton *waterproofs* at least pretended to do their job! We were an anti-social bunch of angry young bastards back then Pete

F@cking hell. Waxed bleeding cotton! as a FASHION STATEMENT! God give me strength! If there was ever an argument that the 'Good old days' were only good because they are over waxed cotton is the exemplar! It's vile, it doesn't work very well at keeping water out, it smells, it is a lousy insulator and if you're living in a squat in Camden and despatch riding in the day the mice eat it while you're asleep. The only people who would consider wearing waxed cotton by choice are the members of the British Royal Family who are of course a.) Horribly inbred and b.) German. So they should be treated with either pity or scorn depending on your viewpoint. I rode from Belgium to Wales in March in the early '80's on my Triumph wearing these poxy, crap garments and the ONLY reason I'm still alive to tell the tale is because I had a bloody great great-coat and stuffed the inside of my Belstaff's with days old copies of the 'Sun' newspaper, ( A truly un-great Organ Of Record!) for extra insulation, but only after I'd carefully cut out all the pics of Samantha Fox's tits as if they's got cold I would of been crushed to death by her nipples! Pete

While the newer bikes are a lot quieter than the older ones I still reckon that a tappety one sounds like two cheesegraters fornicating in an iron tank. Pete

None of the five speed spineys have a vent. This *can* cause pressurisation problems. On Earlier bikes, Loops and Tonti's, the box can *theoretically* vent through the pinion bearings, up into the swingarm and eventually any excess pressure should be able to creep past the UJ and driveshaft splines where it can simply swell the boot between the gearbox and the swingarm a bit. In practice even they sometimes pressurise themselves, (I've seen it, prying out a leaking seal I've heard the 'Hiss' as the box de-pressurises!) but itseems rare. With the early spineys the bevelbox is sealed at the pinion so when it gets hot the air inside will expand and can in some cases overwhelm the seal. Why some do it and some seem not to is beyond me. The only thing I can think is that a box that is set up less accurately will produce more frictional losses and therefore heat so the pressure rise will be greater. In most cases the seals can be oprotected by 'Burping' the box. After it has been re-filled after an oil change it can be take for a good thrash to get it hot and then the filler plug loosened to release the pressure. As it cools it will de-pressurise but hopefully the seals work well enough in *reverse* to prevent the ingress of too much air when cold. Probably regular 'Burping' every couple of weeks or so would be the way to go but this is simply conjecture on my part. As for fitting a vent? as others have said, if this is done in a place where the vent is in the direct trajectory of oil being flung off the crownwheel the box WILL tend to expell oil, even if the tube is taken a long way away from the box, (I've even tried running them to the steering head and got covered in gear oil for my trouble! ) The best sollution I've found is to tap one of the FILLER plugs that doesn't have a magnet in it (One of the tall, hexagonal types as used on Ambo's and the like.) with the correct thread to fit one of the breather pipes off a late five speed gearbox. These have a (?) 13mm hex with a pipe coming off it. Screw this into the top of the filler plug with an o-ring around the threaded bit to seal it. You can then run the hose off somewhere up the swingarm and under the seat. Block the end of the hose with a ball bearing and make a slit in the hose and stick it into a small catch bottle next to the battery or whatever. The slit acts like a 'Duck Bill' valve allowing the box to de-pressurise but not being so easy to force open or allow air to pass that it will encourage the oil to escape BUT!!!!! The main thing is that by having the breather on top of the deep, hexagonal, top of the filler plug it is shielded from direct spray from the crownwheel, if you want to be doubly certain you could solder or weld a further shield on the bottom of the filler spigot and put a small hole in it towards the front of the plug as it is fitted. Certain spineys *may* have problems the height of this arrangement, it might foul the torque arm bracket, I'm not sure. If that is the case then some other fitment other than the gearbox breather pipe should be used but I have done this to a couple of blurty Sport 1100's and Daytonas with good results. Pete

The sensor doesn't ground through the head. The black wire from it is the earth and it grounds in the ECU. I'm not saying that it is neccessarily a wonderful cure-all but I do know that on any of the models which use the plug-in-head ETS in a very large majority of cases when I plug in my Axone it tells me that I'm getting a manifestly inaccurate temeprature reading. Assuming that the ECU uses the temperature reading to modify the mapping to suit, (And a lower percieved temperature will result in the ECU thinking the egine is cold and therefore enrichening the mixture.) the incorrect signal from the ETS will make for worse fuel ecconomy and less efficient running. This seems to be backed up by the simple method of examining plug colour. The lower the temperature reading percieved by the Axone the darker the plugs. Also the real fuel swillers are also the ones with the lowest temperature reading. My observation and experience tells me that things are greatly improved by the addition of some form of thermal conductor betwixt head and ETS. If, after the application of the conductor the mixture is too lean at idle then it is likely that you will get popping in the exhaust on over-run. This is caused simply by the mixture not being combustible in the combustion chamber and the unburnt fuel then ignites in the exhaust after it has been expelled on the exhaust stroke. While annoying it is HARMLESS. It is also possible to alter the idle fuel trim if you have an Axone and I think with the Technoresearch software, (But I'm willing to be corrected one that.). To go the whole banana you really need to swap to something like Cliff's ECU, a Tuneboy or find someone who is profficient at the setting up of power Commanders or what have you but in my experience you can make any 15M equipped bike that hasn't been too highly modified run perfectly acceptably with the stock 'pooter and a bit of judicious tweaking. Part of that tweaking is ensuring the the ECU is recieving the correct signals to start off with!!!! I can understand that everyone wants their bikes to run the very best they can but to my mind making the sort of modifications that will result in SUBSTANTIAL increases in power, the sort that will require radical re-mapping, are somewhat self defeating. You're NOT going to build a 998 beater out of an old air cooled, shaft drive twin! So if it isn't the bike you want? Why buy one? There are a zillion other machines that offer higher performance on all levels without trying. Usually at a fraction of the cost of seriously tuning a Guzzi! This isn't to say that people shouldn't try and tune their V11's to buggery! Just that they should go into it with heir eyes wide open and in the knowledge that it will be costly, comparatively complicated, engine life, (Along with other componentry life.) will be foreshortened and the results may disappointing if one is expecting too much. Happy X-mass Pete

Well, Jude being a menopausal woman went for the hot red! Having said that our next door neigbors but one are queer as fish, (And damn nice blokes too!) and they both went apeshit over it Pete

The Roper Clan have recently updated their *Fleet* as well. Because it was our 25th wedding aniversary I bought Jude a VW Eos, their little sporty-car with the fold away roof. When we went to look at them I picked, (Without realizing it!) the day they were being launched in Oz. The sale room was packed and we actually had to WAIT for a salesman. While we were standing there I suddenly got an elbow in the ribs from SWMBO who asked "'Ere! Have you seen the demographic this car is aimed at?!" I proffessed that I hadn't given it much thought. "Look, it's all menopausal women like me and poofters!" Sez she. She was dead right too! The showroom was full of middle aged couples and all the women had bottle hair and were fanning themselves 'cos they were having hot flushes and 'Nice' boys who were all saying things like "Ooooh! Look! You can get matching luggage!" Priceless!! It's a nice little car too, she opted for the 2 litre turbocharged petrol with the six speed stick shift behind it. It boogies along quite well. It is *very* gay though!!!! I, on the other hand, got a super long wheel base Toyota Hi-Ace van. A sodding great box on wheels . Useful for work but as boring as batshit The BIG advantage is that now Jude has the sporty-car she can't complain when I buy my 8V Griso next June There is method in my madness! Pete

I stand corrected. Dunno where I got 75 degrees from? Still it holds true that both cylinders on a Harley dont fire simultaneously, just means that the intervals are 315 degrees and 405. As for the 'Twingle' term? I thought that was used as a description of split single two strokes? Quite happy to be wrong on that though. Pete

Errrr? I dunno where you got that idea from. Harleys are a what? 75 degree twin so the firing interval s will be 360 minus 75 degrees = 285 degrees and 360 plus 75 degrees = 435 degrees of crankshaft rotation. Pommy twins, and in fact most parralel twin four strokes have 360 degree firing intervals, one cylinder will fire as the other one is at the end of the exhaust stroke and on the beginning of the induction stroke with the valves on overlap and visa-versa. The exception to this is machines like the Yammy 850 twins (TDR 850?) which use offset crankpins to provide good primary ballance. Pete

It may well be that your mechanic simply checked the parts list and found that the Scura head had a different part number. The reason for this is probably down to the fact it is painted a different colour or something so don't be too hard on him. The actual dimensions, valve sizes etc. are common to all the V11 sports though. Pete

Erm? I think you'll find that all V11's have the ETS in the right hand cylinder head. In fact anythoing from about 2000 onwards does but look for a Sport head rather than a Cali head. Can I also suggest that when you do the swap you get a.) One of the brass ETS holders, (Your plastic one will almost certainly break if you try to take it out!) and pack it with thermal paste on installation. Oil Barons won't like you but you'll like the improved MPG and the way your bike doesn't soot up it's plugs in cold weather. Pete

Where do you find these things you bastard? Look, Your young bloke did a GREAT job on the TS, He should have even more fun on the GT. HEY IT'S STILL GOT THE 'RAM AIR' SCOOPS!!!!! F*cking BRILLIANT!!!! While I probably can't help in any real way if he needs anything, parts or whatever, I may still be able to find wreckers that have one or two of these! RINGA-DINGA-ring-ding-ding-ding-YIP! Oh Shit! It's Just Seized Up!!! Pete PS. It will still smoke, (Quite literally! ) Any of the 'Tard-oid Scrogin's Harleys that might belong to the father of the kid who nicked your yopung bloke's award at that show

Well, a belt linisher is a bit hard to describe . Essentially it is like a much narrower and longer version of a belt sander but one of the long sides, (The arm is usually articulated and about a metre or more long.) is only held under gentle tension. Rather than using abrasive paper it uses a belt of what I can only describe as 'Scotchbrite' type material. If the crank has been ground you can leave it in the grinder and spin it and then go at the journals with a sort of 'Sawing' motion as the grinder spins it. Alternatively you can fling a small crank like a Guzzi up between centres in a lather and have a go at it there. The 'Scotchbrite' material is not aggresive enough to do any major damage to a jopurnal but it will polish it up to a nice mirror finish and remove any nasty munt that might be left over from grinding or from melted shells if you're simply getting a nitrided crank back to a useable condition. Pete

As long as the crank is still standard size and the nitriding is intact it will be fine, I've done it dozens of times with no ill results. A band linisher is of course a better sollution but as long as care is taken to remove all traces of abrasive material wet ' dry works fine. Pete

Oh, finally. On the question of the location of the OPRV it is definitely after the filter on the Tonti frame sump models, it's in the delivery gallery to the rear main bearing. That being the case I'm pretty much certain it will be located in the same part of the system on the broad sump bikes. If someone can put up a pic of the underside of the motor with the sump off it should be obvious. If you can search back to Greg's sloppage plate installation instructions it will probably show it? Pete