pete roper

Single plate clutch? possibly flywheel failure? Although that to the best of my knowledge is limited to Scuras? If it turns out to be a pushrod? gimme a hoy, I'll send you one for your work on the forum for nix. I got tons of 'em Pete

I don't know if US bikes use something more sophisticated to prevent hydrocarbon leakage into the atmosphere but on Oz/Euro bikes the breather vents into the airbox. and any hydrocarbons should be re-bresthed through the engine for *destruction*. If a LOT of oil is expelled there is a drian fro the airbox that gous to a bracket on the back of the gearbox, (I think??) and any excess oil should drain out of this onto the ground when the bike is parked or all ver the rear tyre if moving. this is a long established Guzzi *feature* ask any Mk I LeMans owner Pete

It really depends what you mean by 'Basic Maintenance'? If you simply mean dropping the oils and maybe doing the tappets you don't need very much at all. If you want to do more than that then you'll need comensurately more tools. Just a couple of suggestions though. 1.) Get a 5mm allen 'T'-bar or a socket wioth a longish 5mm key in it. Guzzis, (And most other european machines.) bristle with 6mm allen bolts, (Which use a 5mm key.) A 'T' bar or simmilar will speed up removal of these fittings immeasurably. 2.) Buy decent quality tools, not cheap and nasties from 'Wotalotacrap Auto'. This is especially important with things like allen wrenches/sockets and Torx fttings. 3.) Always use a ring spanner if possible. Open enders will simply end up rounding stuff off. 4.) When purchasing a socket set, (A decent 3/8th drive set is all you'll need with sizes up to 22mm or so.) get the same sizes as your spanners. Common sizes you'll need are, (in mm.) 8, 10, 11 (For bled nipples.) 13, 14, (For certain brake hydraulic fittings.) 17, 19. That'll get you started. Pete

I'm too lazy. I just grind one of the flats off with the bench grinder. It loads the wheel a tiny bit but its so little material it doen't matter and you can dress it up in a trice. Pete

OK, bumface So they say they'll be launching it at Milan Pete

Any of the 'Broad Sump' motors are prone to it but for some reason it isn't so evident on the five speed spineframes. Why? Even though some like the RS are more powerful and their gearing is much the same? I have a therory, which is that the longer wheelbase and taller gearing means that while accelerative forces may be the same the likelyhood of the sump tilting back is less with the older bikes and therefore pick-up exposure is less likely. Regardless of my thoughts on the matter one way or another the problem does exist, seemingly more so on some bikes than others, once again for no really discernable reason. So much so that Guzzi obliquely aknowledged it in their launch of the *new* motors where one of the sales pitches was that the sump was completely re-designed to prevent oil starvation problems. this isn't to say that they would ever aknowledge that the earlier bikes *did* suffer oil starvation problems! Look, whether people believe it or not there is a cure if you want one. One that is specifically designed to deal with the problem and I think that by now it has been fairly comprehensively proved that on bikes that are prone to the 'Flickering Oil Light of Death' the problem is cured by my plate. I don't know how much more torturous a test you could carry out than accellerating very hard up-hill on a cobbled street? On a bike that had previously exhibited the problem of the oil light, had had a pressure guage fitted that confirmed that the oil pressure was dropping to virtually zero in these circumstances and then, after the plate was fitted, no longer demonstrated the symptoms of either the light flickering or the pressure dropping If you think the problem is bullshit or that I'm promoting snake oil? Fine! Nobody is FORCING anyone to accept there is a problem or, most of all, purchase one of my plates. It's simply an option that is there if people want to protect their engines. Certainly my Scura will have one fitted but I'm not trying to convince people it's a 'Must Have'. Having said that, cranks and stuff are VERY expensive. The plate is dirt cheap and works Pete

From memory the O-rings you are talking about are on the spigots that the whole Thermostat housing, oil filter business go into the spacer on. I think you've already mentioned them? I don't think there are any other O-rings involved in the operation. Pete

Greg, my intention wasn't to try and persuade people to use the really cheap stuff. Merely to point out that if changed regularly it will do the job more than adequately. I wholeheartedly agree that using a higher quality oil will give you a greater 'Margin of safety' especially in extreme conditions but in real terms any 20/50 will almost certainly do the job. If I was riding across the Simpson desert in January or Death Valley in August then I'd definitely be wanting to have the very best protection I could get in an air cooled motor but for the sort of riding I do, where I do it I remain convinced that Yak Fat is fine. Interestingly the fat I use in the Griso is Penrite HPR15. A 'Synthetic Fortified' 15/60 made by a local refiner who have a very good reputation and have a long history of providing oils for air-cooled dungers. Interestingly when I compared the Penrite with the previous Mobil One I'd used before it was immediately apparent that the Penrite was a lot cleaner. To me that would imply that it was able to do a better job of ring sealing than the Super-Bling Mobil One Racing 4T. I suppose my real message I was trying to impart was that there's no point dying in a ditch over 'Which oil' to use. By all means use whatever you like, I certainly wouldn't suggest using something really horrid like a Supermarket Brand 10/40 in an air cooled donk, but if you're stuck in the back of beyond and can't find your favorite brand there is no point in getting all panicky, you can add a bit of anything halfway decent to get you home. One other caveat. Avoid friction modified oils like the plague! FM oils will almost certainly glaze your bores! They really don't work in air cooled engines. Pete

Oh and re-reading this I should point out that we aren't talking about altering the fuel map here, that opens another whole kettle of worms. all you are doing by setting things up this way is optimising the available map. In fact you may not even be doing that! Don't be afraid to experiment. If you find it pings its head off with the TPS set at 150Mv? Well, try another reading and see if that helps! You aren't going to destroy your motor on short test runs. If it still runs like a munter and the plugs are white then you will probably destroy stuff if you choose to ride across West Texas at WFO but as long as you are remotely sensitive that won't happen! While you can get a lot *more* out of the 15M equipped bikes by employing a PCIII, Tuneboy or one of Cliff's units I urge people to actually get the stock system set up well first before going to all the extra hassle and expense. This isn't to say that these products don't work or even don't have a very good place in the overall scheme of things, simply that before you try these alternatives get the original system set up well. THEN when you get bored of how nice it is, THEN you can start looking at the serious hot-ups! Pete

What? A sensor that detects if you're an Australian? Mate! Patent it! Howard and Ruddock will *love* you Pete

Ummm! An apropriately threaded bolt about as deep as the fitting should work! Stick a schnoore washe on it so it doesn't come undone. Job done. It's an 'ole that needs a plug in it. So plug it! Pete

The TPS sits on top of the throttle butterfly shaft. If you increase the idle by using the throttle stop screw what you are doing is opening the butterfly. As you open the butterfly you move the TPS so that its reading changes. Setting everything up is a real juggling act. First you set the TPS with the bleed screws closed or nearly closed and if the idle is too low after this you have to increase it with the throttle stop screw. Then you have to re-set the TPS. When you've done this you will probably be able to adjust the idle speed to where it should be without missing or hunting by using the bleed screws. If it misses and hunts though you have to adjust the speed up or down again with the stop screws, re-set the TPS again and then fiddle with the bleeds again. Eventually it will all come good, you'll get a steady idle, the correct TPS setting and good fueling all the way through, (As long as the TB's are ballanced!) Don't try to think of it as *magic* it's not. This is one of the major problems is that people are CONVINCED this stuff is difficult, it's not. All you have to do is THINK about what is happening with the throttle butterflies and the TPS, (Which is a simple potentiometer/rheostat.) and it all becomes clear. Then use LOGIC to see what you are doing and it will all fall into place! Pete

Ryland as Ratch says 6-700 rpm is WAY too low and for a host of reasons this is not a good thing. Get that idle up to around the 1100-1200 mark, you *may* be able to do this simply with the air bleeds but my guess is that you'll need to up the speed with the throttle stop and then re-set the TPS and final get it spot on with the bleeds. The idea that a very slow idle is *good* probably comes from the Harley crowd some of whom seem to think it's *cool* to have a machine that ticks over so slowly it sound like its stopped Thing is that while you can probably get away with this on a machine with a rolling element bottom end any engine with plain bearings relies on an adequate supply of oil at reasonable pressure to prevent boundary lubrication, (Bits rubbing together!) The slower the crank is spinning the slower the oil pump is spinning and the less oil is being delivered to the vital bits. Get that idle up! Pete

ARRRGH! God this gives me the screaming shits! How can something so simple cause such problems. The Guzzi engine has changed NOT A JOT in 40 years. it was so massively over-engineered in the first place that even with the new (Supposedly!) 110HP motor in the 8V Griso I doubt very much if we will see an actual change in the *serious* bearings in the bottom end. It is so bloody bulletproof you really could run it on un-refined Yak FAt and get away with it! (top end will be a different issue but I'd honestly expect that the stresses there will be lower due to the lighter reciprocating weight in the valve train. So what does this tell us? It tells us that the bearings will take *it*, whatever *it* is, and the important factors are going to be the oil's ability to absorb an neutralize the acids and munt that will blow-by as the by products of combustion and to hold together sufficiently for the long chain polymers in the oil to maintain viscosity and the ability to wedge. In a Guzzi motor there are very few shear forces that will chop up the long chain polymers so expensive, complex, molecular polymers are un-neccessary. It's only a twin, in a comparatively low state of tune, and the circumfirences for blow-by are, given the ratio to oil volume, low. Therefore contamiation for volume is low, especially with Nicasil bores. OK, Here's a chalenge! When I get my Scura next year in the USA I'll run it exclusively on NAPA 20/50 for all the time I'm riding it. When I get it back to Oz I'll strip the bottom end and do a photo-journal of the results. You can then see for yourselves exactly how critical oil choice is. While the bike in question doesn't yet have a sheet in it will and the previous owner has stated he's never seen to oil light flicker. This means that the big ends *should* be Ok but I'm experienced enough to know the difference between oil starvation and boundary lubrication problems due to oil inadequacies so I'll be honest. If I pull it to bits and its a horrible, worn out sh!tter? I'll put my hands up. But I'll bet you a box full of angry atourneys that as long as the cheap sh!t is tossed at 3000 mile/5,000Km intervals it will do the job EVERY bit as well as the super-dooper-TOTR expensive bollocks, and no, I'm not planning on riding like a complete c*nt! While I ride like a feeble twat I do use the motor, I'm just a crap rider Pete

No, don't. While the primary purpose is to prevent rearward surge and therefore exposure of the oil pick-up a secondary benefit will be a reduction in windage. Whether this acyually makes for any performance improvement I'm entirely ambivalent about as it wasn't mmy aim when building and designing the plates. If you do fill the sump above the plate though you will not only negate any benefit, percieved or otherwise, but you'll also risk over-pressurising the crankcase with the risk of excessive oil expulsion and blown seals. My belief is that if the oil level is just below the plate at rest, with the bike vertical, there will be enough crankcase volume to allow a proper functioning of the PCV system, a reduction in windage problems and no risk of over-taxing seals. It's important to remember that the swept volume of a cylinder is the same underneath the piston as above it. While with a 90* twin with a shared crankpin you won't get anywhere near the full 1064cc discrepancy between the maximum crankcase volume and the minimum it IS an issue so replacing compressible *air* in the case with incompressible oil is going to produce problems iff too much oil is added. Pete

Amadeo and various other people tried using CF pushrods back in the '80's. Apart from having to set the valve lash to negative clearances they found that the CF rods were prone to 'Greenstick' type fractures which, oddly enough, tended to have a bit of a derogatory effect on race placings! The *important* one is the cam. that has a brass/bronze thrust face on the cam retainer. Likewise the crank has a thrust face on the back of the front main bearing. The oil pump? In theory yopu're 100% correct, but I've not seen thrust related problems on gear driven pumps with helical gears so I just assume it isn't an issue Pete

Titanium IS both light and stiff. Unfortunately it also has a lousy fatigue life. Doubt me? By all means, but go and look at the service intervals for Titanium con-rods on the Arrow, (Yup, FI cars.) site and be horrified! OK, so the pushrods will operate in compression rather than extension stress but even so...... On the timing gear thing. (sigh.) I bought a set of supposedly super-brilliant timing gears from SD. Why? because I too think that *THEORETICALLY* gears have advantages. These were a set of relatively fine spline gears with a steel crank gear and alloy for the cam and pump gears. 1.) They were, from new, incredibly noisy despite being helically cut. 2.) A few months after I installed mine a bloke posted on Phil's board that he's had a set of identical gears fail catastrophically in his bike. Because of this I decided to have a squizz at mine and despite them being installed in a bog-stock SP, (Scarcely a warp speed hot-rod!) the alloy gears were showing what TO ME looked like unacceptable wear and brinneling of the teeth, so I took them out and re-fitted a chain and tensioner. 3.) It has been suggested that I don't 'Know how to' install gears. Look, it's a f@cking wheel on the end of a stick! Lots of people who should know better suggest that the torque of the nut is critical. Bullshit! The nut has to be tight enough to impart the friction between the end face of the camshaft and the back of the gear to drive it without shearing the peg. The only other suggestion for torque setting on fitment is that if you over-torque it the gear is going to deform and hash-up the tooth mesh. Errrr....Hello????? Are they REALLY suggesting that a material that would deform that much in compression is going to be strong enough to take the extreme loadings imparted by the accelerative forces of the valve train as the follower comes off the cam ramping????? I don't HAVE to do the math! It's bullshit! It would be like making a road grader blade out of plasticene! As I've said MANY times before but am consistently ignored over I think that the IDEA of gears, especially fully vernierable ones, is GREAT. Both our race bike and Steve Harney's have gears. Helically cut, fully vernierable steel gear sets that ensure precise valve timing with bloody good adjustability. The problem is that in MY EXPERIENCE none of the currently available sets meet my criteria of offering reliability and a gauranteed long service life. There are MANY people riding high milage Guzzis with gear sets in from a variety of manufacturers. I'm ecstatic for them ! If they're happy that is FINE. I have just seen so many sets fail that I refuse to fit them. That is ALL I'm saying. There is also the issue of necessity! Many, many people don't do enough distance on their bikes to ever need to worry about swapping a chain. Also many, many people don't want to run incredibly radical cams in their bikes and unless you are you are HIGHLY UNLIKELY to EVER notice the difference between a chain driven and a gear driven timing system! I really, really hope that this doesn't decend into yet another ill informed rant by inexperienced theoreticians about how stupid I am because I really couldn't give the tiniest of f@cks what other people think. This isn't a go at you Piere, but do PLEASE give some thought to what you are actually trying to achive, why and how much it will cost! To go back to my other, usual, bug-bear. Spend the money on SUSPENSION, not the bloody MOTOR. You REALLY, REALLY WON'T REGRET IT!!!! Pete

Thing is both valve clearances closing up and opening up between servicing is quite possible. If they close up it will be because the valve is hammering into the seat, I dunno about the seat being hammered into the head? It isn't something that had occured to me but seats do come loose and to do that there would have to be some sort of wear so I don't see it as an unlikely scenario. Also the neck of the valve can stretch in service, especially if the springs are set up with too much preload or the engine is run lean. Smallblock Guzzis are prone to this, especially the 4 valvers. It is VITAL with them to check your clearances every 3,000 miles and the moment they beggin to close up appreciably its time to swap out the valves. This usually occurs at about 35-40,000 miles. Ignoring it leads to the exhaust valves shedding their heads with, errr, ugly results. If they open up it will be due to wear on parts like the rocker spindles and bushes and possibly cam followers. Also if the pushrods start to collapse this will open up the clearances radically. Choice of clearance and the range of clearances specified by the factory is always a bone of contention. If you look at the valvetrain of the big blocks NOTHING has really changed since 1967 apart from the rocker carrier material having been changed from cast iron to aluminium alloy when the squarefin motor was launched. Apart from that there are still chilled cast iron cam followers, alloy pushrods etc. It is my belief that the early specs for valve clearance on the Roundfin bikes of 8 thou inlet and exhaust were chosen because the bikes were designed for use by the police and military. This meant that they expected long periods of idling without much cooling air flow and the *servicing* would be undertaken by snotty conscripts and the sort of mechanical marvels who could only get employment working for the Caribiniere! . For everyday use I find these far too large and a major contributor to the 'Two cheesgraters fornicating in an iron tank' rattle that roundfins are famous for! I personally run my roundies at 5 and 7 thou in the summer and 4 and 6 in the winter. I've even gone tighter than that with no problems. With the squarefins with alloy rocker carriers which will expand more with heat the clearances can be set even tighter if you wish but I personally see no point. The 'US' specs of 2 and 4 thou were supposedly specified to help reduce noise and are *very* tight. Having said that I've never heard of anyone burning a valve with those settings but I HAVE heard of people having idling problems after a good thrash on a hot day! 4 and 6, the 'World' specs seem to work fine with the stock valvetrain. Why change something that works? On our racebike we run ChroMo pushrods and these are set to 2 thou inlet and exhaust, cold, regardless of cam profile. That seems to work well. As for Titanium pushrods? Wouldn't know. Horrible stuff Titanium, apart from cosmetics I wouldn't want any of it anywhere near my engine! Pete

Don't respect me too much. at the end of the day Dan I'm just another prole with a box of spanners There are MANY here who have a lot more FI experience than me so on any issue like this its probably wiser to listen to them than to listen to my ramblings. One of the things I've learnt from hanging around Guzzi boards for years on the net is you can never get it right. Invariably any diagnosis you make is bound to be wrong to someone, even if its right! I've got so used to having ranters call me a 'Rhymes with 'Runt'' that its something I now ignore. Any of us who express an opinion are bound to find that there are people who disagree. Thats fine and dandy, especially if it provokes a decent debate. The problem is when it disolves into a slanging match and the hurling of pointless abuse as has happened on Phil's board before now over the whole timing gear issue and regularly seems to occur when enzo sticks his head up anywhere ! Pete

Brian. Glad it's fixed. My apologies for not responding to your PM but things have been very busy around 'Chez Roper' for the last few weeks due to a number of factors I wouldn't dream of boring you with. My experience with V11's and the like is stumbles and hiccups are almost invariably the result of the ballance being out coupled with incorrect idle adjustment and failure to *correct* the TPS after linkage adjustements are made. Thing is you can set up the idle to *roughly* 900-1000RPM using the throttle stop screws. If the one on the left is used it is best as when the ballance is adjusted using the knob on the linkage the rod will remain under tension. When you alter the idle speed using the stop screw this will also alter the TPS setting. Once the ballance is done then the TPS should be re-set to whatever you think works, (I don't use millivolt readings and a multimeter 'cos I've got an axone which tells me it's opening in degrees.) and then the idle speed can be bought up to 1200 or so using the air bleeds. Sometimes you may need to raise the idle speed a bit more with the stop screw and then re-set the TPS again to get a good, steady idle using the bleed screws. I know that many people say that you have to set FI up *exactly* to book specs for the best results but the more I play with it, (I'm a novice with FI.) the more I'm finding this to be bullshit. there are just too many variables in a mass produced engine for there to be an *ideal* that can simply be applied. Ideally a dyno would be the best sollution I suppose but i find that simply test riding and analysing the results before and after making adjustments works just dandy! Pete

squeeze one end of the springs slightly with a pair of multigrips, they can then be pushed onto the bosses in the cebtre of their seats in the flywheel and will stay there while you install the pressure plate. pete

12 x 1.25. It's an odd thread. Don't try and reassemble the clutch without sone form of compressor or you'll bend the intermediate plate. (Twin plate models only.) Pete

OK, this is just me but if replacing the sensor required taking the airbox and all that shit out I'd just pop the head off and do it on the bench. You can have the head off in 10-15 minutes whereas pulling all the inlet tract munt off would be a right royal PITA! Pete

Todd at MPH knows who the Ohlins people are I believe, I'm hoping that my Scura suspension will get 'The Treatment' before I pick it up and they'll be the folks handling it. Give 'em a bell. Pete

Oh good grief! Lifting a pic of a model off the Guzzi site does NOT mean she's turned up in west bumf@ck Arizona. What exactly *are* you smoking Kevin? Mouthing off on the So-Cal board. Getting stuck in to Jean Marc for no reason I can make out and now this????? Pete