pete roper

I picked up my Griso today! I put it together It works! I really like it a lot!!!!! Pete

Rather than taking allen keys alone I'd take a 5mm allen 'T' bar as this makes removing stuff like the gearbox side cover a breeze. Apart from that a puncture fix kit, 10, 13, 17, 19mm spanners plus a medium sized AFS spanner, a couple of screwdrivers and you should be set. Enjoy the ride, if it's super-low miles you should have no problems. Maybe a spare relay or two? Pete

Just about sums everything up I feel about anything *modern* in the bike world. Yes, you can ride 'em on the street, but what a waste. Like a circus bear riding a tricycle. I can't really *ride* to save my life. That's why I don't ride our race bike. I'd be a menace. But if I had the track to myself and endless money? What fun could be had Pete

This topic has been covered extensively on the Guzzi exchange forum at least twice, it is usually in refference to Tonti's but the principles remain the same with the V11. It comes down to Guzzis weird placement of the PCV valve. In fact I think Greg was posing the question very recently on Guzzitech too and Chris Rampen gave details of his fix there as well. Living where I doin an incredibly arid area I don't get mayonaise any more but it used to be a pain in London 25 years ago. Pete

*Enough!* Is the answer you're looking for. Doing a clutch isn't really that big a job. The consensus of opinion seems to be that the easiest way is to pull the motor off the front of the gearbox. If I owned a Scura it would be the first thing I'd do and I wouldn't be waiting for Guzzi to suddenly offer me a bunch of flowers and a big girly kiss before I did it! Pete

Mate, I used to own Lilacs! You don't get softer than that! 3 x LS18's for starters, now THAT'S soft! I'm not absolutely against anything that isn't Guzzi, far from it. But I DO detest muddlesome complexity for it's own sake, I find the endless quest for more power that few people ever use for more than a few seconds and PARTICULARLY the Sacred Cow of German superiority that always follows BMW's round like an abandoned puppy tedious and annoying. I will give them credit for experimenting with a new front end design. For my money Guzzi could take a leaf out of their book and thumb their noses at orthodoxy and put some of their meagre development budget into developing a front end that actually separates the steering and suspension functions, some sort of HCS system would be brilliant. Look at the other things about them though? They all run through gearboxes like a dog with dysentry. My mate john turned up on his V11 LeMans one Sunday in Bungendore when the BMW club were here and they were all over it. One bloke said he thought the bike looked and sounded brilliant but he "Needed the BMW reliability." In the very next sentence he was telling us how he'd had the gearbox rebuilt three times under warranty and his tacho on a 2 year old bike only showed 25,000Km! How reliable does it have to be if the longest ride you ever undertake is from Canberra to Bungendore for Coffee on a Sunday morning! I know we're weird in the country but @#!#$# Me! It's not like you're going to be eaten by the twin-heads on the 30Km of road between the two. Then there is their vile FI system and the fact they surge and pop and burp the whole time and shag out their brake rotor bobbins and their horrible version of the CARC drive must be the ugliest thing ever bolted to the back of a motorbike! It looks like a trench mortar that's been marinaded in vomit! It must weigh about a zillion Kg as well? It can't be lighter than the CARC which is in itself a bit of a porker and none too pretty! There are plenty of motorbikes around that I think LOOK stunning. The only problems I have with them are that I can see how bloody dificult it is going to be to work on the wretched things, I think the amount of power they offer is a joke and I can see that they aren't designed to be a true 'Consumer Durable', at least not in terms that fit MY description of same. Sure, I love Guzzis and I fully accept that I often come across as an irracible, one eyed, bigot. This is because I am but there are plenty of other machines on the market I like, the thing is nobody else, apart from lunatics like me, would rate them. So there is no point in talking about them. I also love small bikes, always have, always will. If great fat turd like me can have fun on a single cylinder 250 on a tight road you'd have to push the bloat-o-meter off the scale to be able to claim that you couldn't have fun on one! Pete

Look, it *was* awful, no doubt about that. The thing is that it's important to remember how awful things can get as well as how good they can be. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them etc. Look at the Fantic Chopper and actually think about it for a minute? Here was a bike that was obviously built at a time when the term 'Niche Market' had reached it's zenith. But also there was obviously enough money around to support such a weird and unusual niche. Is that bad in itself? I hope not. Otherwise all of us Guzzisti will be forced off our bits of old shite and forced to ride smart looking blandolamobiles or worse yet, (Shudder!) 'CRUISERS' which the lowing masses *know* are the only *real* motorbikes! Gimme strength! The Fantic Chopper was a vile joke but you have to admit it was CLASSY vile joke. I'd love one for running down to the shops on to pick up a loaf of bread and a six pack More than anything I love bikes like this simply because they piss off small minded, blinkered, reactionaries who just love to do what they're told and stand in a line congratulating each other on what perfect taste they have even though their ideas are a pure product of journalists and advertizing agencies! All hail the Fantic Chopper! And the Centauro, and the Ariel Leader and the Honda Cub 50 and even my Horrid old Motobecane Sport 50, hells bells, all power to all the weirdos and oddballs. I'll take a thousand Fantic Choppers over a similar number of R1's or Gixxers or bloody Paul Smart Replica shitboxes built by a company berreft of ideas and class. The Chopper was never going to be *Mainstream* it was a small company thumbing it's nose at orthodoxy and having a damn fine laugh along the way and I'd guess they may even of made a profit from the little 'C' too! Yup, it's an absurd travesty mocking the so called 'American Dream' as portrayed in Easy Rider, (Another vastly overrated film but even it soars above the excreble 'Stone' in the tawdry history of 'Bikey' movies!) but hey, someone had to do it! The fact it was a little known factory in the centre of northern Italy just makes it sweeter. The Japs didn't start making much more 'Conservative' Customs till years later. I'll take a gross of 'em Pete

Yes, excellent, although I would of used the term 'Chav's handbag' or 'Slappers purse' the tone of the message is universal . Incidentally, I still think that it is highly unlikely you'd get someone to spout as much bollocks as I do on an internet forum about something as simple as whether a now outdated bike would have any merit in a few years time? It comes down, in the end, to style and passion. I dare ou to go to a Virago or Shadow board and find someone as mad and sad as I am Pete

I think my feelings are probably closest to Keiths. The reason I don't own a V11 variant is not because they aren't a great bike, I think they are, but because to me at least they never felt like either a huge leap forward that was needed to part me from my wonga and also the whole package seemed to me bo be a series of hastily constructed compromises and half arsed solutions to problems. I mean the bike was launched in '99? but it still had a cantilever rear end? Where was the rising rate linkage? For a supposedly *modern* bike this was really pretty poor IMHO. As to the earlier bikes? Well, I think that the early Tonti's are probably closest in my mind to the 'Essence of motorbike' that I crave in machines I own. Even in the 21st century they still punch way above their weight. The Loopframes too have a 'finished' feel that oozes both charisma and a level of well thought out, quality engineering that I find lacking in most 'Consumer Durables' today. I think that that is in itself part of the problem. Nothing these days is built to last. When the Loops and the early Tonti's were designed and built is was still expected by the designers that the product they were designing was going to have a very long life and was expected to be both robust and easily repairable. Unfortunately times have changed and we now live in a world where most people think it reasonable to spend $20,000 on something like a motorbike and that it will, within a very few years, either be worn out, or spare parts will be unavailable, or very simply it will be discarded in favor of another *new* product. I'm very aware that few people ride bikes as transport nowadays and they are a *toy* so the mileages covered are going to be much smaller than those of yore. It also seems to be comparatively unimportant to many how complex or simple a machine is, even though many of the same people piss and moan about high servicing costs on complex, modern, fully-enclosed designs. The two are directly related but somehow this is a point many find it hard to comprehend. If you look at the list of concerns that has come up on the Griso/Breva site though the one seemingly of greatest importance seems to be that people are finding that their exhaust pipes are discolouring????? I mean? Sorry, but exhaust pipes do get hot and if you ride a bike hard and often it's pipes won't remain pristine, nor will most of the rest of the machine. If people's enjoyment of their machine comes more from what it looks like than actually riding the thing why not just put it on a plinth in the living room and stare at it???? Sorry, I just don't understand As to desirability and 'Collectability'? I really don't know. Guzzis have been out on the ragged fringe for so long now that I think that their desirability will remain only within the strange sub-grouping of oddballs and weirdos who already appreciate the strong points that they possess. I don't think, (Although I could be wrong.) that they will ever attract the sort of cult status that has now been aquired by the Mk I LeMans which has seen their prices rise to astronomic levels and their ownership rapidly becomming the preserve of either diehard nutters who have owned them for years or the sort of know-nothing wankers who will tell you that they own the only model ever worth having from Mandello Despite having to compete with truly 'Consumerist' motorbikes The V11 series do still maintain a lot of the good points from another era. They remain essentially simple and easy to maintain, they are robust and as long as parts are available it will be possible to keep them running almost indefinitely. Whether the Spineframes and early six speed will have been produced in sufficient numbers to ensure the sort of continuing spare parts supply that is available tor Tonti's and Loops and espeially the five speed box only time will tell, but probably sufficient of them have been made to ensure a steady supply of bits on Fleabay for the rest of most of their current owners' natural lives. At the end of the day if you are a V11 owner who feels the way I do about my Tontis you'll find a way to keep 'em going. If the passion runs out? Well, there are plenty of other options and no doubt there will be other motorbikes that will stir your passions in the same way, or at least in a way that is an acceptable substitute. I'm buying a Griso. Mainly because I've never had a big *new* motorbike before and I think it looks stylish and interesting. But it will also probably be the last *new* motorbike I'll ever buy. Whether it will live up to my expectations I don't know but it probably will be the very last itteration of the venerable air cooled twin that has been churned out of Mandello for the last 40 years. The problem is that there are few, if any machines on the market at the moment that do anything to stir my interest never mind my passion. If the fundamental driving forces within society itself don't change then I can't see that situation changing either. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm living in the past, can't see the wood for the trees, blah, blah, blah. Sorry but I think that's bullshit. Just because I don't want what's being offered in the mainstream and value certain things more highly, (Like simplicity and rebuildability.) doesn't mean I'm blinkered or 'Anti Progress' it's just that I'd like to see the progress take a slighly different path than the one it currently seems to be on. I'm not saying I'm right. I certainly don't expect people to agree with me. Just giving my view on a subject, thassall. Anyone for a nice set of udders? Pete

I wouldn't think so. Have you considered seeing if there is a slightly higher capacity relay available? Alternatively it could simply be a bad connection, probably an earth, somewhere else in the system. By 2003 I thought that they'd stopped using the failure prone Seimens relays. One of the other blokes with more experience of these than me should be able to tell you. Pete

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1286.htm

Falling off at anything over walking pace usually works Sorry. Pete

Here's a smashing set! http://www.fotosearch.com/PHD135/19228/

What is wrong with this shop? Why, just because it is in an inner city back street covered in graffiti is this considered to be a bad thing? Do you know what floor space costs in the centre of Rome? Look, you could come into my workshop and be perfectly horrified. It's full of broken bits of motorbikes and oil cans and, and, (swoon!) DIRTY STUFF!!!! Oh! Horrors that a vehicle could actually produce dirty stuff! and worse yet the owners of the vehicles should have, very occasionally, to see it! You lot are worse than the bloody Taliban! While having a spotless workshop and a seemingly clinically clean work environment may be appealig it is, I'm afraid, usually a sign that not a whole lot of *work* is going on. Don't get me wrong. If I need an area to be clinically clean I can make it so, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to make my place look like an up-market knocking shop simply to attract the sort of cock-heads who think that everywhere has to look like a Microsoft Corporation advert before it can be any good. In my experience ther is a direct correlation between those who want *Smart and Shiny* and the inability, sorry, unwillingness to settle their bills. Don't judge a book by looking at the cover or, especially with Guzzi, you'll probably find your bike being *worked* on by a grumpy first year apprentice with fantasies about an R1 who thinks that Guzzis are obsolete bits of shit and just wants it out of his hands. Your bike, your choice. Pete

Run it in for a bit and see if it improves. if it persists in missing shifts it would probably be worth having a fiddle with the pawl adjuster. Where in Oz are you? pete

They were a limited edition, dunno how many were actually made though. The SE box is actually different to the earlier ZD boxes I belive with slightly different ratios and proably like the ZD boxes parts are probably made of unobtainium. Bearing that in mind I would suggest that as a precaution you swap out the 3205NTN9 (?) bearings for 3205 AC3's and I'd also suggest changing the cush drive spring as for some reason Mk IV's seem to be very prone to breaking them up, sometimes with disastrous results. Pete

If I had only one Guzzi it would probably be a Mk III. They are a lovely bike. One thing worth checking is what size main jets are in it. A common 'Performance Mod' with Mk III's is to stick Mk I or II jetting in 'em. What people fail to realize is that the Mk III's use lean burn carbs which is why the standard main is a 115 as opposed to the Mk I and II which used a 135/140. If you stick big jets in 'em they ride like you're swimming through porrige 'cos they are so grossly rich! This was often done at the same time as pod filter were fitted so it's worth checking on yours. I rarely, if ever, have to go up to above 120 on the mains on a Mk III unless it's been fairly heavily worked in which case you may need to go to 125's. Well set up lean burn carbs give delightfully crisp performance, much nicer than the *standard* PHF's but they are a bit more delicate and demanding in set-up. Enjoy! Pete

It shouldn't be a big deal. Take the tank off and check where the hoses go. Big hose, (Like V11.) From breather on top of bell housing with ball valve in to pipe second from steering head on frame top tube. Hose from pipe closest to steering head, (Approx 10mm ID) is breather to atmosphere. If the rings and guides are good this should just be able to be run down and out between the starter motor and gearbox but if you have any doubts run it to a catch bottle by the battery. Check that the pipe poking out of the LH side of the cross-frame pipe hasn't been blocked by rusty crud or silastic or something equally awful by stuffing a screwdriver in it and give it a wiggle. If you have compressed air give it a blast with that but make sure the breather to atmospher up by the steering head is routed away from anything you don't want splattered with mayonaise, rusty water, cealocanths, false teeth etc. that will be lurking in the frame. You can if you want, (and this is quite a good idea if the breather system is of dubious connection.) block the big breather pipe at the frame and then back-flush the frame with Kero a few times to get rid of the bleargh. After you know it's all ridgey-didge you connect the pipe from the crosspiece on the frame to the small pipe poking out of the bell housing so the condensate can return to the sump. If the hose from that small pipe was just running down to below the engine/gearbox then all the condensate would of been dribbling out of it, hence the spray on the back of the bike. As Ballancraine sez, Tontis, especially those without sump extensions, do have a habit of over-taxing their breathers. On pre MkIII models that didn't have the sump extension ex-factory people also make the mistake of thinking that the extension is there to allow the addition of more oil when in fact it is to move the oil away from the crank to reduce windage and lower the crankcase pressurisation differential. With most Tonti's you'll find they like to find their own level. If you fill the sump to the 'Full' mark and then ride it will probably pump oil out fairly quickly up to a certain point, (Usually somewhere roughly half way between the 'Full' and 'Add' marks of the stick.) and then at that point the expulsion and/or use of oil will stop and it will use very little more until the next change. The simple thing to do is run it until that point and then mark the stick *about there* and use that as the full mark. If you continue to have problems with oil being expelled it indicates ou probably have a problem with rings and/or guides. If you service them and it still expells oil it means you're a yob and a thrasher . At that point it's probably a good time to think about a windage plate Pete

Arrrrgh! Gurgle, splutter, froth!!!!! No wonder it's pumping out oil! If that small pipe next to the big breather vent is blocked off there is no way for the condensate to return to the engine so you frame is full of oil!!!!! The way the system works on the Mk III is you have the big pipe similar to the one on your V11 that goes up to the frame near the steering head. This is the main vent hose from the crank case and takes the air/gas and oil vapor that is expelled from the motor up to the top tube which acts as a condensor. The condensate then runs down the top tube of the frame and if you take the tank off you'll see that on the left hand side of the cross-pipe that the main frame member is welded to there is another small pipe which I would guess on your frame has also been blocked off. This small pipe should have a hose on it connecting it to the blanked off pipe coming out of the bell housing next to the large vent pipe and the condensate should run down the frame, back through this hose into the small pipe which snakes around inside the bell housing before returning the oil condensate to the sump through a banjo fitting and pipe bolt. The breather to atmosphere, the hose that comes off the frame top-tube closest to the steering head, was originally run to the airbox so that vented gas was re-breathed through the motor. There was also a vent from the gearbox breather connected to the same fitting in the bottom of the air box. Check that the previous owner hasn't, in the interest of 'Tidying things up' connected the main vent to the gearbox breather! Believe me, I've seen this more than once! Of course if the system is set up this way the whole engine and gearbox pressurise like buggery and the bike will pop every seal it posseses in about 3 kilometers . You have to have some way for the condensate to get back to the engine. If for some reason the frame doesn't have that pipe on the cross pipe it must of had it's frame swapped at some time for an earlier one but if it's a *genuine* Mk III I'd guess that the return hose has simply been removed by a previous owner who didn't know what it was for. Before you run the bike again take off the big breather hose as well, it will be FULL of oil unless the ball valve in the vent pipe from the bell housing is faulty and it will dump a pint of oil and water all over you and your engine when you pull it off! The frame will also have a few pints in it and when you un-block the return pipe that will drain out too. Once you've sorted the breather system the problem should go way, just be aware it's going to be messy. It shouldn't of done any harm. Pete

Interesting question. One of the things that the Axone can do is pull out and store maps from both the 15M and the 5AR, (I think that's what it's called?) computer used on the Breva/Griso. Now whether this info can then be downloaded, modified by someone clever like Cliff, uploaded back into the Axone as a separate programe and then loaded into the bike I'm not sure. To be honest I'm still finding my feet with the Axone and am hopeful that the importer here will be running courses for sad old farts like me to help us get our heads around the *New Technology*, (Hey, I like magnetos, you got a problem with that ). As it is my raport with our importer is good and any time I do have a question, no matter how dumb, (And some of 'em must seem REAL dumb!) I just ring up and Dave helps me out, even if i can hear his eyes rolling at the eother end of the phone People I've talked to, Dave included, have suggested that the download, modify, reload, option is perfectly feasible but he pointed out that they, as a company, want nothing to do with it as even being seen to help with any ex-factory modifications would lead to all sorts of crap from the government. They have to be really careful with stuff like pipes even for Aprilias which all come with 'Race Use Only' stickers and all that sort of shite. I'm certainly going to be looking at freeing up some of the strangled HP in my Griso. I think it unlikely that I'd be changing much in the way of the 'Rude Mechanicals' but both the pipe and the intake strangle it severely and freeing those up will definitely require some sort of map modifications. How complex? Dunno! That's half the fun of it. Pete

Bloke with the 749 must be a softcocque. It's a trackday? Right? Therefore you expect everyone else to be trying to bust your arse What's wrong with round the outside? At least if you lost it you wouldn't of been so likely to take his girly-bike out from under him . Glad they were a good crew. Rob's had some real problems at track days with numpties on late model jappers objecting to him and his *old* bike being allowed out with them to clog up the track. He then goes out and laps quicker than them and they get all shitty about it . Not all of 'em mind but we've noticed a direct correlation between the flashier and poncier the leathers and the speed they go round. The equation works out to roughly a second a lap at Oran for every extra coloured panel. A hump on the back of the leathers is usually worth about a second and a half Oh, and that's on his road-going LeMans 1 not the race bike, I reckon if he could use that he could not only seriously embarass them but they'd come in with their ears bleeding as well Pete

Having ridden with Rich R I can tell you, he's quick. I believe one of his party tricks is stuffing it to late model sportsbike riders on his Convert, (That may be what the pic is of but for some reason I cant see them at the moment.) I'm guessing though that it's his EV that did the damage this time? Pete

Onya Keith! I'd insert a big thumbs up smilie but they aren't working! Did they all turn their backs on you in the paddock and get all sniffy about being overtaken by a tractor? Rob got that at Superbike School 'cos he could ride around blokes on late model tackle on his shitty old warmed over LeMans. I can't imagine it's any different in Wales, UK to NSW Australia :-)=). Pete

Dave! C'mon. How about a sense of humour transplant? Please! Pete

I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. Many people who ride bikes want them to sound the way they do. In the case of Harley riders in particular they want their bike to be loud and, to a degree, obnoxious, because it indicates to ordinary, eveyday people that they are serious dudes who need to be taken, errrr? seriously . Most of the ones that sound really awful are actually tuned absolutely appalingly! Remember that for ears now the carbureted bikes have been non-adjustable, as far as idle mixture is concerned which means that the 'Bleating Budgie' or whatever they're called pipes only have the function of making more noise and not actually doing anything for the state of tune. I suppose the theory is as long as it keeps running and makes the right noise to keep the punters happy that's all that matters. It may even make a bit more power being less restrictive but if it was tuned right it would make more power again but that really isn't the point, is it? I'd also hazard a guess that the fact that all HD's are very long stroke motors would have a bearing on the noise emmited after the exhaust valve opens but I'm not an expert on either phonics or harmonics so I can't say for sure. At the end of the day one man's meat is another man's poison. That noise does nothing for me and when I get a pack of look-a-like dolts running past the end of my street all making as much racket as they can, simply because they can, it's a real pisser, but on a scale of things it's pretty unimportant compared to issues like the Iranians producing fisile grade uranium or Robert Mugabe murdering his country's population by stealth so I let 'em get on with it. I'm just sorry that they are so worried about the size of their penises, it's not like we can actually do anything about what we're born with and girls don't really seem to care very much anyway. Perhaps they are all gay after all Pete