ferguzzi Posted June 14, 2009 Posted June 14, 2009 Oh, how they laughed at the ulster rally when I said I thought it sounded 'off'. Bertie with his weird scottish accent, BFG, Guzzirider, all the unbelieving. The only sympathetic voice was Mrs. Guzzirider. "Doesn't sound quite right, does it?", she says. Woman's intuition,see. Monday morning, whizzing south after about 20 minutes the bike's clutch started to rattle badly below 2500 rpm. It then got embarrasing to transit those quiet ulster villages. Children ran and dogs snarled. Remember that scene towards the end of "Saving Private Ryan", when the tiger tank enters the small village and as the driver revs his engine the whole place shook? Something like that. Bizzarely, above 2500rpm all was sweetness and light. Much head scratching ensued. I decided to engage home mode and made another 100 miles or so, when, just south of Dublin, the clutch stopped clutching. Ahhh, the joys of calling the AA , waiting in the rain, hauling the bike onto the back of a truck, banal conversation in the front cab as we all travel leisurely toward home on 4 wheels . Well, I think it was 10 actually, but you know what I mean. I've been here before! Fast forward a week, and I'm standing in the garage of my local bike shop(thankfully a good one), staring at the innards of a sick tenni, and an exploded flywheel. I've done the research. It's happenned to about 40 V11's. I believe this is the first Tenni. I've owned the bike since new, it only has 14000 miles, and that's a very solid looking piece of steel. Except it's in 3 pieces. And of course it'll cost a fortune, like everything else in this country. This is the third time the bike has needed to be towed to a garage. Not including last years infamous Diesel episode. Ahem. I should have bought a honda. <_>
Steve G. Posted June 14, 2009 Posted June 14, 2009 Oh, how they laughed at the ulster rally when I said I thought it sounded 'off'. Bertie with his weird scottish accent, BFG, Guzzirider, all the unbelieving. The only sympathetic voice was Mrs. Guzzirider. "Doesn't sound quite right, does it?", she says. Woman's intuition,see. Monday morning, whizzing south after about 20 minutes the bike's clutch started to rattle badly below 2500 rpm. It then got embarrasing to transit those quiet ulster villages. Children ran and dogs snarled. Remember that scene towards the end of "Saving Private Ryan", when the tiger tank enters the small village and as the driver revs his engine the whole place shook? Something like that. Bizzarely, above 2500rpm all was sweetness and light. Much head scratching ensued. I decided to engage home mode and made another 100 miles or so, when, just south of Dublin, the clutch stopped clutching. Ahhh, the joys of calling the AA , waiting in the rain, hauling the bike onto the back of a truck, banal conversation in the front cab as we all travel leisurely toward home on 4 wheels . Well, I think it was 10 actually, but you know what I mean. I've been here before! Fast forward a week, and I'm standing in the garage of my local bike shop(thankfully a good one), staring at the innards of a sick tenni, and an exploded flywheel. I've done the research. It's happenned to about 40 V11's. I believe this is the first Tenni. I've owned the bike since new, it only has 14000 miles, and that's a very solid looking piece of steel. Except it's in 3 pieces. And of course it'll cost a fortune, like everything else in this country. This is the third time the bike has needed to be towed to a garage. Not including last years infamous Diesel episode. Ahem. I should have bought a honda. <_> Any thoughts of changing over the complete single plate setup to the much more robust twin plate clutch found on the regular V11's? Steve
DeBenGuzzi Posted June 14, 2009 Posted June 14, 2009 I got a 2000 V11 twin plate, I have had ZERO problems and it grips like a yoke around an ox's neck even after almost 20k, I can do power wheelies if I roll back on the throttle and punch it, burn outs if I want, butter smooth and works well, change it to a twin plate and never have clutch problems again, well at least for 60k-100k mi or so till it wears out from use depending on your level of bashing.
Skeeve Posted June 14, 2009 Posted June 14, 2009 Fast forward a week, and I'm standing in the garage of my local bike shop(thankfully a good one), staring at the innards of a sick tenni, and an exploded flywheel. I've done the research. It's happenned to about 40 V11's. I believe this is the first Tenni. I've owned the bike since new, it only has 14000 miles, and that's a very solid looking piece of steel. Except it's in 3 pieces. (emphasis added) Huh? I thought Tenni's got the aluminum flywheel w/ their single plate clutches, and the choice of that material/improper machining of it was what led to the "exploding clutch" syndrome? Very sorry to hear of your bad reliability experiences w/ your Guzzi. As others have suggested, perhaps a switch to the twin-plate affair out of one of the non-special-edition models of V11 will be a permanent solution? You could always spring for the aftermarket RAM alloy clutch kit that Guzzi was apparently trying to knock off when they fitted the Tennis & Scuras w/ their failure-prone single plates, but I expect that you'll want to steer clear of any posh racing bits if reliability is your goal...
richard100t Posted June 14, 2009 Posted June 14, 2009 Wow this is the first time that I've heard of a Tenni flywheel going bad . I thought the problem was confined to the Scura model as I havent heard of any Rosso Mandello's or Tenni's flywheels exploding. I have some very good pics of an oem single plate flywheel that I can post here but they are more than the 200k limit to load. If anyone wants to see the pics have Jaap or someone get the pics from me to post here.
mdude Posted June 15, 2009 Posted June 15, 2009 I should have bought a honda. <_> No, you ruddy well shouldnt!
Van Posted June 15, 2009 Posted June 15, 2009 No, you ruddy well shouldnt! Really sorry to hear that your Tenni is sick! That's just NOT right. As this is the first failed tenni clutch please keep us posted as to the cause/repair/time/cost involved. And chin up mate, you know that you'd be less than satisfied with a Honda........ Cheers Van
richard100t Posted June 15, 2009 Posted June 15, 2009 Well you could always buy a Griso 8valve! I think there just may be one in your neck o' the woods that has been "recently serviced". The current owner would probably make you a heck of a deal for it
ferguzzi Posted June 16, 2009 Author Posted June 16, 2009 If you're referring to the griso up in belfast, It looked ok last week! It was been ridden fairly "spiritidly" too. I'm guessing that's a real word. Apparently The parts are going to cost about £650 sterling, so including manhours I'm probably looking at 1000 euro. Yeah if I knew what I was doing I'd probably be able to do it cheaper myself, but the point is I don't. The double clutch makes more sense, but the price was going to increase again, so I had to be a bit prudent. S'funny, I thought it looked like brushed aluminium, but was told by a non-guzzisti it was steel. We stand corrected. The sorry end to this tale, is a few days ago, lovely summers day I take the old katana out for a spin. Then the battery dies, and I end up limping home on 3 cylinders too. At least I can fix that. Then 2 days ago, the alternator gave up on one of my cars. Yesterday the (new)heating boiler in my house nearly blew up. It seem's everything I touch at the moment is breaking/blowing up/generally turning to shit. I'm an airline pilot ,by the way.
pete roper Posted June 16, 2009 Posted June 16, 2009 While I've heard of loads of Scura flywheels going tits up and seen several this is the first time I've heard of a Tenni one letting go and I heard rumours of ONE RM one going bang. Since the components are, to the best of my knowledge, common to all these bikes it doesn't surprise me really. I think that the lack of failures on the Tennis and RM's is probably more to do with riding style. I'm 100% with DeBen on this, the twin plater doesn't really sacrifice anything and my Scura is a wheely-monster, perhaps a little extra flywheel weight is actually a benefit in these circumstances Pete
grossohc Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 my Scura is a wheely-monster:D Pete Hope you have a roper plate fitted !!
eas1rider Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Sorry to hear about your Tenni, I went through the same drama with my Scura late last year. I settled on the RAM replacement clutch and am very happy to date, (although it is early days...). I searched the forum and could find nothing that would lead me to think that the RAM unit was likely to cause any further issues in the future. I also considerd the twin plate, but I was looking at almost twice the price when compared to the RAM unit, so it was really a no brainer. The prices you quote, are they for a guzzi replacement or the RAM alternative? Best of luck...
Skeeve Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 Hope you have a roper plate fitted !! You'd certainly hope that Mr. Roper would have fitted one of his infamous sloppage sheets to his own bike!
DeBenGuzzi Posted June 17, 2009 Posted June 17, 2009 You'd certainly hope that Mr. Roper would have fitted one of his infamous sloppage sheets to his own bike! yeah, well, maybe he got lazy I mean he would have to make and fit like a dozen of them, plus the costs of materials and the time, blah, Man can't be bothered. I heard it helps to know what you're doing too I keed.
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