Oil change - wise to drop the sump. Now: next service

[belfastguzzi]

OK, so if you break the LH camchain tensioner you have to do this.

 

 

No, no NO NO! NO!! NO!!!!!!!

[richard100t]

I would be getting my arse to the hardware store for a magnet right away! That looks like one hell of an intimidating project. I cant imagine getting it all apart and finding the tensioner intact . Theres no way this comes out well I guess, if thats not plastic in the pan then its metal. If its metal I have a feeling the engine will be coming out anyway and will be costing a lot more money in parts. But if it runs well I would consider it as being a prime time to trade that bike in on a new or at least different bike.

[belfastguzzi]

time to trade that bike in on a new or at least different bike.

 

Richard, I looked at that before. All I was going to be allowed for the very low-mileage bike was half its value. I just couldn't contemplate it. I paid full price to buy the bike and none of these problems have been my doing. The factory/importer have taken my money and left me with Grade C junk. To have to personnaly lose even more, because of contemptible Moto Guzzi, is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

I don't know what to do, but I've other, different things to worry about at the moment.

[pete roper]

I only wish I was nearer Dave. If I could get my hands on the engine I'd take it on as a project just to find out exactly how seriously it had been damaged by The Hammer. It really is pretty inexcusable. I wonder how much it would cost to ship a motor out here?

 

Pete

[richard100t]

time to trade that bike in on a new or at least different bike.

 

Richard, I looked at that before. All I was going to be allowed for the very low-mileage bike was half its value. I just couldn't contemplate it. I paid full price to buy the bike and none of these problems have been my doing. The factory/importer have taken my money and left me with Grade C junk. To have to personnaly lose even more, because of contemptible Moto Guzzi, is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

I don't know what to do, but I've other, different things to worry about at the moment.

 

I can understand your frustration with Moto Guzzi and the damage done that you are not responsible for. I would love to have one of those 8v bikes but then I see what happened to you and the lousy way they treated you...AND you're a repeat customer to boot ! Its not right to take someones money for a brand new supposedly defect free motorcycle and then leave you to fix their problems. It does seem to me that its more a local dealer/mechanic problem but again they should still make it right with you.

Its a damn shame Pete lives just about as far away from you as a man could be without moving to the moon Even so I wonder if you couldnt get it there and back for a grand or less.

There is probably no fast cheap easy solution, but this is the best forum to figure out the least bad of your bad list of options.

[pete roper]

What is so frustrating is that the 8V motor since the early tappet issue has proven itself to be pretty much bomb-proof just like most previous Big Blocks. The only ones I know of that have ahd issues are those that have had cheap oil used in them or they have been sold and 'Maintained' by retards who haven't maintained 'em or have done so wrongly. As I said just yesterday in a thread on Guzzitech I have several customers with G8's, a couple with Stelvios and a couple with 1200 Sport 8V's. I've set 'em up as per book at the first service and since then....... Nothing! On a couple of 'em I had to adjust one or two valves at the 10,000km service but other than that the FI remains obstinately and perfectly in tune, the valve lash doesn't seem to change after 10,000Km, they don't leak, break, misbehave, anything??? Their owners get up in the morning and stick the key in ride all day, take the key out, and repeat!

 

Mine is up to 50,000km near enough and NOTHING has ever gone wrong with it, well, nothing serious enough for me to have it immediately spring to mind! I live in a quite extreme environment, at altitude and travel all sorts of roads from freeways to graded dirt on it and it just works!

 

Pete

[belfastguzzi]

There is probably no fast cheap easy solution, but this is the best forum to figure out the least bad of your bad list of options.

Exactly

and don't I know it, indeed.

 

But you know what Piaggio UK told me (I probably mentioned it before)?

P UK told me not to believe anything on the the internet Forums 'cos it's all useless rubbish.

 

They couldn't be more wrong and they are making a big mistake. (Well, lots of big mistakes.)

 

Pete's positive experience of the bikes is both great and frustrating.

Frustrating, because that's why I decided to pay big money (more than I've ever paid for a motor vehicle in my life): I expected to be buying that experience.

 

Anyway...

[Baldini]

....No, no NO NO! NO!! NO!!!!!!

Sorry for your ongoing problems. Replacing seems a ridiculously elaborate procedure. But have a look before assuming the worst:

 

.....Before you freak out though look down the chain run on the 'outside' of the cylinder as it were and see if you can see the top of the tensioner. It should be visible and if it is broken it will be obvious....

When you are able to tackle it & if things don't improve, have you considered possible legal redress? I've no idea of appropriate process or if there's any scope to achieve anything without spending a load of cash; Trading Standards - item unfit for purpose - bad shop? Do you have documented record of problems? It's a lot of hassle & sometimes I guess you just have to take the shit cos gettin any resolution in your favour ain't worth the stress.

 

You may be interested in this on Wild Guzzi forum: "I'd settle for replacement parts to fix the botched cam recall on my EV. I replaced the oil pump (used -- couldn't afford another $300 + the following stuff), rod shells, complete gasket and seal set, had the crank polished and bought/redid the recall kit after the shop -- which piaggio refuses to name -- took the money and did not do the recall work completely. This was all out-of-pocket and the powers that be remain silent over what I feel is their responsibility." His experience seems to mirror your own. Poster; "rodekyll", http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=45199.0

 

Being the purchaser of 3 new Piaggio products you would have thought you might have some leverage, but you have to have the right ear, & at the moment sounds like you're talking to the deaf.

 

Good luck with everything.

 

KB

[belfastguzzi]

I've looked into the abyss –

 

and seen a tensioner blade.

It's intact. In other words, it is not broken.

So that's a good thing

but the question remains then: where the heck did the plastic bits in the sump come from?

And if some of that stuff is metallic rather than plastic, where did it come from?

 

Here are photos, looking in at the top tip of the plastic tensioner blade. All looks in order... Pete?

 

It's down there

 

 

screwdriver between chain and tensioner

 

 

Part no. 26

[belfastguzzi]

As Pete shared some pics of the cam box and the tappet bowls, here are a few more, showing how the bowls move in the box as the cam rotates (c.f. Pete's photo).

 

Pete's photo of cam in box and tappets

"One of the camboxes. Note how with the cam positioned as it would be at TDC the tops of the cam followers are just proud of the top of the cambox, (These are the things the little pushrods are sitting in and the parts that wear if the cam/tappets fail)."

 

Here are the cam followers/cam bowls at different heights as cam rotates

 

 

[belfastguzzi]

The cam and follower/bowl

 

 

[belfastguzzi]

 

Hydraulic tensioner plunger with ball valve in the bottom. These are installed with the ball valve end 'down' so they sit in a puddle of oil. The plunger has a light spring that pushes out the piston allowing the ingress of oil past the ball but when the chain tries to push the blade of the tensioner back against the piston the valve closes and seals hydraulically 'locking' the tensioner in position.

 

 

And here is the tensioner and tunnel on the right cylinder, the one that is actually accessible.

 

 

[richard100t]

Well it looks like you can eliminate the chain tensioners as the source of the rubble in your pan. I was kind of hoping it was the plastic tensioner fragments because plastic wont damage the engine nearly as bad as steel.

[richard100t]

The cam and follower/bowl

 

 

Are those the "new" replacement parts in your engine? If thats the so called replacement parts I think I know where the stuff in your pan is coming from. I would be exremely pissed, those look just like the original bad parts that were supposed to be replaced. Makes me wonder if the work was ever actually done

[belfastguzzi]

No those last pics are the old parts. I'm just reposting them to make a more complete collection.

 

The 2nd photo, the set of parts, is a pic I found on the web once. Maybe Paul M has it on his site? I'm not sure.

 

 

I need to gather the photos together by subject / part area and put them into separate topics, to build the library on the forum here.

Some other day though. Meantime, I thought I'd just add them here, as Pete had already shared some extra photos that help create the picture of how these things are put together and work.