1997 1100 sport mirrors

[red lion]

I just bought two OEM mirrors from MG cycle, One is OK but the other one will not stay in place when riding. Any one have any thoughts on what to put on the ball joints to keep them from falling as I ride? I heard this is common with these mirrors.

[footgoose]

on the later LM mirrors there is a bolt under the rubber to adjust the forward/backward tension but no way to adjust the ball. If I had a non usable one I'd have a go at popping off the reflective (and breaking it no doubt) to have a look see if it's repairable. I'd call MGCycle and ask since it's new and possibly just a bad part. You're likely not the first one with that question.

[Weegie]

I'm no help but these mirrors were fitted to quite few bikes of that era and it's pretty common knowledge they are pretty rubbish.

I had them on a Sport and 2 HiCams and in all cases at least one of the mirrors on these bikes would move when the speed got above 40mph.

I lost patience with them but could not find anything really suitable that would fit and was reduced to using a single bar end on the RHS (we drive on the left here), that works well enough for me.

I wonder if a damping grease might help, something like Nyogel, I doubt it would entirely cure it. It's strange stuff, unlike a normal grease it's very sticky and feels like a glue but it doesn't set of course

Never tried it on a mirror myself, it's beloved by flight sim fantatics for making their joysticks and throttles work smoothly with an almost hydraulic feel.

I think it or something similar must be used to make these soft closing toilet seats work the way they do.

It's not cheap either, you can get it in various grades, I'd go for the heaviest available

Just an Off the Wall thought, as I've got some here I might acutally give it a go sometime out of curiosity.

[John Neeson]

I replaced mine with Honda CBR600F4 mirrors as suggested here:

https://www.motorcyclelife.eu/bikes/past-projects/moto-guzzi-sport-1100i/

They are much better than the originals.

[Weegie]

The mirrors installed on the Sfidas are different spacing, so unsure if this applies to the Sport or not. I certainly had similar problems on an early Daytona with stock OEM mirrors

The mirrors used on the Sfida and Australia are Vitaloni and the biggest problem with them drooping at speed is due to the ball joint nearest the fairing, there are two, one at the fairing and another where the shaft installs to the mirror head.

I tried a damping grease but that didn't work, so after some googling and a look at the mirrors.

The ball joint nearest the fairing consists of a plastic ball with a large hole in the middle, a cup on the mirror shaft with a threaded section in the center and another metal ball which has a hollow shaft up the center. The metal ball with the hollow shaft sits into the plastic ball, that in turn mates to the cup on the mirror shaft.

The whole lot is held together by a phillips screw. The main problem seems to be that the hollow shaft bottoms on the inside of the cup of the mirror shaft it's there to allow the correct spacing and prevent overtightening of the screw, I think.

Grinding the hollow shaft down to make it shorter allows the screw to be tightened a little more, increasing the clamping force. Roughing up the cup and ball and a split washer on the screw to prevent it loosening off also help

I managed to get mine a bit tighter, but it's a horrible piece of design and would still probably loosen off over time.

Although I don't really like the look of the barend I have installed on the 3 bikes, I'm just going to have to stick with it for now as at least I can see behind me and know it will stay put.