Tail light relocation

[DeBenGuzzi]

Some V11 owners have experienced the forks hitting the tank.  The blame has mostly been after the bike had been dropped.  I was moving my bike in the garage yesterday and I noticed that the left fork leg now makes contact with the left side of the tank at full lock.  The bike has never been down and it did not do this last year.  I can only assume it is from the looseness in the tank mounting points as the tank does seem a tad looser than when it was new.  I guess 30,000 miles will do that.

 

Mike

46816[/snapback]

 

 

Its not from being dropped, And it does it equally on both sides. I'm confused by it to say the least. I Was at a Guzzi open house and saw some of the newer bikes and noticed the steering was tightend on the newer models and thier tech didn't have any idea why mine was like that either. I only have 8500mi.

I still love the bike its hard to notice the rubs, but I know they are there.

[al_roethlisberger]

This isn't uncommon... although the causes can vary.

 

In some cases, it is caused by tank-suck issues where the tank deforms, in others it is because the black rubber dohnuts that the tank sits upon get worn, squished, or breakoff... or as Mike points out, sometimes the steering stops get bent and the triples hit as the bars turn too far

 

 

I would check all of these issues, and "more"... take the tank off, on, off, on... and twist the bars, wiggle the tank, etc... and see where it is hitting, and try to determine why.

 

Keep in mind that although the tank should sit snugly up onto the rubber dohnuts, it is possible to slightly adjust the tank forward and rearward by moving the clip-nut that the tank mounting bolt screws into. That might make a difference as well.

 

If the dohnuts are squished on one side BTW, you can rotate them to the larger diameter side to get more clearance as well.

 

You could also just have a slightly out of spec tank, or tank mounting point. If so, you may just have to do things like I suggest above, or even "shim" where the tank sits on the dohnuts to get it to sit more rearward. ....some experimentation is probably in order.

 

 

But, just to be clear, if your "rub" marks are more-or-less on the top of the nose, from being hit by the triples... then this is a tank placement issue, as covered by the comments above.

 

However, if you have rub marks up under the nose of the tank, this is very symptomatic of "tank suck" issues we've seen before, where the tank was deformed at some point in its life, and the paint chipped and/or rubbed against the frame.

 

It could be either or both of these issues, but only a thorough onsite inspection of the clues will yield the real cause. So just spend some time experimenting, and I bet you'll find the culprit... and fix it post-haste.

 

al