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po18guy

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Everything posted by po18guy

  1. Anyone in New Joysey or the NYC metro area knows heat and humidity. I was there when it was 96F and 95% - clearly not the worst. Still, almost had to be surgically removed from a vinyl sofa. And I was 26 then. It would prove fatal today.
  2. Now, must devise a fine-threaded rotating thumbwheel for the TPS so that you don't go from .100-50.75 in one little jiggle.
  3. You need the voltage supply from the main harness. At the excellent advice of others here, I purchased a Caspers Electronics "TPS breakout harness." Plug one end into the bikes harness, the other into the TPS and the two free leads into your multimeter. http://www.casperselectronics.com/cart/index.php?route=product/product&search=guzzi+&product_id=853&search=guzzi+ Here's how I decided to terminate the harness. Now it's plug plug plug-n-play.
  4. Rex Marsee was into style, but it is really difficult to have both style and airflow, so her tilted toward airflow. A mesh jacket, you want to be a little floppy. The air needs room to flow and with that jacket you can feel the air flow even at parking lot speeds. Might also be worth upgrading the jacket with CE level 2 armor, which I don't think was available when the jacket was made.
  5. I just bought some HeatOut / Cool-R undershorts and long sleeve shirt from Cycle Gear. The undershorts I have tried only with my mountain bike - excellent. The shirt I shall try this week, as it will be upper 80sF/31C Any mesh jacket w/armor will be fine. You have to find them used now, but the (Rex) Marsee mesh jacket is the coolest I have ever ridden in. Except for the shoulders, it is 100% mesh. About like riding with a long-sleeve T shirt.
  6. Where is it now? Does it have a US title? Check with DMV Austin, as there are certainly specified requirements. Vintage or special interest is an exception in many titling/licensing cases. EDIT: It is entirely possible that one may have to register the vehicle in an "easy" state, such as Oregon or Alabama, before titling it in Texas. That may require a "trusted" friend who would temporarily place it in his name before transferring to you. However, at each exchange, the taxman loometh.
  7. Mine came with Staintunes. Pretty throaty, but not obnoxious. Db killers out. With them, it is just so wrong. Recently rotated them up for a little more spiff.
  8. As I see it, a weave can be time consuming to address, unless caused by something obvious (tire pressure, tread style, or construction or even rider input). They involve much smaller steering movements, and those may fall within the velocity range of quick cornering inputs. Any damper that will stop that risks substantially altering the twisty road maneuverability and will make the bike nearly uncontrollable in a slow U-turn. Technically, a damper could be constructed (Ohlins probably has) which denotes speed, gear, RPM, trottle setting and whether the steering input is rider or wheel initiated and then decides which type of damping to apply, if any. On a different note, deceleration wobbles are very often front tire related, i.e. low pressure, cupped tread, tread pattern or compound not a good fit with the bike's geometry etc. On the Kawi EX500 forum, we see lots of complaints about decel wobbles, and that bike has very relaxed steering (27 degree rake), so front tire is one place to look, as well as steering head bearings. In Seattle they have the infamous First Avenue Bridge. It is a drawbridge with an open metal (look down and see the river) grating surface. Was not designed by or for motorcyclists. Talk about weave! Early on, I learned to relax my grip and just let the bike weave its way across. All attempts to the contrary only worsened the weave.
  9. Nice bike, beautiful day. The Stones! I can't believe they are still at it after all these years. I mean Fred and Wilma are pretty old by now. What? Wait...oh never mind.
  10. I know I will come across as pedantic here, but please bear with me. Friction dampers are similar to the ancient friction shocks we see on early 20th century cars and mid-century bikes. 'Steering brakes', if you will. But they have no brain, no valving. Actually, to some extent I imagine that they work the opposite of what is intended. Max friction in such dampers occurs at zero steering speed - forks straight ahead. It takes some effort to overcome that static friction, which to some degree is good. However, once the initial resistance is broken, it cannot resist movement to the degree that it did, as the force of a tank slapper can break that friction and keep the damper moving until the fork stops are hit. Then, it simply repeats in the other direction. What they resist best is the initial rapid deviation of steering angle that is associated with wobbles. But what after the forks are swinging? Sliding or rotating objects are much easier to slide or rotate once the initial static friction is broken. Sliding a sofa to a new spot in the living room is a practical example. Tough to start it sliding, but much easier to keep it sliding. This is the beauty of hydraulic dampers. Their brain is crude, but they are be set to provide progressive damping of steering oscillations, which is a very good thing when at high speed. They provide low oscillation damping at low steering velocity (not to be confused with vehicle velocity) and high resistance to high velocity steering inputs from either rider or tire - it goes both ways. I have a 1966 Yamaha that has a friction steering damper. It mostly just makes the bike ungainly at low speeds, when rapid steering input helps maintain balance. Road racing bikes make good use of dampers but trials bikes, on the other hand, rely on quick and undamped steering movements so as to retain balance and negotiate seemingly impossible terrain. Something like that.
  11. Properly adjusted, it should have little to no effect discernable by the rider. It is intended to offer minimal resistance to normal velocity steering inputs, but resist those which are too rapid and not seen in normal riding, i.e. wobbles. Consider a bucket of putty or any thick, but fluid substance. You can slowly move your fist through it from top to bottom. But try to punch through it and it becomes almost solid - fluid dynamics at work. And just so the damper resists rapid, potentially dangerous oscillations in steering input.
  12. Brake before the corner, then corner on the power and notice the difference. Shafties like to be cornered on the gas.
  13. It will be fairly soon that I need tires. Will have to watch the Road 5. The 170 vs. 180 rear has some substance to it. Undecided at this point, but the Road 3s do not seem an ideal match with the long frame geometry.
  14. I had no idea when I signed up that I would be conversing in such rarified air.
  15. Maybe bragging rights under a transparent timing cover...
  16. How's that 939? That was one of the bikes I went and sat on. It fit me well, and I can say that about precious few bikes. Shortly after the bike's intro, financial woes, lawyers guns and money swooped in and closed both local Duc shops, chaining the door shut. Bummer for those having their bikes serviced that day.
  17. For major work, I think a block and tackle, chain hoist or ceiling crane to lift the motorcycle, then a heavy duty transmission jack beneath to lower the engine.
  18. My bike came with an aftermarket centerstand. Well made but poorly engineered. The pivot point is about 2-3 inches too low and you pull the behemoth up more than you do back for the first several inches. My chiropractor can explain... Anyway, I roll the back tire onto a 2 by 4 laid flat and that allows the stand to swing down enough that a mere mortality can lift it.
  19. As regards the bike at hand - it is a parts bike. If it was an "S", had the limited production Krauser 4-valve heads, and a Reg Pridmore heritage, OK. A garden variety /6...not so much. "Used" bikes that are incomplete but "ran when parked" are often either 1) stripped as they barely ran even decades ago or 2) stripped by the thieves after they thrashed and crashed the whole mess.
  20. If you are: 1. Older, 2. Skinny, 3. Have long stringy gray hair, 4. A matching wispy beard, 5. Wear small wire-rimmed glasses, 6. Wear waxed cotton/ancient full leathers, 7. A pudding bowl helmet and goggles, ...it might be just the bike for you.
  21. And to think that the springs were given so little thought back in Mandello. But - that's exactly why we are having this talk! The one thing they should have copied from Ducati is a desmo shift mechanism.
  22. The aging human organism is not the only thing that doesn't work like it used to.
  23. Pretty easy to make something that goes after only the soft targets. So, Stoddard solvent and a parts brush?
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