morini

I had these my V11 Ballabio. I bought 2 crashed sets off Guzzi's and had them rebuilt using all new parts which meant new upper sliders and lower staunchions so they're effectively brand new. They will fit any Marzocchi forked Guz. It is a straight fit with a small axle spacer (included) but you can't use the original fender. I took them off because you can ride around corners like a maniac and I was going to kill myself. They're f#@%^&g incredible and should be banned. I'm chasing $2200.00 AUS for both. (A new set is nearlly $4ooo AUS) Happy to send Worldwide if anyone is interested.

Sorry guys I haven't read the forum for a few weeks. You can buy Macnaught ( I misspelt the name the first time) grease equipment in both the US and the UK. www.macnaught.com.au or www.macnaughtusa.com Open 'Accessories' then 'Greasing Couplers' scroll down and you will find a range of needle point fittings. I purchased the 12" one because it makes it easier to reach in while i'm holding up the shaft. Good luck Chris Morini

I was suffering a perceptible level of anxiety about this task because it seemed ridiculous and impossible that it couldn't be done without an inordinate amount of dismantling. After using this method to grease the front uni I now have to admit I'm a little embarrassed how easy it was to do. The Luigi's haven't let me down after all. You do have to get down under the rear mudguard to do it. I'm 6'3" so the term "grease monkey" now has a new meaning. If you obtain one of these types of grease fittings you will not have any problems. McNaught Industries specialise in all sorts of greasing equipment, particularly aviation and have an American distributor. A quick Google search will bring them up but I'm sure there are a dozen manufacturers of this type of equipment in the US. purely due to the size of your economy. Now all I need to do is sort out my Australian Government designed ECU and I may have the perfect bike. Morini

I have never found a thread in this forum telling me how to grease the front uni without taking out the swing arm. This has been giving me the shits for years. Today I finally figured out how to grease the front uni joint on my Ballabio and then managed to let it fall over and crease one of the Titanium pipes. 1. Go buy a 12" long McNaught (KZLNS) or similar needlepoint coupler grease attachment. About $50 in Australia. This will also grease the rear uni with no problems. 2. take off the rear wheel and the bevel box. 3. Get under the rear of the bike and rotate the shaft so the nipple is facing down (not up as I keep reading) 4. Hold up the tail shaft 5. Grease away. It goes in no problems. I don't read every thread on this site so I may be stating the obvious already. I'm off to "crack a stubby" or two, as they say in the filums, after finally realising how to deal with one of the most ridiculous maintenance engineering designs I have ever come across in my life. This was fast becoming the 'achillies heal' of an other wise perfect alternative to owning another maintenance disaster, a Ducati. I like to service from the comfort of a deck chair. Regards Chris Morini

I once had a wonderful V11 Ballabio which ran smoothly, sounded great (Tit. kit) and returned 20km's/ litre then it went in for its 10k sevice and I got back a evil vibrating petrol guzzling shit box. Apart from discovering that the obvious challenge tuning late model Guzzi's presented to this particular dealer is too much I discovered that my Tit. ECU was not dinky-di. It was unusualy marked Cali but, according to the dealer, " it was the right one". I did a bit of ringing around other Guzzi dealers and came to the conclusion that it was a flashed version and my original was M.I.A.. I sent the impostor ECU to Duanne Mitchel@ FIM who replied saying that he had never seen this type before though it was the right map but it was coded MGS01/V11. Very strange. A complaint was made to the distributors who magically found me a real one which is marked O1 on the back and organised for another dealer to install it. I went and had this done and was given back a bike that blew shitloads of black smoke out of one cylinder?????, chewed as bad as 12km/litre and vibrated like a turd. The other reassuring aspect of this changeover was that the mechanic gave me back my old standard ECU but had broken the plastic port hole. Great news. Another complaint to the distributors resulted in me sending this ECU and the fake one back to them so I could have the broken one repaired which they did. Next step, do it yourself. A mate had imported the diagnostic software so we checked a few things. The tps was set at 2.6 so we reset it to factory settings. The bike wouldn't run. Following all the recommended procedures we ended up with the Tps at 7 odd degrees. That was just to make it idle! By this stage I had had enough so I put back in the standard ECU reset the Tps to 515mv and things started to come right. Feeling adventurous I put back in the Tit ECU. The result? No response off idle while blipping down through the gears f*** all pickup accelerating out of corners and almost conking out when you came to a stop. Apart from that it was great when you gave it the berries though the fuel consumption is never more than 16km/litre no matter how you treat it. So back in goes the old ECU. I am on my third maybe fourth ECU and the only one that worked was the one that was in the bike before it was serviced. All of them have had different markings on them so I am sure the only way to find what they are is to get someone to read the codes. The tuning is very straight forward but i'm convinced that it can't always be done properly without a CO2/O2 meter.

I have approached this problem differently by replacing the whole light. Back in the 80's I used to use a Cibie Z beam on my 900ss bevel drive Ducati which was fantastic with a 60/100 watt bulb. I did a number of 1000km overnight trips and can safely say that even at 140 to 150km/hr the high beam was pretty effective. On my Ballabio I have changed the standard unit over to a brand new Cibie QI with the same 60/100 bulb. It works for me when your having to dodge skippies out in the scrub. Chris Morison