68C

I was in the British Army in the early 70's defending our world from the Soviet horde in the then West Germany. I remember one Mad magazine showing a map of europe with those symbols showing what the military forces had at their command, the west side had skiing holidays and cheap sailing in the Baltic, the eastern side had rows of guns and tanks and bombers. Very funny I thought, sums up NATO, turned the page and there was the rest of the USSR totally covered in endless rows of guns tanks and planes - some joke. I say I was in the British Army, despite having a Royal Navy and Royal Airforce we have'nt had a Royal army since Ollie Cromwell's army cut the head off a King. We are the direct descendents of that army. We never had the balls to ride like that though.

Hey Alfred E. Neuman, must be thirty years since I last saw you! Still mad?

I wonder how he made that movie, some kind of clever lens to accentuate the slope either side, is it a computer generated landscape with the bike superimposed? I reckon its more fun to take it for what appears to be - one very scary ride.

Never seen that in a new container, might be worth sending the photo to Agip.

Are you sure, I thought the seat looked pretty clean!

As we always said in the Army, 'It is easier to beg forgiveness than seek to permission'. Just bodge it.

I thought the trade was in the other direction, from the US to the UK. The American annual vehicle test is tougher than in the UK so bikes soon become uneconomical to repair and get sold off to exporters. Here in the UK there are far more bikers as a percentage of the population than in the US, so there are more dealers, specialist suppliers and restorers within a geographical area. Twenty years ago I spent a month on a training course with Gulfstream at Savannah, I was doing up an old ’64 kickstart Sportster that I had bought home from a job in Pakistan, I thought I had a good chance of getting parts near the school. I was surprised to find there were only two bike shops in such a large city, a Harley dealer and a garden machinery shop that also sold Jap bikes. The Harley dealer pretty much ordered in any parts he needed with little on the shelf. My course mates also explained how I was used to having riding buddies just around the corner and several bike clubs nearby whereas Americans may ride fifty miles to the nearest club meet. It’s all so spread out. This all means buying and selling used bikes to a local market is harder. The guys bringing containers of bikes into the UK are doing it for money and not sentiment, they buy in a crate from a trusted US supplier sight unseen. Once here they keep what is reasonable and scrap/melt the rest – naturally they don’t want the market to get their hands on really cheap bikes and bits. Most of the bikes I have seen must have come from the dryer parts of the states as they are usually paint faded and dusty but pretty much intact and obviously not ridden in years. There is a similar situation with Japanese cars, again they have a tough vehicle test and being right hand drive the cars are sellable in the UK. I wasn’t sure if you actually intended to do this restoration business or if it was merely a business project you were doing for University. Oh, here is the website of a local dealer who imports oldbikes. http://www.spikeisla...orcycles.co.uk/ EDIT: Don't know why link came up like this, I tried editing it but still useless. They are spikeislandmotorcycles.co.uk Checkout their '68 V7

I contacted Cliff, he has been under a lot of Spammer attack so has tightened up on accepted IP addresses. He has posted instructions on his website to email him with your IP address if you have the Error 403 sent.

No, won't work in Firefox either, must be something my end. My email and access to other sites OK, including this one of course, so it's something common to IE and Firefox giving me trouble. ??

How bizarre, googling MyEcu lists the website OK but when I click on it I get the error 403. Using your link I go straight to the MyEcu website, but then clicking on the Forum option again gives the 403 comment. Might have a go with firefox.

Is anyone else having problems with the MyEcu website and forum, I keep getting an Internet Explorer error 403, "don't have permission to access site". I changed to IE 9 recently, not sure if the problem is at my end or theirs. (This is a V11 relevant post as it is the website for Cliff Jefferies who makes the MyECU replacement programmable ecu's for fuel injected Guzzis.)

I always stick a thumb over the plug hole and turn the back wheel until I find compression. Then slowly advance the engine until I see the S or D through the timing window, I turn the engine tooth by tooth using a screwdriver on the starter ring gear which you can also see through the timing hole. I used to do it that way on my old T3, I still do it now as it is almost impossible to remove the alternater cover on the later models as the front crossover gets in the way.

Has anyone built the Optimiser with the OPTIM007 circuit board? I am having trouble building up my kit as it differs from the photos on the MyEcu website. The new pcb has the switches mounted directly to the board so should be easier to wire up, but I cannot tell which wires go where as the photos are all from the same angle obscuring some of them. The wires I am talking about are from the board to the potentiometers and to the display. Perhaps someone could post photos making it clear. Thanks.

I stripped back the insulation and soldered two wires onto the loom from the TPS near the ECU, then covered with self amalgamating tape. I now have a two pin socket permanently fitted so easy to check. Might be overkill though as the setting should'nt change once fitted. I am now trying to set up the MyEcu I just built so has come in handy.

Initialy a bit confused by your answer, my fault not yours! So the volt regulator isnt set to a normal 14.4 volts for good battery charging but to a lower 13.8 volts! Then the permanently on headlamp drops the voltage below 13.8 volts at which point the regulator ups the voltage until the dropped voltage is back to 13.8, this needs 14.4 volts on the output to the battery to achieve. The diode effectively recalibrates the OEM regulator. I can feel a John McEnroe moment coming on, I though dear old Joe Lucas (the prince of darkness) had some odd ideas but this Guzzi one beats me. The engineering answer I suppose is to make up a new loom with decent wires and a more convential use of relays, the ignition and light switches only handling the field current to these relays. Might be a good time to add an alarm/immobiliser, power sockets etc. Oh, of course also fit a normal 14.4 volt rectifier/regulator.

What if we relocate the sense wire to the output from the ignition switch, this would be nearer to the battery and give a more accurate sense of battery voltage. Headlight voltage would no longer be sensed so we can add relays without any problem. I believe we cannot connect it direct to the battery as the regulator would then always be live and so flatten the battery.

Another one of your excellent diagrams Kiwi_Roy. Now I can see that any resistance in the lines from the rectifier/regulator to the battery will cause a voltage drop that is not seen by the regulation circuit. The previous posts effectively reduce the voltage reaching D1 so the output voltage increases until the voltage at D1 is satisfactory, although the actual output is above nominal voltage. I assume the battery absorbs this excess voltage and prevents damage to other components. Is that how you see it.

Have a look at this site, has a basic tutorial on motorcycle charging systems, they also sell rectifier regulators. http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/technical-articles/how-motorcycle-charging-system-works

Those silencer ends are exactly the kind of thing I hate on a bike, they are pretending to look like something rather than being it. Dishonest.

Altough I mentioned this as an aside in a centre stand thread I thought I would repeat it here. Has anyone tried fitting/modifying a Grisso or Breva 2:1 exhaust system to fit a V11. I imagine the header side of things would not be too difficult assuming clearance around the oil cooler - might have to be moved but hopefuly not into the ugly side mount. I thought to rotate the conection pipe to the silencer to exit on the right, more usual for left hand drive roads and to ease fitting of a centre stand so the lever 'wot yew stand on' fits close. I suppose going out to the left clears the drive box and enables a closer silencer fit. Could feel a bit odd having the centre stand on the 'wrong' side but could live with it. Obviously all this this requires some welding and won't be a simple swap. Many bikes have the end can bolted up to a three bolt flange, might be possible to fit that and have a wealth of silencers to choose from.

I ran into much the same problem making up a stand, my gash prototype was too far behind the center of gravity, probably need to be near the rear of the sump. Also placement of the lifting handle difficult due to widthe of silencer feed pipe. Made me start to think along the lines of fitting/modifying a Grisso/Breva exhaust. Having the 2into 1 exiting on the left is not ideal for folk who drive on the left but was probably needed to suit the CARC. I was wondering if it would be possible to modify the crossover so that it exits on the right and so make the centre stand easier to operate as I could have a nice big lever to step on to lift it by. I like centre stands, the bike is narrower in the garage, it is easier to wash and maintain, much simpler to get your luggage balanced and less risk of knocking it over, the kids can play on it!

Oh...., dustbin FAIRING, I wondered why the black plastic stuck to the exhausts.

Hi Warren, did not mean to steal your thread. As stated I think I agree with you. Incidently, the company I work for set up an operation in Australia some ten years ago - they have proven the stronger section. We have just had a bunch of Aussie senior managers come over and restructure the original UK section. Are all Aussie managers so tough and brutal? - make the Americans seem positively benign.

As is becoming obvious I am not a frame designer. I am trying to get my head round why those Grisso tubes are considered more rigid as the arch over the heads, I accept the large diameter advantage but still don't get a curve being stronger than a straight tube. Perhaps a frame can be too rigid - was'nt this a problem with early carbon frames on race bikes? I understood perimeter frames fitted to inline fours evolved as a way of allowing almost vertical carb/throttle bodies to access a large airbox - nothing to do with handling, they are made of a thin wall large cross section construction partly to give the extra strength needed to accept the extra stress of being curved. Modern manufacturing made their use possible, perhaps it was'nt in the mid '70s. My first Guzzi, a T3 new in '79 felt like a Brit bike always should have, torquey - good fuel consumption - leak free - reliable - excellent handling and brakes, something my Norton Commando was'nt. I got the 750 Combat engined Commando new in '72, picked it up in London and drove it the seventy miles home. My Dad asked why the rear indicator was hanging off - the bracket had snapped. The following week the center stand snapped. 2000 miles later the disc brake pad suddenly flew out of the front of the caliper requiring frantic pumping to move the piston to contact the disc. Excellent design, the pads are not pinned in, the thickness of the backing material is the same as the gap between the caliper and the disc, when the friction lining wears out the pad moves. I was lucky it flew out, a mate had his jam the disc! At 3000 miles the main bearings failed, upping the traditional Brit bike rev limit of 6000 to a heady 7000 meant the crank flexed causing the edge of the the roller bearings to dig in - cured by fitting barrel shaped rollers. As for legendary Norton Handling - the rubber mounted swinging arm ensured you always had a story to tell. Having said all that I still have the bike, now halfway through the Great British Winter Rebuild of '98. OK, not a Guzzi story but it is mine. No, the T3 was a relevation although over the years it became clear Guzzi had spent all the money on the engine, gearbox and running parts. Not much left for the seat, electrics, switchgear etc. The new Guzzis are far better bikes than their predecessors, but then they should be, perhaps they have changed the focus on where they spend the money now. I just hope they are not wandering off down a path of cosmetics and follow my leader and lose their soul.