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I'm Starting down the road to pulling the motor on the Scura today..Going to strip the engine paint and fix the dreaded 02 bubbly engine/trans paint, Install a Ram clutch kit, and reseal the trans and do the Lucky Phil shift mods with Chucks shift lever......I did the wheel bearings, and Swing arm bearings last week...

As others have mentioned, red-frames originally came with 170s, but I've run a 160 on mine for as long as I can remember. As others have stated, the 160 is better suited for the 4.5" wheel. Anything wider is purely cosmetic. __Jason

Those Dowty washers are great, especially on fittings with pressure behind them. For drain plugs they are a bit of overkill in my opinion. Use of aluminum or copper sealing washers is perfectly fine if you remember they are really only meant to be used once. When you tighten the plug the soft metal conforms to the surfaces of the plug and its seat forming a good seal. The downside to the compression of the washer is the metal work hardens and if reused it requires more torque to make the seal and this will often lead to distortion and weakening of the threads causing them to strip eventually. Aluminum washers are considered to be one use items but copper can be reused if annealed to soften it so it conforms again as long as it hasn't been deformed too much by the previous use.

Seems one might be more inclined to got the other way round and fit the narrower early rim to the later Longframes. Less unsprung weight and such . . . I've long wondered if the change to the 5.5 rim, in addition to footgoose's observation about the marketing of the day, was Moto Guzzi's extensive redesign that may have been in response to reports of the early bike being less "stable" than expected. So, we got a longer wheelbase, frame and subframe bracing, bigger rear rim/tire, bigger forks. @gstallons is an a unique position to compare the changes with an '03 Sport and a RedFrame Sport . . .

(Can't find eating popcorn icon) My Scura needs all the same. Love to follow along.

Hey brother , I see you got that aluminum plate between the oil pan & block ! Good luck .

I may as well throw in, here's our pure bred mutt rescue dog, Lacy. Total cream puff with people, but it turned out she's a hunter. When I took her early on to the free range dog park, a rabbit came tearing across the field, and before I knew what was up, Lacy took out after it. It took her maybe a hundred yards, but she finally caught, shook and killed the poor rabbit. So after years of having dog unfriendly canines, I thought finally we'd have a nice off leash pet. Not to be (she unfortunately also now has a horse ranch chicken kill to her credit as well). But she's terribly sweet with people and no risk with young children. Dunno her breeding, maybe Lab and something with deep chest and narrow waist (Greyhound?) and curly tail (Akita?).

I think Delorme booke books would be the perfect resource to make a Beeline map. I just wish working those maps on my phone was as simple as a marker on paper.

My work vehicle ( 86 Suburban ) had a milk crate full of these for Il , Mo , Ky , Tn . & other states This was before I accepted the fact GPS was a beneficial tool . I used to be able to cross a county on back roads by dead reckoning . I have been able to invoke Daniel Boone " I can't say I was ever lost out in the wilderness , but I was once bewildered for about three days" when needed !

Makin' conversation

I started using those Dowty washers on any plugs that had a tendency to leak or weep oil, ie sump, tranny, diff, but especially the fork drain plugs; they solve a lot of niggly leak problems, fwiw.

Please realize 180's were generally adopted on most 'average guy' sport bikes for purely esthetic purposes. I think they (everybody) went with the 5.5 rim just to fit the 180 so it was more appealing, ... and Docc's post is spot on.

Well I found this: https://www.mgcycle.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=34&products_id=52 That must have been what was there before, rather than the current OEM as mentioned. I guess either will work, but the rubberized one at MG Cycle is less expensive if nothing else.

Those washers go by a couple of different names, iirc "Dowty" being one of them. I can't remember where I got my supply, Amazon, MGCycle or the local hydraulic supply shop? fwiw. At $5 each, I'd be sourcing the good ones locally.

I use Docc.

I've always run 120/70 front & 170/60 rear on my RM 70k so about 10 sets. Front wears to a v and rear wears flat. I admit I don't wear the chicken strip out these days. Probably getting a bit old & slow

I bought this bike Good Friday weekend 2008. Dates for membership and ownership coincide.

You know , you coulda been a member all this time ! With that being said , I hope you get good money and the new owner gets a good bike and gets a lot of enjoyment .

So, early RedFrames (and the 2001 Rosso Mandello) have 4.5 inch rear rim width and were delivered with 170 tires. My 2000 came with really soft, 'pointy' Pirelli Dragon Corsa that were gone in a flash. The 170 is a little bit of a "pinch" onto that rim which then looses some "roundness" in the profile. I have found the 160 on the 4.5" rim much nicer on the turn-in, especially with a more "sport-touring" tire (currently Bridgestone Battlax T31). Beginning with the 2002 LongFrames, rim width increased to 5.5" and came with a 180 tire. Lots of folks, similarly, have gone with a 170 on the wider rim of the later V11. YMMV!!

They look similar but a wire hair pointing Griffon is not the same as a GWP. I hope he's a fearless retriever but I'll have to wait and see, he does point at the chickens next door. I've done a lot of shooting with him nearby and it doesn't bother him a bit, my passed Lab was gun shy.

To return the liquid portion of the crankcase ventilation back to the sump. Instead of into an old Castrol® fork oil can or Coors® can. The V11 crankcase ventilates from a fitting (#14, first diagram) on the rear, upper right of the block inside the clutch housing, through the nefarious, shaped flexible hose (#18 in the first diagram) under the spine frame that connects to the bottom of the spine just behind the headstock. From there, the vapor portion is extracted (more or less) from the banjo fitting on top of the spine at the headstock into the airbox (#16/17 in the second diagram) while the liquid portion drizzles down inside the spine to the return line which dribbles back into the sump.

It is a vestigial structure left over from earlier wide sump models that had two oil return lines from the spine frame (one on each side of the spine).