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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/11/2025 in all areas

  1. I used, and still use in my own bikes, Penrite’s 10/60 just not the ‘Motorcycle’ formula. I dunno if its thermal carriage ability is any better or worse than a 10/40. Probably not and it isn’t that important in something as simple as a Guzzi, even the 8V’s. My Mana’s call for a 10/40 but I can’t be arsed with having an extra 20 litre drum knocking around! So they get the 10/60 as well. They haven’t blown up or melted into a pool of slag yet! None of my bikes are race machines where I’m chasing every tenth of a horsepower so frictional losses don’t worry me a jot and as long as it flows well enough when cold that pump-up time isn’t excessive I reckon virtually anything will make a wedge where it’s needed so I just buy Penrite because it’s decent and readily available. We all have our preferences. I for instance despise Castrol, especially their engine oils but that is a prejudice that dates back to the 1970’s and is probably completely irrelevant now! As I said before. Oil is required. Put some in it!
    4 points
  2. Also replacing the bolts with nicer hex-head equivalents as described in one of the posts ("decent tune-up" maybe? )
    4 points
  3. Phil, Penrite has you covered with a wide range of 100% PAO and Ester oils, mostly sold as being shear free including the elusive 20W-50 V twin. Rob
    3 points
  4. Let's all pony up to fact that what we are being sold as "AI" is neither artificial nor intelligent. It is a function of search engines being populated by algorithms designed by software engineers that are working for various entities that designate the outcome parameters.
    2 points
  5. I just let AI do some work for me docc. First search "is Mobil1 a group 4 oil" Yes it is. Then I looked at the dates of the info. Did the same search with 2025 at the front and "no it's now a group 3 base oil" Looks like you were right AND Mobil have turned into the usual modern day corporate scoundrels. Bit like 50% of the packaged food these days in the supermarket. The shelf price is the same as usual but they gradually reduce the qty of the product. Cadbury chocolate bars used to be 200gms and now quietly they have been reduced to 180gms. Pringles moved their factory to New Zealand and the size of their chips shrunk. Corporate bastards. Phil
    2 points
  6. Spoke to tech support at Mobil 1 this morning. He couldn't tell me the type, said it is proprietary info. But he said the V twin 20w50 they make is specifically for air cooled four strokes. It has a much higher percentage of zinc in it than their 15w50, which has much less zinc and is considered an auto oil. Their 5w40 racing motorcycle oil is formulated for Japanese water cooled engines, which maintain a more constant temp. So for now, I'll stick with the V-twin Mobil 1 and do some more digging into Redline, Liqui Moly and some of the others. In the end, I agree with Pete's point. Put some oil in it. Simple, but true.
    2 points
  7. I'm pulling things together here out of stuff I've read here and there, and haven't got time now to go and research it properly, nevertheless... There was a California 1100 model with hydraulic tappets. It needed, if I recall correctly, 5W40 for the tappets to work properly. I believe I have read elsewhere that this oil specification made its way (copy and paste error....) into the manuals of some other models which didn't have the hydraulic tappets, and should have had 20W50 or 10W50 specified. Like I said, I don't have time to research that properly right now, but I'm pretty sure that could explain the specification in the Coppa manual.
    2 points
  8. As far as I can tell Mobil 1 is a blend of synthetic and mineral oils. It was originally a pure synthetic, but Mobil successfully lobbied to continue using the 'synthetic' description while changing the formulation to a blend. They can do that in the US [where their lobbying dollars get traction] but countries like Japan and many Euro countries actually require that products are described acurately. How bloody old fashioned is THAT? Anyway I have been using Penrite 10Tenths 5W-50 which is type 4 PAO & type 5 Ester blend, but the low pressure light is slow to go off. I will go back to something thicker. I wonder if the full synth has more feel good than real benefit. Regular oil changes of a semi-synth are probably all I need.
    2 points
  9. Mobil 1 docc is a full Grp 4 synthetic as far as I know. Castrol "synthetic has a habit of being a mineral base oil with additives. Remember that court case 20 odd years ago where a US Judge decided what was Synthetic oil and what was not! It's evolved over they years and I don't actually know if it's the best full synth anymore as the market has become flooded with boutique oils now. As for V twin specific oils well thats just another example of a boutique oil. People demand a 20W-50 then if they think there's a market or they can pump one up then they'll make oil for it. At the end of the day fiddling an existing formulation to create a "specific" oil is pretty easy and the biggest cost is the packaging. Bit of extra this a bit less of that a new label on the bottle and presto, V-twin oil. Not saying it's bad just it'll be more marketing than something really advantageous for your engine.
    2 points
  10. What gear did you ride it up and down the street in? 1st gear wont do it you need to be in 3rd gear and give it a hand full to get maximum torque on the clutch. Just clutchless/race shift it to 3rd or 4th with the clutch in and give it WOT.
    2 points
  11. @LaGrasta I’m surprised you didn’t get it from Aliexpress . . . You could have saved a few more $$ Aliexpress
    2 points
  12. You could swap the coils over but you have to swap the primary wires also If you measure the resistance from the plug cap to chassis it should be the same on both sides about 7000 Ohms from memory might be less if there's no suppressor resistor in line.
    2 points
  13. I would also check that you're not losing Voltage through a dirty ignition switch that happened to my VII Sport cleaning and re-lubing the switch fixed that.
    2 points
  14. This might help someone. (and apologies if it has already been noted) I had carefully set the TPS by the book and the bike (2002 LeMans) suffered from surging when hot and abrupt on/off throttle transition and slight pinking at full throttle. The surging and throttle transition made the bike frustrating to ride. I retested the TPS it was still 160mV with throttle plate closed = not significantly different than where I'd set it last year. I then noticed that when the throttle was pulled open that the first motion was to take up throttle shaft wear. (to check for wear, grab the throttle shaft nut under the throttle body and move it side to side. The right side has more play that the left, perhaps because of the return spring. There are rubber seals on the shafts but may be unable to compensate for the wear or have failed after 23 years.) In one of the TPS discussions KiwiRoy suggested that because the voltage increase with rotation is not linear that the goal of setting the TPS was not so much to achieve precisely 150mV (or 157mV), but to make sure the setting was on the tail of voltage increase. I pictured the voltage increase as a curve similar to exponential growth with 150mV somewhere close to the baseline suggesting that at 150mV the computer can sense the TPS but is not yet altering fuel settings. After setting the TPS the manual states that throttle plate angle should be set to 3-3.5 degrees. I wondered how to do this because I don't have Guzzidiag computer setup, but another post (I forget who posted) stated that throttle plate angle at idle corresponded to 470-480mV. Another post stated that instructions for installing a new mixture map that the idle throttle stop should be set at exactly 475mV. My idle stop was at 311mV so I decided to experiment with changing it. I set the TPS to show about 470mV just as the throttle starts to lift off the idle stop. As the throttle linkage is pulled the first movement takes up play in the worn throttle shaft and the mV increases. All the play is taken up and the throttle starts to open at about 470mV but my TPS reads about 420mV when the spring holds the throttle against the idle stop. (differing amounts of wear should result in different idle stop mV) With the throttle plate fully closed (as in setting by the book) the TPS shows about 220mV. I then balanced throttle bodies side to side. The result is dramatic! There is no hint of surging even at low rpm and low speed and the harsh on/off throttle transition is mostly gone. There is no pinking. It has really improved the bike. Yes, I know there someone has posted a tutorial for replacing throttle shaft bushings. I have even bought new bushings and seals and will get to it eventually, but I am very happy with the way the bike runs now.
    1 point
  15. 1 point
  16. I'm going to paraphrase and take licence with Pete's notion- "It's all Bulls**t". The only thing I'll add here is that the larger the "w" spread, the more quickly the oil breaks down. Temperature causes polymerization and cooling reverses. Not that this is any consideration in our case, 'light usage.' Straight weight oil is often recommended for stationary equipment where service intervals are long.
    1 point
  17. Castrol GTX was popular with the street racers back in the '70s here and I became a devoted Castrol fan. Decades later, a respected auto mechanic told me he did not care for their products as they discolored the engine internals to a brown/bronze coloration. I had just thought that's what color engines were inside! So, I moved on to Mobil1, then Lucas in mySport. After learning about base oils (thanks, Richard Widman) and what "synthetic" means (or doesn't) in this country I selected RedLine and never looked back. s said, we all have our preferences and mySport has always had some oil in it, typically with 5,000 mile changes.
    1 point
  18. Yes, I was in first. I will give that a try, thanks for the advice!
    1 point
  19. I gave up on Mobile1 for the motorcycles when I could not discern their base oil. Same with Lucas. Frankly, that suggests (to me) they are only Group 2 base oils. RedLine is a reliable Group 5 (full ester) base oil, if I understand correctly. Also, Schaeffer's Specialized Lubricants and Brad Penn/ PennGrade are worth looking at.
    1 point
  20. The time and hassle saved is well worth the price, especially with something as "fiddly" as the TPS...
    1 point
  21. Just like technology and the need to keep up to date with it and stay abreast of new developments so it goes with oils. I don't think anyone makes a group 4 full synthetic 20W-50 anymore so thats one I'd leave behind. The 10W-60 is a very large spread and I don't believe is justified in the 8V engine although I know Pete thinks it's justified because it has oil cooling galleries around the exhaust ports. I've never been able to find any data that a 60 weight oil has any appreciable advantage in the ability to extract more heat from a surface than a 40 weight oil plus they won't flow as well in the small oil galleries so I'm not in that camp. Plus the 8V valves are overcooled anyway. I also think from memory Guzzi upped the 8V 1200 oil spec to 60 weight in the midst of their flat tappet failure fiasco which wasn't due to oil viscosity but material coating choice. Sometimes you have to accept that like the 40 ton flywheel the manufacturers have old ideas that they can't sacrifice to modern tech. So Guzzi see someone now makes a 10W-60 and heavier is better so they spec that. Nothing in that engine requires a 60 weight that I can see. The 8V Daytona/Centeuro engine though is another matter. I run 10W-60 in that because in our hot climate with an engine that runs very hot cylinder head temps I think it's justified to hold up the idle oil pressure in the summer weather in traffic.
    1 point
  22. The first thing my dealer did after I bought mySport new was send a larger (still Siemens ) relay for the front/start position. This was early 2000 and the under-rated relay issues were already showing up.
    1 point
  23. I had four broken ignition switch wires in their insulation on a running 2004 Ballabio just purchased. Three 20 Gauge wires were gone and the 18 Gauge was half gone. The seller hotwired the connectors below the gas tank to get it running and said the switch was bad. Switch was fine inside.
    1 point
  24. Siemens (yes, this is the correct spelling, I would know...) relays were what the wife's 2000 V11 Sport came with. And they failed her within the first month. Turned the bike off at a gas station and it would not start back up.
    1 point
  25. I have had big twins since 1977. I'll do what I always have done. 20w50 summer, 10w40 winter. Never had a problem. But then there are my 1200 8v's that calls for 10w60. Never understood that big spread on viscosity. I follow their recommendations for those two, but it still has me scratching my head. It certainly goes against @Lucky Phil #4.
    1 point
  26. Yes, it needs oil. Put some in it.
    1 point
  27. To make your bike more visible to other road users consider adding a pair of LED driving lights I added a pair of these to my V7III Special $40 each https://www.superbrightleds.com/led-light-pod-2-modular-led-off-road-work-light-10w-900-lumens The nice thing about LEDs they normally give out full brightness from 9 Volts on up so you can lose a Volt you can't afford to lose with an incandescent lamp These lights come with an integral cable about a foot long so you may not need the optional wiring Harness.
    1 point
  28. Yes, make sure your main ground is good, typically it runs to a 6mm bolt at the rear of the gearbox The regulator also needs to be well grounded, i prefer that to be a short jumper to a timing cover screw rather than back to the battery. I think we figured that this picture was the result of a bad main ground,. On starting the starter current 100+ Amps tried to get back to the battery via the small wire between the regulator case and battery Negative the massive engine and gearbox castings are a better path than a wimpy copper wire. Better that the starter doesn't work than frying the loom.
    1 point
  29. Well, I guess I shouldn't tell you I have two of them, but I always like to see how much comes out.
    1 point
  30. It is interesting to note that the later "CARC" set-up indexes the TPS with the throttle bodies seated on the factory pre-set idle stop (The Sacred Screw) in "similar fashion" to @Doansci's approach. Using the V11 "completely closed" index is curious since, once the linkage is hooked up and the idle set, the ECU never sees any values below the idle setting. It is simply the established method to index the map to the physical throttle opening through the rest of the range to WOT. Can the same indexing be achieved using the throttle angle at idle and the TPS at "some" mV? Sure, but it is going to be hit or miss. Seems @Doansci got a hit! (YMMV) P.S. - I am due a fresh Decent Tune-up and will pay attention to where my throttle degrees opening and mV end up at idle . . .
    1 point
  31. I just found this on AliExpress: £9.46 | Silver 3D sticker Decals Waterproof motorcycle Eagle sticker for Moto Guzzi https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eu186zc Available in silver, black, or gold. Probably plastic. I haven't ordered one, but might be worth a try.
    1 point
  32. Many find 0.006/0.008 a better set-up, so your intake was really not that far off. My sidestand wiring has a little zip-tie that gathers it, loosely, to the cover mount. I would love to see some 3D printed eagle medallions. Years ago, @sp838 made some with the Gambalunghino eagle.
    1 point
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