Gmc28

i just texted Dave. I just saw him last at the John Day gathering this summer, so will see if he gets the text. who knows what he might know.... some perry mason work.

hmm. how much cursing, or body english, or removal of other stuff is needed? true, the long frame may help slighlty, but i wouldn't think much.

Thx gentlemen. For more specific, I should add that there’s a used full assembly available from an ‘03. whether I’d do nothing, or replace both sides, or try and just remove the left one from the assembly and install on mine, that’s part of the evaluation playing out. Was going out tonight to eyeball the assembly and see what makes sense. I know some of that assembly doesn’t just “pop apart”, so weighing the body overhaul vs maybe just replacing the one side, or the whole thing (both sides).

thx Docc. would just be a single throttle body. I've collected most of the bits needed to do Phil's process of addressing my seeping left throttle body, but weighing that against popping on a used throttle body and putting off the rebuild process for a while.

anyone know off top of your head if the throttle bodies from ‘03 v11 fit the ‘02 V11’s?

dave blue? I know dave.... I can ask him, but doubt he'll have much to say. i'm quite fond of him, and his guzzi knowledge and experience transcends most living beings. is he a closet tranny thief? perhaps, but i'd guess not, fwiw.

makes sense, and matches the reality that the cut ends, which are meant to be allowed to slightly squeeze another pipe inserted inside, are on the outside of my setup, which is to say the mid pipe that receives the headers has the cuts. It's clear i'm making more of this than it deserves. But its dark outside, so i indulge myself, and still sits odd with me that the mid pipe narrows down/tapers on the front/intake side where it receives the header pipe, and that the exhaust is again narrowed slightly more (going forward) by the smaller header that slides inside that narrowed mid pipe. maybe as phil says its by design, which is certainly something seen commonly on 2-stroke exhausts, but doesn't it seem slightly odd for these 4-strokers, to start narrower out of the head then widen out in 2 stages at the mid pipe?

thanks Phil - sounds like a plan. mostly just itching my OCD at this point, as it runs and looks fine, but struck me as odd. If someone knows if the mistral header pipes are larger diameter, that would be of interest as well.

We're in the fire biz (3 planes on the current fire), but I grew up in the woods with a cedar roof. Needed to replace it, and was just too cheap to get it done until some winter storm damage finally helped force the issue, and it's all metal now. i'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to replace that roof. we're not in high risk area, but have had some big ones not too far away in the last decade. Those cedar shakes from the roof, i'd use them for kindling in the wood stove whenever we'd get removed shakes after doing some repair or trim work, and literally just a little paper and a match and that stuff lit off and burned so easy. crazy. Now I have to remove my favorite cedar tree next to the house, that would go up like a torch... And then there's the issue of US homes (in the NW) vs so many old world homes that still stand after hundreds of years. "When in Rome" is the thing, and I live in a timber rich area (and actually in the forest), so there's all that great building material right at hand, but it has always seemed at least less-than-ideal to build homes that you know won't survive like something built of longer lasting materials (and as it happens, fire proof/resistant).

Phil, or anyone with info on this, I have a question: I have the Agostini mufflers like Phil, then an agostini crossover that I installed several years ago. comically just realized last night while putting Red up on the stand for some winter work that the Ago crossover tapers down at the front (engine/input side) to receive the smaller diameter header pipe, and further that the header (stock) then goes inside of that already tapered down mid pipe (double step down, albeit not by much in either case). All works fine, and has for years, but seems as though that’s a little goofy? Or maybe that's the way its supposed to be... Wondering whether the Ago or Mistral (or GTM?) header pipes are slightly larger in diameter and fit over the tapered fit end of the (front of) the ago crossover pipes. I suppose if I move the band clamp back and look at where the cut in the pipe is, that would be telling. the example pic is NOT for a v11 (its for a v85), but shows in a slightly exaggerated way the tapered/reduced/male fit end of the crossover, like i have on the V11. with that cut on the mid pipe shown, it implies that goes on the outside of the header pipe, like what I have, though the taper implies it is reduced to accept a larger diameter header which would be on the outside.

oh my, you came to the right place to talk about batteries! I’ll not say anything except that there’s a wealth of info from PC545 guru’s on this site, and i’m a believer, but I also have finally gone to the dark side and installed a Lithium battery, and can’t see every going back. Thats a long, long topic, but fast-forwarding to the final thing for one side of the discussion is that the lithium battery (i think I put an EarthX in the V11) cranks the bike over better/quicker, and takes less space in the cradle, in theory allowing for easier road-side work if such a need would come up. Can’t go wrong with an Odyssey, properly cared for, but I would not be afraid of a decent lithium battery.

All good fodder for the discussion, though I don’t know the root cause reasons Smart or others have for it all. When I moved to LA from Alaska, among other culture shock things was the presence of quicky oil change places that would change your oil and filter for the same or even less than i could buy just the oil. What? So I did that thinking how nifty that was, but always a bit suspect, then sure enough one day I went to drain my own oil for some reason and found the drain plug was badly cross-threaded. well, was fun while it lasted. That little Smart diesel engine, basically what I’d call a golf cart with 57hp, is all mercedes built and has been a solid little bugger since 2006, no-drain-plug-and-all. Plastic outer body never rusts, frame is some kind of space age alloy engineered to handle some nasty crash scenarios (check out what some British university did for testing, published video on YouTube), and the drivers side has more head and leg room than about any rig i’ve had my 6’4” frame in. But it’s still basically just a golf cart you get to drive 60mph on the road. But we digress! Sucking oil out is not new to me, because of the Smart, but only recently have I looked more into doing it for other rigs, hence the foray into messing with it using a better suction device. The Super Duty diesel (“Whitey”) that holds 12+ qts will still be drained by a quick scoot underneath on the creeper, a short twist of the fumoto drain valve, and voila, 12+ qts drained. Not nearly so quick for the Volvo, low to the ground and with an engine cover underneath… a real hassle on a comparative basis.

i’ve used the fumoto drains for years on multiple rigs, and am a fan, no complaints. Not like its hard to remove/replace a drain plug, but its just faster and makes things easier & quicker, and not that one should live in fear of such things but it reduces/removes the chance of a cross thread, or any thoughts of whether your crush washer is fine. BUt also just got my new oil suction setup last week. have an old one i’ve used on the diesel Smart (no drain plugs on the mercedes built Smart diesels), and i got used to it, but now have a compressor driven version that i’m thinking i’ll use for the volvo, to skip having to lift the front end, remove that annoying engine cover underneath, and should be able to just suck the oil out. some debate out there about the effectiveness of that versus draining, but lots of good shops use them, and i’m not a finicky, oil worry-wart type. (loaded statement for those who love to debate oil :->. i don’t… just like to take care of it easy as i can)

i forget the details there, as the replacement kit has been sitting by my desk now for months. new relay, and new inline connection setup, as i recall. a Duc service bulletin, about $60 for the whole thing. so probably $50 too much, but you know…

some kind of relay failure, which ducati posted a service bulletin for, but was news to me till it ate my new, expensive lithium battery, draining it down till it showed 1.7v over just a couple weeks while it was parked. Replacement (cheaper) batt from local Batteries Plus didn’t fix the issue, which was the clue that prompted the discovery of the relay which Duc says needs replacement in all bikes that have the original, and offering a little OEM kit to replace the relay which wasn’t originally meant to be replaced (its not in one of the usual sockets for a relay). Simple stuff, once it’s clear what’s going on, as that relay wasn’t on my radar as it’s not in with the rest of the usual relays. The real cause of the issue was me, as i jinxed it. I had just bragged for the umpteenth time about how that Multistrada was like a Honda, completely reliable and solid since new (2016). Fate didn’t like that statement.

gray and rainy, and the Ducks got their ass kicked, so back to the shop, since for the first time in my memory all of my bikes need some work at the same time… actually, Red could fire up and go, but want to get the little oil leak fixed first, and prefer to either get the bike lift freed up from the v85tt winter mx project, or await my new shop stand to arrive from MG cycle. the Duc is still broken down in vegas, waiting forlorn in a hangar. hope to get there this month to get her back on the road, and maybe get some decent weather there to ride a bit. The old Suzuki is torn apart awaiting me to finish up its refresh to get ready for this summers ORBDR ride. Oh, i guess Goldie (v11) would run and ride fine, so i lied… i do have a bike, but which i don’t want to ride in the muck. i like the idea of the Mammoth “ride”. hope to be at Bachelor later this month. cheers and happy new year

nice. just what i was looking for. i actually scrounged some of the same fittings and have been sitting on those awaiting an idea of what to install them on, as i don’t have the right cap. I rigged up something less ideal with what i had in the shop at the time, but the weak link was having the wrong spare reservoir cap. I’d have thought it would be easy to source replacement caps, but it’s proving surprisingly tricky. and since i have a number of different reservoir styles/shapes, am wondering if some kind of clamp on setup could work. thx all

wondering if anyone has any tips to share on using one of the motive flow (or similar brand) brake/clutch bleeder tools on the v11’s, in regard to how to fit the bleeder to the reservoir. they don’t seem to sell the “plug and play” options for attaching to the reservoirs so you have an airtight seal and the hose inlet from the pump-up container. i rigged up a frankenstein setup for my son’s Cagiva, using an extra reservoir cap i had and drilled to allow a fitting for hose input, only to find that the threads weren’t quite the same on the cap i found in my parts box, so it wasn’t air tight. figured i’m probably missing something simple, as a lot of folks use these, and i’m just missing the obvious. maybe a plate that you drill with a hose fitting, and clamp in place? Bleeding by hand is what i’ve always done, and no problem, but figured i’d try and get this device to work right for me for longer term. (got it figured my old ford diesel… plug and play attachment, and thats helpful for a system with that much fluid) I think Phil uses one of these on his MG?

i have an airscape container or two, and use them now and then, but that "world champion barista" fellow... i forget his name, and of course there are many of them (an english guy...) did some youtube station testing of the storage bins, and concluded it didn't matter that much. basically the beans off-gas, and (usually) are best a few days after roasting up until roughly 2 weeks later, give or take a little based on a few variables, and storage options didn't have much effect on that. But yes, freezing is bad :->

has anyone recently had issues with this (reflective stickers, yellow jackets, tagged gloves, etc), in person or first hand knowledge? I've never had any issue with any of that. Very possibly just good (blind) luck. I've rented many times in Italy, from various sources, and they've never mentioned any cautions, and I crossed borders into most (?) of the neighboring countries and never had an issue, nor seen someone have an issue. I did get a couple automatic-camera speeding tickets near Grenoble a few years back in a car, but since then have sped along all across France and had no issues. Last couple times I had the missus google searching from the passenger seat for some kind speed trap/cam type web site or hot-tips, but nothing came up, so i bombed along, prepared to receive a ticket or two in the mail if it came to that, but it never did. In italy, east of Florence, I saw lots of speed cams, but none of them did anything... i never saw them flash or light up, and never got any tickets.

“D check….” another aviation guy! thankfully a “D check” is usually a one man job on the Guzzi :->. And I’m thinking that its more like a C check, since there’s no D-mate involved. Sounds like that Ballabio should be good to go! My Red has an oil seep which appears to be from the pan seal. After the V85tt gets off the stand from its first-for-me annual go-through (how does A-check sound? plus some minor mods, all of which will only be “field approved”), i’ll get Red up there to drop the pan. I’ll see about maybe one of the options others have suggested of getting a sheet of fine grit on a flat surface and doing a home-job of getting that pan mating surface cleaned up and flattened. then a new gasket, and considering whether to use a smidgeon of hylomar, or trust in the clean up of the surface and new gasket.

Touche. The 1st gen V85tt's had issues that caused concern for some. They've improved a bit since, but ultimately what they've improved likely won't matter much if it's not the style a guy likes. I've noted before on this forum in a couple postings here and there how I had little if any interest in the V85tt, till i was "forced" to rent it when Agostini's sent out the V100 I had set up to demo just before i got there, despite saying they'd hold it... cheeky. Anyway, ended up on a truly ugly v85 (well, its my least favorite color, but to each his own) for a few days, riding the great roads to the north and east of Mandello. Perhaps in part because I figured i'd hate it, and I can be a bit of annoying contrarian, I ended up really liking it. so I bought one. Oh, and didn't hurt that a guy was desparate to unload one in my preferred coloring and with almost no miles when i checked last winter. From my angle its not a bike that I can break down into why I like it, I just do. My oldest guzzi friends, the ones deep into guzzi for decades, they both have a V85 as their go-to bike. It's probably a little bit of laziness. for instance, I'll admit that I was looking forward to riding one of the V11's to John Day this year, but as the day got closer I gradually gave in to the dark side, yielding to my laziness: the V85 has big hard cases, great wind screen, great fuel econ + long range, and despite some pretty mediocre (at best) suspension it handles surprisingly well, and i'll say "enjoyably"... whatever that means in the way of suspension. Felt guilty leaving the V11's at home, but damn that V85 is nice for touring, with the bonus being that it also allows for some gravel/dirt road touring.

they are lovely. Just received new (Agostini) exhaust for my 2022 V85tt, to go on bike this winter.

thank u, and thats my hope! depends on whether i’ll end up down there with my bride, or with a riding buddy… the wheel of fate is currently spinning. i’ve always rented guzzi’s from Agostini’s, but probably won’t prefer to start up in the como area, and will pop straight down into Florence, where there are a few good Duc rental options. and maybe they have that Ducati free parking area at the race, like they do at the Austin GP venue…

all good, and thanks. i see the online tickets on the official motogp website, as well as the Misano track web site, and thats what i'm planning to do at this point, but i haven't seen that venue in person and will be picking seat section just based on the online map. and will look for a nearby town thats smaller and quieter where i could stay and tour around a bit, then make the drive into the crowds for the race day.