slug

For the people who are too busy dressing up their race leathers, what's the proper torque for the rear wheel?

Actually, thank you for doing so. I've been hesitant from the get-go. Even if there are improvements at the track, I'd still be spending my precious little vacation time hurrying down to Monterey to watch people do something I'd rather be doing myself (well, much slower and on public roads ) and then race back up to Seattle to go back to work. I'd love to see the races in person someday, but the TV is fine for now. Plus, I just finished building the My15m and Optimizer and I'm not sure if I'll have everything dialed in to the point where I'll feel confident enough to travel that far from home... I strongly recommend that your night in Bend include an hour of soaking in McMenamin's Turkish style soaking pool and a pint of their Kolsch summer beer. Best thing you'll ever do after a long day of riding! Cheers!

Yeah, I heard it was a metric clusterf**k last year, but it sounds like they've sort of learned this lesson and have things planned out a bit better this year Then again, I'm not much for giant mob scenes and will always enjoy riding more than watching, so now I'm on the fence after going down to Bend last weekend and staying at McMenamin's (now that was a treat!) I'd forgotten how beautiful central Oregon is. I may just redo my plans and tour around central Oregon, Washingon and B.C. (maybe even hook up for a ride with with some of you wacky Canadians )

Hopefully I'll be riding down from Seattle for the race. Anyone else going?

Anyone riding down there from the Seattle area? I may be heading down on Thursday (gonna take the scenic route part of the way, through central Washington & Oregon), camp or hotel it that night & finish the trip on Friday...

Amen, Brother. In fact, doing my repair, one of these little bastards took off somewhere, never to return. Made a replacement out of a thick nylon screw with the threads shaved off.

Meant to post this a month or two ago... Was giving the bike a pre-springtime lookover and noticed the clutch lever was getting sloppy, as in lots of up and down play. Pulled the lever off and the whole pivot area was dry as a bone. Looked at the pivot hole on the lever and it has become very, very oval. Looked at the pivot pin, very, very not round. I don't think that the pivots were ever greased at the factory (and shame on me for not checking sooner.) To make a long story short, this is another place to check for "intermittent" greasing from the factory. I was able to get rid of some of the play by lining the pivot hole on the lever with super-thin brass shim stock (.001" - .003") and rotating the pivot pin 180 degrees when reinstalling the lever. Of course, a generous helping of waterproof grease has been applied. Hope this helps...

That's not a groan, it's a mating call!

I may be out in left field on this one, but were you riding in the rain when this started to happen (or do you wash the bike often)? My oil light has turned on when riding in heavy rain because water can get in/around the sensor, short circuiting it and causing the light to come on. The guys at my local shop also told me that the same thing happens fairly often after they wash a bike. Just a thought...

The charcoal canister captures gasoline vapors from the fuel tank and recycles it back to the fuel tank, thereby preventing the unburned hydrocarbons from being released to the atmosphere where it causes smog, ozone holes, Michael Crichton novels and scurvy. Is it absolutely essential to the bike? Heck no. Legal to remove them? Depends on where you live... Fortunately you don't live in California, where everything causes cancer and the CARB is more evil than the NSA. Many of us have "found" the emission control tidbits "missing" from our bikes with no ill effects. If your canister and associated bits of hose and whatnot happen to fall off, just make sure to plug the brass nipples on the intake side of the heads and do the normal throttle body balance, TPS adjustments and make a generous donation to Slug's "Give Me Money to Buy a Set of Alpina Spoked Wheels or I'll Club This Baby Seal!" fund.

Had you typed this in all caps, I might have fallen for this...

Yeah, this is a mini-micro-niche to say the least...

Nope, I had to extend the wire. I replaced the original jacket around the wires with a couple layers of shrink tube. Yep. The silver bar comes off the lever attached to the shifter spline, then uses one link to attach to the shifter lever. Stock linkage is almost completely replaced. The only original part left is the lever that bolts to the shifter spline, and that gets flipped over so the offset is on the outward side of the bike. Pretty slick reuse of the original parts. Mmm, a little hard on the tooth enamel. Yeah, I'm very impressed. Makes me want to become a machinist myself. I used to work as a welder (titanium & stainless steel tube and duct work) and I constantly dream of starting a side business like this making tricky bits for the Gooses...

...and a couple more.

As requested... Knock on wood, my fuzzy engine paint hasn't peeled. As you can see, the infection hit the pork chops instead. Gonna get 'em powdercoated sometime soon.

The MotoBits site is www.motobits.com, however the V11 kit isn't listed there (or I totally missed it.) The price is around $300, which is pretty reasonable. I purchased mine at Moto International. I'm not sure if they always have them in stock, but if I remember correctly, the kit is made by a former owner/partner/employee of Moto International, so they should have no problem getting them. Greg Field is the man to talk to and if I'm wrong about any of this, hopefully he'll correct me here. Nogbad, I'll post pics (of the kit, not TX in the flip-flops & grape smuggler) tonight if I remember.

I installed them about two weeks ago. They are awesome! Super-duper adjustable... The instructions that come with the kit are pretty good, and there are no big surprises. For me, installation was pretty easy, but depending on your bike you may need to extend the brake light wiring since the angle of the rear brake master cylinder is increased and eats up almost all of the slack in the cable. In a worst-case scenario, you may have to replace the hose from the resivoir to the master cylinder for the same reason as above. I have an '03 Sport, and didn't have to do that. Getting a wrench behind the brake-side pork-chop to remove the stock footpeg can also be a challenge. Fit and finish of the parts are top notch. All components come ball-burnished and are not anodized (except the pegs, which are clear-anodized) so if so inclined, you can send them out to get prettied up. The knurling on the pegs is pretty gnarly, so riding in flip-flops and a vinyl bananna-hammock should be avoided (sorry, TX!) Also, these are not folding pegs, so you'll need to get used to them. So do they help? Yes. I'm about 6' tall (and disturbingly handsome ) and putting the pegs 1 1/2" forward and about 1" down definetly reduces the "scrunch" factor. Haven't been on any long rides yet, but I expect things to be more comfortable. The leverage against the brake also changes, and for me, I need to give more force than before for hard stops (however this does help prevent you from stomping too hard and locking up the rear.) Gripes? Two (minor) ones: 1. Outside diameter of the pegs need to be shaved down by .005" - .010" because the heads on the three hex-cap screws that adjust lever angle brush against the pegs when being removed. Makes an icky feeling while screwing them back in, like you're stripping the threads. 2. Levers are cut from flat bar stock and don't compensate for their more outward position. I find my right foot pressing down more on the lever than on the little toe-thingy. I may need more time to get used to it... That's my story, and I'm sticking to it, just like John Kerry

Glad to know you're going to be OK Rick. Here's to a speedy and complete recovery!

Nah, I like eat cheese, not ride it.

Nope, solved it last night, finally. Here's a quick wrap-up for anyone who's interested: 1. The electronic flasher unit I bought does not require that additional resistors be installed for each LED signal. 2. The indicator lamp circuit on the instrument pod on my bike ('02 - '03 V11 Sport) is (in my opinion) very poorly designed. The ground path for indicator bulb is routed through the turn signal circuit opposite the turn signal that is on (so if the left turn signal is being used, the ground for the indicator lamp is routed through the entire right turn signal circuit). This causes all four signals to light up at the same time. The left and right circuits need diodes installed to prevent current from passing "backwards", then joined to form the indicator's positive input, and a new ground must be installed. I connected the indicator's ground to the ground wire for the tach backlight. 3. I replaced the dash indicator bulb with an LED. I found that even with the turn signals off, the circuit is still charged with approx. 4 volts (no idea why...). This caused the new LED to stay on. To fix this I installed a 5v zener diode to act a voltage sensitive switch. Here's the final circuit for the indicator:

Nope, not yet...

Uh-oh, I know where this is going

I am a total geek, and I proudly admit that! Remember the three Os: Overengineer Overbuild Overkill

BrianG: Thanks for the input! Nog, may I take a guess that you're an EE? I did that test last night and removed the indicator bulb, and voila! Only one side blinks. On one hand, I think the design of the indicator circuit is a bit goofy, but then again, I'm sure the designers never considered that people would be using clusters of LEDs to replace the original bulbs, and after all, it is a Guzzi. Your solution is very close to what I'm planning to do I was thinking of replacing the bulb with an LED, something along the lines of this (just need to make sure I find a proper ground in the instrument cluster):

Makes perfect sense. However, I'm using an electronic flasher designed specifically for LEDs, and its my understanding that this should eliminate the need for resistors... Again my suspicion is the dash light and (from what I can guess) its alternating ground path...