roberto

Keith, The vintage car chap did a MPI or Magnetic Particle Inspection which relies on magnetizing the part being inspected e.g. steel. MPI does not work at all on non-ferrous materials at all, including most stainless steels. A dye penetrant test is the most efficient way to detect cracks on non-ferrous materials and works by spraying a penetrating dye over the part, cleaning the dye off with a solvent and then spraying a "developer" over the part. The dye that got into any cracks or small holes then leaches out into the developer showing where the cracks are (it can detect flaws less than a micron wide!). There are also fluorescent dye-pen methods but the basics are the same. Dye-pen is used by any manufacturing company making safety-critical parts like pressure vessels and I would hope that includes some motorcycle parts (con-rods, pistons, crankshafts, etc). I'm sure I saw Harris doing dye-pen on their old Magnum I/II frame welds many years ago - a beautifully ground finish at every join! From your description it does sound like there were cracks in your flywheel, but a dye-pen test is needed to confirm it as you have done lots of miles on the Scura without failure (my flywheel disintegrated after only a few thousand miles). If you can confirm the indications are cracks then there may be more Guzzi single plate clutches that are slowly deteriorating and could fail at any time. 'later...

Keith, was there any sign of fatigue cracks on the original flywheel? A dye-pen inspection may show something but I guess if any cracks were there they would soon propagate into something serious. Good news is that it's four years since I fitted the Ram. It's still as noisy at idle as it ever was (apart from the first few hundred miles or so when it was silent???) but there's no sign of deterioration of any sort. 'later

New reason for oil light coming on.... UFI filter gasket completely cut-through in two places, 180deg apart!!!! Oil light flickered on at idle, and crept up to 3k as it warmed up. Done a few thousand miles and a trackday at Knockhill with no more problems so I guess the bearings survived the ordeal. Never seen anything like it before!!! I'll find the pictures sometime. 'later

On the Mk5 lemon the standard fitment is 100F & 120R. These are different wheels than the Mk3 (not sure of rim widths). OE pirellis were bad when worn - sometimes scarey! I ran Avons for years - OK BT45 was OK Even had a Yokohama 130 radial on the rear as an experiment - OK Eventually I tried Metz 33/99/Lazer - this was a relevation as I am confident with these until they are worn out - especially in the rain. Brought a new lease of life to the bike and wet weather riding is fun. Will run these as long as they are available.

I got Altbergs at their stand at the Scottish bike show a few years ago. The boots are hand finished and they will replace the sole for you if you ever wear them out. I've never had water in them and never had cold feet. Next Ingliston bike show in three weeks time!

# 222 deepest darkest Fife

David, perhaps you could take a trip over to the east with your bike (I'm only 45 mins from Glasgow) and we could do a direct comparison. My scura has most of the necessary mods (x-over, PC111, etc) and I am now quite happy with the handling and power (although there is no such thing as too much power ).

They will fail the bike if anything affects the steering, including badly routed cables, steering head bearings, or indeed a faulty damper. I reckon you should immediately remove the faulty steering damper because it could cause a strange reaction on hitting a bump, etc. Most adjustable steering dampers will be ok for the bike - it's a matter of how long they last. Get one asap - you don't want to find out you needed it

Joshua, I'm not sure if your problem is the solenoid. However, I got instructions to clean the solenoid from a previous thread. Search for "valeo" in the forum. For example: John's starter problems I followed the instructions from a BMW site: Valeo Starter Overhaul All went very well and I have not had any problems since. Roberto.

al, I have climbed to 8000/9000ft in the Alps and noticed no reduction in performance while my companions on various japanese motorcycles reported problems (I did cook the brakes going back down tho ) However, I did similar journeys on my 1988 Le Mans and I don't recall having any problem with that either Could be the big block doesn't mind running a bit rich.

Not at all - the hoses are not pressurised - they're just feeder lines.

Complete RAM clutch assembly £250 from Motorworks earlier this year. I noted that there were no friction washers on the crank bolts when I took the broken clutch off and none were supplied with the RAM kit, but they were pictured in the RAM assembly drawing, so I fitted new ones. The existing bolts did seem quite loose on disassembly but I didn't measure the release torque.

JRT, I should clarify, the swingarm bearings are a bit notchy - I'll be replacing them, and a few other cycle bits - and I really need an excuse to strip the bike down to look at the clutch! The engine and gearbox are going great - no need to go in there.

I fitted a new RAM clutch prior to doing a lap round France - as usual the clutch was silent for the first 200 miles before it started making the usual noise. I've done about 4,000 miles since the change with no problems - all high-rev/speed miles as normal. I'll probably fully inspect the clutch this winter as the bike's needing a complete stripdown now (bearings on the way out). For information - my flywheel didn't fully separate from the crankshaft - it was still held on by the large steel washer & bolts. It was able to float a few mm back though, causing the ring-gear bolts to clash with the gearbox ribs. This resulted in a metallic sound very different to the usual clutch noises - alerting me to the new problem. From the pictures of the latest failure, it looks like the clutch separated from the crankshaft - probably due to a circular crack as happenned on mine. I think the flywheel on Paul's Scura failed due to radial cracks allowing a section of the flywheel to separate. My flywheel also showed that type of crack but they had not propagated to the edge - thus there was very little damage to the engine/gearbox cases. Lucky or what?

I got this symptom appearing more and more often until I had to fix it. I knew it was the starter motor solenoid sticking after reading one of the threads on this forum. Cleaning the starter motor was pretty easy and I noticed that there was a bit of corrosion that could have affected the motor badly if I had not intervened. A further symptom was that the 15A starter fuse would occasionally blow when I pressed the button... So your problem could be that - a gummed-up starter solenoid...

Awwwww, come on... Change the plugs - they will deteriorate - and do it at the normal service intervals. The condition of the old plugs will give a good indication of any potential problems. Older guzzis require oil, filter and plug change every 1500 miles! I had an old Honda CB750 that would kill the plugs within 1000 miles - on inspection there was never anything visually wrong with them - they just wouldn't work any more. Go on, change the plugs. It's one less thing to worry about.

I've got a new RAM clutch to install - it's definitely different from the Guzzi-supplied one - even down to the fasteners. I checked the flywheel for any cracks or porosity and it was fine. I'll check it again after a few thousand miles.

Well I finally got round to checking the flywheel further. You'll see by the photo that it wasn't going to be long before the cracks propagated to the rim

This one's news to me! When I said my speedo doesn't work, it still "works" but seems to indicate my speed in kph! I disconnected it beacause I do have a tendency to exceed 140kph and I don't want the needle falling off This is why I'm never sure at what milage this or that happened

The flywheel has marks for TDC - I will match that up when I fit a replacement clutch, but I don't think the clutch/flywheel will provide balancing for the crank - each unit will be balanced independently. I think the marks are only for timing and I don't use them - I could be wrong and it occurs to me that I didn't check before I removed the flywheel Paul is right. I've had a complete gearbox replacement after the selector sleeve shattered and punched a hole in the casing. In fact, I've had the torque arm, rear drive box, front disks, fork seals, headlamp, clutch, tailpiece, inlet manifolds and gearbox replaced under warranty - and the speedo hasn't worked properly since the gearbox replacement - there's sure to be more, but I can't remember. I'm pretty persistant though - I'll eventually get it all sorted - the bike is worth it

The original clutch got replaced at about 7000 miles - the dealer did the work - as far as I know there was no damage other than exessive play between the splines and the friction plate. The flywheel bolts were ok - no cracking near them. Alignment is fine - it's not possible to misalign the clutch.

This is the single plate clutch used on the Scura, Tenni, Rosso Mandello, etc.

Paul, The centre is loose, but only able to rotate about 10 degrees. The material around this circular crack is powdering, and I reckon that it would have progressed so that eventually the centre could have rotated totally freely. If that had happenned, the clutch would have come off the crankshaft totally. I don't think any of the radial cracks have got to the edge yet, but I'll do a dye penetrant test to check this at the end of the week and post the result (I'm having to go to abroad on business this week). Question: Do any of the cracks on your flywheel go through the holes for the ring gear bolts or the pins? Oh, heres the gearbox damage - the silver gouge mark within the gearbox bell-housing..

Paul, Did the centre of your flywheel separate from the rest of the flywheel as well? If so, the first crack could be starting there and then the radial cracks afterwards due to the vibration. Note how two radial cracks have met resulting in the separate triangular piece. Also, the centre circular crack was the same diameter as the crankshaft end and shim - could this be significant?