guzzi323

Mine is the same. Under just the right conditions of very slight acceleration on level ground it'll make a bit of rattling noise. I think we're basicaly creating the same no-load situation on the clutch that exists in neutral. I wouldn't worry about it. The clutch dragging? I don't know about that. Mine's never had that problem. John Koester

Now as much as I love my Guzzi's I have to disagree with some of you fine gentlemen. My bike has a truly awful detonation problem. It shouldn't be this way. I think because the problem seems to vary a bit across the line some people don't realise how bad the detonation can be. John Koester

This is truly great. I've known Tony for something like 15 years and he IS the nicest guy around. Tony, if you need anything to help you get her going again, just give me a call. John Koester

In one of the other oil consumption related threads, Pete Roper speculated that our disappearing oil might be going into the airbox through the spine vent. Perhaps we should try venting into a catch bottle instead of the airbox. Then we'd know if our oil was getting burned up through this route. On my bike, usually by 4k miles on an oil change I have to top it off with 1/2-3/4 quarts of oil. It's not leaking out so It's got to be burning up. Next time I've got the tank off, I think I'll rig up a catch bottle and we'll see how efficient these air/oil separators are. johnk

I don't remember how much I paid, but I found the Ohlins cap tool in an Aprillia service tools catalog at my local Aprillia shop. I think it was around $45.00 USD though I don't remember all that clearly and I know I got a 'beer buddy of the parts guy' discount. About my clutch, I now believe that something was wrong on assembly when I replaced it the first time. I think it wasn't completely engaging when the lever was released. There must have been something hanging up, I don't know what it was but I believe it was my doing. As a separate issue though, I measured the slave cylinder actuation after replacing the clutch and found that the slave cylinder doesn't appear to have enough travel to allow the clutch plate to wear completely. I don't remember the numbers right now but once the friction plate has worn to something like a third of it's useable thickness, the slave cylinder has 'bottomed out'. I made a spacer out of thin aluminum stock (something like .020' or .030" thickness) and spaced it off the back of the tranny. I don't remember how many miles were on it at that point, but it's been a number of months and everything seems OK. If this doesn't make any sense, email me. I fear we have digressed a wee bit from the oroginal post. Oh, yeah, one more thing. I thought the pdf I downloaded from Ohlins said to use the green grease on the seals and the red grease on somthing else inside the forks (maybe cartidge internals??) If I have time later I'll check it out and get back to you. johnk

I just replaced my seal a week ago for the fourth time at 27K. I guess I should feel lucky I'm getting so many miles out of them. This time I only replaced the leaking one since I'm going broke buying Ohlins seals and oil. The nice thing is we know our fork internals are nice and clean with these regular oil changes. Baldini, is that extended lip seal an Ohlins part or simply a correctly sized aftermarket seal? Last time the seals went out I ordered up a few extra seals and bottles of oil. Once those are gone I'm going to experiment with aftermarket stuff. Are you using official Ohlins green fork seal grease? I ordered some the last time the seals went hoping it would be the answer to the problem. I may have helped a bit, but it certainly didn't solve the problem. At least they're easy to work on, eh? johnk

As far as I can tell, this is normal for roads where you dfrive on the left hand side. A) The road is crowned in the middle so for left turns it's off camber (and more prone to slidding and tire wear) and for right turns it's on camber (less sliding and wear.) Left turns you have better visibility through the turn so you might tend to go a little faster through the turn. The opposite is true for rioght hand turns. I always wear the left side a a front tire more than the right on every bike I've owned. johnk

I missed that thread the first time around. Obviously the picture is refrerring to the motorcycle version of a trunk monkey. I guess they aren't available as an option.. http://www.trunkmonkey.com/ johnk

If you scroll down a little here http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...opic=2887&st=15 you can see my huge monokeys on my bike. To get them as far in as possible, I trimmed the tailpiece. Something which is probably not for everybody. Also, I mounted them farther forward than some people might. Now a passenger can't get their feet on the pegs with bags on. johnk

It's because that's the year I decided to buy my first new bike after 21 years of riding. My apologies to you all for the troubles. But I still love the damn thing for no rational reason whatsoever. johnk

I get a clicking noise under braking from the rear. It made me crazy trying to figure it out. I couldn't reproduce it on the workstand. After checking everything I could think of I've decided it's probably the rear caliper mounting plate 'jiggling' on the tab which bolts to the swingarm. With everything tightened down, there's a little slop between the surfaces which makes the same kind of sound I hear when braking with the rear brake. Some day I will temporarily put a shim in there to remove the slop. Then I'll know for sure. Mine's been doing this for at least 10k miles and nothing's blown up so I think it's not a big deal. Again, mine only makes the noise when the rear brake is applied. If yours is doing it all the time I'd first make sure the brake isn't dragging (something known to happen) and go from there. My johnk

Not to discount that some particles will get through the K&N filter (or any filter for that matter) but I've got 165k miles on my r65 and it just keeps on going. It's had a K&N since sometime in the late 80's. To be fair, I rebuilt the heads because of oil consumption around 105k and put in fresh rings just because I was in there. Everything but the guides and seats looked great. Of course, your results may vary. johnk

Tease.

I'm putting in the RAM bronze replacement clutch. Both are made by Surflex and appear identical. I thought about replacing it with a fiber plate but decided to stick with bronze and check out my theory on the slave cylinder. If it goes out again in an unreasonably short time, I'll be putting in the fiber plate. At least I am getting good at this whole tranny pulling business. johnk

This affirms my suspicion about my quickly wearing clutch. I'm becoming more convinced that the combined length of the clutch pushrod, bearing and such are just a wee bit too long. Keeping my my clutch slightly disengaged. I've ordered my replacement clucth and upon assembly I'm going to install everything and work the clutch a few times. Then I'll pull the slave cylinder and check to see how far from fully compressed the piston is in the housing. I suspecty there will be very little room for the piston to receed as the clutch wears. If so I'll space the slave cylinder off the back of the tranny case. Emry, I saw that you posted on my previous thread about the loose flywheel bolts. Glad you caught it in time. Maybe we have an answer to the exploding clutch mystery! I know I'll sleep better. johnk

Well the plate is gone. In less than 2 thousand miles since I replaced it. :!: The mating surface in the ring gear looks practically perfect and the pressure plate looks very good but not quite as nice. So I guess I'm looking at another friction plate and some machining. When new the plate was .240" thick and it's now about .170". It's used about half the available friction material however. I also noticed while I was pulling everything apart that the piston in the slave cylinder was pushed as far into the slave cylinder casting as it could go. It seems as though the last half of the clutch material is unusable because when the clutch wears to the point it's at now the clutch actuator won't allow it to engage fully. I can't believe the plate wore out so quickly. Almost all the miles have been during my 15 mile commute to work. I got 22K out of the first plate and it hadn't even started slipping yet (though it was only about .005" thicker that the one I just took out.) At this point I think I'm going to get a fiber clutch plate and see if I can get more life out of it. If it's got the same thicknesses as the one I took out I might space the slave cylinder back .050" or so to see if I can get more life out of it.

Hi, My Scura's clutch started slipping quite suddenly. One night it was fine, the next morning it was very easy to get it to start slipping. The last time it worked, I rode in a very heavy downpour for about 30 mintues but I can't imagine that having anything to do with it. The friction plate is less than 2k miles old and peeking in the timing plug hole it all looks correct. It feels like the clutch is out of adjustment (i.e. it grabs at the very end of the lever travel) but seeing as it's hydraulic I'm at a loss. I tried bleeding the system until nice fresh fluid was coming out the slave cylinder but it's still the same. I've also backed out the adjuster screw on the lever itself to be certain the master cylinder piston had play. My next move is to remove the slave cylinder and check that it can retract freely but I believe that involves removing the swingarm and probably the rear of the frame as well. If anybody's got somthing else to check before I rip it all apart, I'd love to hear it. Thanks, johnk

Now I don't want to start any trouble, but if you haven't seen any complaints about totally stock Guzzi's having running problems, you're just not paying attention. My (at the time totally stock) Scura has detonated horribly since it had a few thousand miles on it. Dealer servicing didn't do anything. The reason I put a Power Commander on it was to be able to richen the mixture up a bit to help. I know either Cliff's ECU or a Tune boy will allow me to change the timing, but I'm not quite ready to go there yet. If I were to, I'd buy Cliff's ECU simply because it's a more open setup. I'm not going to pay $300 to tuneboy software that's locked to one ECU. I don't like software locked to hardware from Miscrosoft or anybody else. My 2 cents (not that anybody asked..) johnk

No it does not. It's a simple off/on valve. johnk

It's been 2 or 3 thousand miles since my last seal change. So far so good. I am concerned that since these are 'performance' parts Ohlins could say that 5-10 K miles would be considered normal and that you should be replacing the seals by then anyway for 'optimum performance' or some malarky like that. If I were racing, sure, but not for commuting across the bay bridge. I know my Works Performance shocks blow their seals every 15K miles or so. Works says they should be rebuilt every year or two. They charge a couple hundred dollars for this rebuilding and don't even replace they mounting bushings.... Best of luck to you Baldini. johnk

Did your shock blow the line? Mine blew at the big banjo bolt going into the reservior. This was not long after the shop fixed my broken shifter spring so I figured when they were doing that they might have inadvertently strained the hose. It was replaced under warranty.

My understanding is that it's thicker than both. Our Scura's have the early version of ther RAM flywheel. I thought about ordering up a complete assembly but this is not the best time for me to be throwing wads of cash on my machine so I tell myself I'll buy the complete assembly 'next time'. Hopefully I won't be finding myself doing this.. johnk

When I was ordering my replacement friction plate and flywheel bolts from MG cycle, he explained that with the newer RAM clutch assemblies they've received the flywheels are thicker at the hub where they bolt to the crank. He also said the bolts (allen bolts with the newer ones) are recessed into this thicker hub. johnk

That's what mine had when I took it apart. johnk

Well the noise sounded a bit 'heavy' to be the friction plate but at this point there's no way to know. As far as the flywheel is concerned there were no marks or signs of any problem at all. That's with over 22k miles on it. I hope that's the last of my major problems until things legitimately wear out. johnk