[rear wheel woes]

Well, that was much ado about nothing. I slogged through all 10 pages of this, expecting to make a spacer for a friend's V11.

I *cleaned up the counterbores* in the wheel, cleaned the spacer, got out my depth micrometers, and had at it. If I were designing this part, I would specify the spacer to be the same length as the bottom of the two counterbores with a tolerance of plus .005", minus .000.

His was plus .003". Perfect. Way to go Guzzi.

So, why did his fail? Maybe a cheap OEM bearing? Dunno. Maybe the crud in the bottom of the counterbores keeping the outer races from fully seating? Could be. I officially quit worrying about this..

[V11 Vapor Lock or Something Worse?]

FWIW & IIRC, we had a thread here a year ago or so, where a non-working electrical petcock was confirmed being sucked open by the fuel pump. Surely not without ill effects, but it ran.

 

Or was it a theory that was later abandoned? I'm not 100% sure. I'll try searching for it later.

 

Edit: It was ALdad and Velf2003, in this thread.

 

yep, they'll do that. I haven't tried this for insulation, but I'll bet it will work. Used on aircraft for years.. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/appages/stratofs.php

[rod knock? At 7800 miles?]

Well, I'm happy to report that - as most of you have surmised - I think I was pretty much full of crap re: my diagnosis. I've been adequately wigged out about this that I left work early today (it was actually a spring-like day here in upstate NY), got the baby out of the garage, started her up and let it get warmed up. Sure enough, outside the echo chamber (corner of my garage), the noise wasn't nearly as offensive. And, as Greg suggested - pull in the clutch, and the knocking went away - or at least was transformed into some other batch of interesting noises which I'm gathering are "normal".

 

Then I went out and romped around for a while on it. What a delight. It was great to run it around - what a wonderful mix of v-twin loveliness and modern chassis and braking. Anyway, after that I spent a little more time critically listening. I guess the noise really is just the gearbox after all. There's nothing else to suggest it's anything but - no noise under load, no other signs of anything aberrant. I've rarely been so happy to be so wrong. I came in and celebrated with a quick 4 beers.

 

I will say, this bike does sound different than my old SP1000. That doesn't make the same noises which I guess was what started me flipping out.

 

Anyway, I do appreciate all the inputs and apologize for what appears to be wasted bandwidth. It certainly wasn't to me. You guys just have to understand, this is my dream bike - and I just want it to be perfect.

 

But for now, I think all is right with the world...

Steve

 

 

[rod knock? At 7800 miles?]

I agree, that's probably the best you can do. Tear it down. Completely. Then, as long as you have all the parts and bits laying around or stuffed in cans and boxes, they at least won't wear further. That's good and common standard advice, at least here.

 

Alternatively you could just use the bike for what you've bought it: ride it. But that's only my opinion, of course.

 

Anyway, if you go to the internet, to a public and more or less anonymous forum and really seek for advice - then you'll get what you deserve: tear it down!

 

Hubert

 

I wouldn't get too excited about this until you have a chance to get the engine warmed up. To the unitiated, Guzzis make a lot of noise when cold. It takes a while for the (long) pushrods to warm up and close the gap, the dry clutch sounds strange until lyou get used to it.

Main bearings will sound like a thump on initial startup. Rod bearings normally rattle just as the engine is unloaded. From what you've said it doesn't sound like either.

Don't worry, be happy.

[Idle and or Stalling Issue]

Bob, this tends to be very intermittent, as you noted. You can easily raise the idle as high as you want by adjusting the throttle stop allen screw, but 1200 RPM is about as high as you want or need. If it runs well and pulls smoothly up thru the rev range, it's highly doubtful you could have much of any clogging at an injector. Couldn't hurt to run some cleaner thru, but more'n likely won't help your intermittent idle snuff either. I like Techron, but that's just me.

 

We went through this on the Centauro several years ago. The idle stall happens when the bike is just slightly lean at idle. Probably adjusting the TPS and balancing the throttle bodies are all that is needed. As mentioned above, idle speed should be 1200 rpm.