Kiwi_Roy

The solenoid in the starter has two coils a high current one I call the pull in coil that will draw 40 Amps A low current one I call the hold in coil that draws about 10 Amps If the resistance through the ignition switch is too high the solenoid will not draw enough current and therefore not be strong enough to engage the motor pinion with the ring gear all you will hear is a quiet click. For example the switch might measure 0.5 Ohms so the coils pull 24 Amps, this still might not be quite enough to engage the gears (it's only half as strong as it should be) but too much for the fuse which will pop after a few seconds. As soon as the solenoid can close the main contacts the current through the Pull in coil drops to zero. The early VII (200, 2001) start relays were not wired through the ignition switch, they never had a problem engaging and cranking the starter but almost every other modern Guzzi is cursed. I think the VIIs switched over in late 2002 to run through the ignition switch. If you clean the switch it will improve for a while but the long term solution is to power the start relay direct from the battery through a fuse, unfortunately this means you also have to make other arrangements for the headlight relay if you want to turn it off while cranking, the easy way is leave it on. If your bike is having trouble cranking or blowing fuses try running a #18 hot wire from the solenoid spade connector to touch on battery positive CAUTION make sure it's out of gear and pull the clutch for good measure, I don't want to be accused of launching your bike. This will prove that the battery and starter are up to the task. It may seem weird but the more current the solenoid draws the less stress is placed on the fuse, this is because it accomplishes the task much quicker (more current but for much less time), the solenoid on the new to me 07 Griso now operates 3 x as fast as it did before, all I did was beef up the solenoid wire.

Docc said "So it can be said that when the battery is fully charged the charging Voltage is the same but the regulator is allowing less current through" Not exactly, it wont let anything through until the Voltage drops below ~ 13.8, then it puts maximum current through again until it goes above 13.8 It has no way of limiting the current. Think of a 50 gallon drum with a 1" hole in the bottom and you are topping it up with a fire hose and the valve is either fully closed or 100% open.

When the regulator turns On the current flows for one complete half cycle, it is only limited to what the alternator can put out. I have wondered if this is what causes the 30 Amp fuse holder to fail. Most other bikes use a shunt regulator that shorts out the alternator thus removing the supply.

Sorry I can't post the schematic from here. If anyone has it available this is how I understand the operation of the light. (I have the zenner diodes drawn backwards, Z2 just stops the Voltage on Q3 from going too high or low and damaging the transistor) Q3 turns on the light determined by the Voltage on the 0.5 microfarad capacitor, when it's positive the light turns On. if it's negative or zero it will turn Off. The Voltage reference from the headlight circuit tries to charge the capacitor in the positive direction through the 390k resistor and the diodes D6/D7 try to drive it negative through the 220k to turn the light Off. I may be wrong but if you look at the curves I show on the RH side the top one shows a series of half wave pulses but below it shows another curve with one pulse missing. This missing pulse is when the battery is up to setpoint. the SCR doesn't fire so this means the alternator is not grounded and the potential goes strongly negative, perhaps 40 - 60 Volts discharging the 0.5 capacitor and turning the light Off. At idle the regulator is only skipping the odd pulse because the alternator output is much lower, it's still charging most of the time. There are 14 coils in the alternator so at idle it's putting out 14 x 1000 RPM or 233 Hz IMHO the light is pretty useless, if you blow a headlight fuse you loose power on the charge lamp so of course it will be off. With after market headlight relays you lose the Voltage drop through the headl9ight circuit so it stands to reason the battery won't charge as high, about 0.6 Volts. The bulb is really a separate function from the regulator, it can fail without effecting charging.

Marty, I believe your 2003 will be wired differently from Cash1000s 2001 Instead of the headlight current flowing through two relays in series it will have the Start relay N/C contact 87a feeding the coil of the headlight relay not the 30 contact (100 milliamps vs 4-5 Amps) The Start relay 30 contact will be fed from the ignition switch rather than direct from the battery through a fuse. The easy way to confirm which you have is pullout the start relay and see if the 30 contact is alive with the key Off. Each way has it's merits, the 2001 will never suffer from Startus Interuptus but charging is more flakey unless you have an after market direct connect regulator. The 2003 will eventually suffer from SI through too much Voltage drop. The starter solenoid would like to inrush 40 Amps or more, the circuit resistance needs to be Excessive resistance is what causes almost all modern Guzzis to fail to crank.

Sorry, if someone wants to tidy this entry up , send me a PM and I will delete this post later Normally you are looking at $200 for these simple sensors. $10 is about right for a magnet with a coil wrapped around it IMHO Antmanbee gave me another source http://www.miparts.com/detail/rpm-sensor-engine-management_15598#.WotM7qinGUm

No there is lots of spare voltage to overcome resistance in the red wire, the ground on the other hand needs to be low resistance because it’s part of the Voltage reference. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I never tried to seal the rear of my gauges on a naked VII, it got ridden in the wet many times, I think Docc is right it's better to let them breath the electronics should be warm enough to prevent condensation. I recommend going with the pulse input speedo, save a few bucks and eliminate that pesky antenna. You have that shaft spinning around in the gearbox anyway, why not make use of it, a magnet and a reed switch is all you need to make a sensor. You do have to calibrate it but that is very easy.

He said it has Roller tappets, way back otherwise Pete would have jumped on it for sure. Congratulations on the new bike, like sex on wheels I reckon I just recently bought one of the 2 valve Grisos, I'm really happy with that. You will be told to grease all the bearings and splines in the back end, there are about 5 needle roller bearings with very little grease from the factory, just what was in the wrapper, It's a breeze to do after the VIIs. A length of 1/2" pipe through the mystery hole and two shop stands to support it while you disassemble the rear end or I built a stand out of lumber that lifts the back end off the ground without a jack.

There are several on here with those. Too bad you didn’t ask first there's a thread on here. They are nice gauges and a great company to deal with.

As to the Voltage reference just take a 6 ft length of 18 gauge and put a FM bullet on the end, plug the black wire into that, the white wire can connect onto the male pin of the M/FM loom connection, now you can move the reference around to various spots. Just be aware if you leave it off the battery will go flat. the engine will stop and won't have enough power to re-start, don't ask me how I know this. I think the drain on the reference is about 12 milliamps. I have wired it directly to the battery to save time when charging quit on a trip, as long as you remember to disconnect it when stopped it's ok. I'm not a fan for adding relays but If you don't have a sidestand switch perhaps use that relay to connect it direct to the battery. The ECU relay would be another with low Voltage drop, not the one that drives the pump. The tail-light circuit is on a separate fuse also. Finally if you want to increase the output Voltage you can calculate the resistance to add in series with the black wire Voltage / 0.012 Ohms e.g. 0.5 Volts / 0.012 = 41 Ohms Really your headlight relay should now be much closer to battery Voltage, you said you have separate H/L relays. I believe if you can solve the flakey reference the regulator should last the bike out. Good Luck

I second the counterweight falling off, it happened to mine as well.

For $300 you can get a new pair of modern Speedhut gauges doing away with the bothersome cable drive, just saying.

I wonder what sort of ECU the EV had, possibly the large P8 The signal level should be compatible but it might have a different No of pulses per revolution and be out by a factor of 2 Is there any way you can try it first?

I have a later version of the schematic, I tested it on the bench. I should point out what I call Battery Voltage on the table is actually the Voltage at the black wire. I suspect Euromotor electrics are quoting the final Voltage, setting + drop (Voltage at Black wire + Voltage drop)

The regulators I have pulled apart seem to be set for 13.8 Volts. Add to that about half a Volt drop through the headlight relay brings it up to ~14.3. If you remove the current through the headlight relay the Voltage drop will also be less and the battery Voltage will drop accordingly. You can measure the Voltage drop if you put your meter from battery Positive to the female connector where the regulator black wire plugs in (with Key On) I used to see anything from 0,5 to 1 Volt on my VII Sport, and it would drop down a bit if I wiggled the headlight relay, The earlier 2001 was particularly bad because it went through the NC start relay as well. I eventually gave up on that flakey reference and went for an after market direct connect regulator. Don't get me wrong I like the Ducati Energia it's so simple, it just suffers from Luigi's poor reference. I always meant to try a wire from the ECU relay to the black wire. That relay is lightly loaded so it should regulate about 13.8 Volts. To increase the Voltage back up all you have to do is add resistance in series with the black wire, about 200 Ohms or a small diode will give you 0.6V

Yes they will just, take the idiot bulb out or fix it. I think that's the same flasher I have on my Eldorado

One thing with LED bulbs in your flashers, if you have just a single idiot light in the dash you might will get crosstalk from one side to the other. The original lamps drew so much current the idiot light had no effect but LEDs draw so little the small bulb will cause the other side to light up. Very easy fixed with a couple of small diodes. diodes LH Flashers --------------->|------| lamp |--------(X)----> chassis RH Flashers --------------->|------| Now the signal can only get half way before it's blocked by the diode. If you want to replace the lamps behind the idiot lights the part No to use is 194-A-90, 194-B-90, 194-R-90, 194-G-90 Letter designates the colour which has to match the bezzel Glue the lamps into the surround Throw away those old rubber lamp-holders, they can cause a short and solder the wires right to the lamp, The lamp sockets Superbright sell don't work well in the confined space. Keep one of the original lamps to solder in parallel with the low fuel light PM me if you have a question

https://www.superbrightleds.com/vehicle

2 lamps for around $30 Patience, I'll get it right in a minute, for some reason copy/paste doesn't work on this computer Damm typo there somewhere Just google ZG-M11M-H4 Yellow bulb with the fan inside the reflector I put one in my Griso, had to leave out the fancy red trim otherwise a straight swap. I'm not sure if I mentioned a side benefit of LEDs Because they operate on just 9 Volts thereabouts all the way up to 30 or more they compensate for that weak old wiring and give full brightness for example if you only get 75% (9 Volts) to the LED it will still operate at 100% brightness.

Thanks for the response, glad you got the old girl running. It would be easy to install the flywheel in the wrong spot (6 choices), hell I was putting my Ambo back together in my tiny locker space, stood back to admire my work and burst out laughing, I put the heads on backwards.

Yes we are all waiting I was reading back through the thread, I cannot believe it took so long. Question If the engine has been apart how do we know the flywheel timing marks are in the right place? Why don't people just watch for valves rocking at TDC, thats a foolproof way of checking the valve timing? Did anyone ever tell him what the "Go Winkie light is? A light on the fuel pump would tell us that the timing sensor is working.

I haven't read every post on this thread but one advantage of LEDs is they have an onboard regulator set to about 9 Volts so if your wiring is a bit wimpy the lamp just allows for that. I'm trying to find the lamp I used in my Griso, the fan is inside the reflector below the light source, they were cheap on fleabay like $30 a pair.

As I said just down the road. Sent from my shoe phone!

It's a pity Knight Design don't have another way of indexing their parts, I'm sure they make something that could be repurposed. The OEM brake lever was nothing to write home about, I was lucky to get a Joe Kenny for mine. Since you are just down the road, do they have a storefront?