Jacob Ezzell

I did a fantastic ride last week from Evergreen, CO up to Squaw pass and echo lake, and part of it was on dirt. My v-11 has dirt bars on it and handled really well, considering my street tires are nearly bald. Got me curious if anyone had blocky/knobby tires on their guzzi, making it into kind of an adventure guzzi like a BMW 1200GS

I just need to make sure I don't end up like poor herbie.

yeah no offense taken, I've thought the same thing more than once. like I said, did a lot on my other bikes, had the frames fully disassembled, carbs, exhaust, forks rebuilt myself, but never had to crack into the engine or transmission. First time for everything though, right?

I picked up a bottle of this stuff, is this what you are talking about? Anyone think it's a terrible idea for my guzzi? I once put some carb cleaner into my old vf500, and it ate up all the crud that was sealing the petcock together, made it leak like a sieve... I'm a little leery of additives now!

I can't visualize this. Is this the inside of the clutch housing, facing towards the front or back wheel? another dumb question, is it Engine->trans->clutch->wheel or engine->clutch->trans->wheel? I did a ton of work on my old VFR, electrical, body, and carbs, but never had to crack into the engine itself, and I'm not thrilled at the prospect of tearing into my guzzi. Can I get everything off with it up on one of the shop stands that holds it up by the bolt at the bottom of the porkchops, or will I need to pull those off too?

I can't find the cutout you speak of, but I stuck my camera way underneath to get a different angle and I think I see the seal you are saying may be spoiled. It does look like a seal is gone, but I don't see how the oil could get from here up to inside the clutch. :-/ Seems like it would be working against gravity. Are you saying that the piece I called the "window" in my previous post is the "shaft the pawl spring and selector set on?" And that I can seal it up with a dime and some super strength epoxy?

Look for oil leaks either from the engine crankshaft or the gearbox drive shaft. This will show as drops at the bottom of the bell housing as my learned colleague has indicated. If it's not that, plates are very worn, or springs are weak, probably the former. Either way you will have to split engine and gearbox to find out - about 2 hours work with the swinging arm out. Cheers Guzz Based on the suggestions to start looking for leaks, I started hunting, and may have found something. I apologize I'm sure my descriptions are off. On the left side of the bike, below the starter cover, and above where the oil pan split and all those bolts is some oil that looks like its very slowly leaking from between the engine shell and the transmission. it's a little forward of where the transmission lever goes into the transmission. There's a significant amount of oil and crud on what I think is a window into the transmission, and some around the bolt that goes forward into the engine case. High res pics are hosted at the following link: -->Picasa Album click here

After breaking out my v11 sport for the first time this spring and being thrilled that it all seemed to be great after its long winter's nap, I'm pretty sure I was feeling the clutch slipping. I'd be heading off from a stoplight and feel like the engine was racing just a little faster than I was actually accelerating. So while doing a steady 30ish mph, I gunned the engine in 3rd gear, and sure enough the tach revved high without much actual acceleration. Bugger. It's a 2000 v11 sport with a little over 30K miles. I've only had it about 18 months, the PO's did the transmission recall work and had the flywheel "lightened and balanced." It's had at least 23000 miles on it since that work was done. So where should I start poking around? I don't see any obvious leaks but I read in some of the other slipping clutch threads that it might not take much. How easy is it to bleed the clutch? I guess I'm asking what can I do without having to pull the rear wheel and subframe? I read about some people cleaning the clutch plates in place with brake cleaner, but couldn't find a good description or pics of how to do that.

My pretty new-to-me 2000 V-11 Sport has developed a habit of chugging to a halt at idle, like when sitting at a stoplight. Not all the time, I feel like it's more likely to happen when hot, but not always. Sometime soon I'm going to pull the plugs and check them out, maybe replace them just for kicks, but if they are fouled then something else must be wrong. I have a powercommander but I don't know how it's mapped. Should I just bite the bullet and take it to the local guzzi/ducati/triumph shop and have it tuned up? It came to me from a much lower elevation, so I'm not sure if that's what made the difference.

Looking to replace my lamp holder from the back of my veglia speedo. I could use one from either a speedo or tach from anything similar to a 2000 v11 sport. Anyone have old broken bits they were holding on to for just such an occasion?

3rd owner I think. I could certainly fix it with epoxy, would just need to fab the little disk I lost and I'm not sure I'd ever get the spacing right.

The bulb holder in my speedo is broken, hoping someone has an old busted speedo or tach they can spare the bulb holder out of. Jacob

Yargh... I must have more faith in the interwebs. A couple more rotations and it came loose, and I even managed to put it back together. So my speedo lamp holder had fallen apart. the back of the holder is a plastic base press-fit and lightly glued to the metal holder, looks like vibration and glue failure caused it to come apart. maybe that's what grounded and blew the fuse, I hope. Of course I'm missing a thin cardboard disk that is held in place by the spring inside there, basically the bulb holder base is missing a key piece. Can't find it on the ground anywhere, so my guess is that its somewhere on a road in Denver. If anyone finds it shoot me a message. I emailed MPH cycles and MG Cycles hoping they can order a replacement part for me. If not, I guess I'll be trying to refab the disk/spring assembly in the bulb holder.

After several clockwise rotations, nothing seems to be happening. Can anyone confirm this? These are the Veglia instruments. I found other forum posts referencing this reverse-threaded odometer knob, but it doesn't seem to be working.

So I'm an idiot, it was the fuse. Using the multimeter instead of a visual inspection figured that out pretty quick. Now i only wish I knew _why_ the fuse blew. That always makes me worry. Still need to get the dash apart to reattach the light bulb in there. once I replaced the fuse, the spedo illuminator light is the only thing not lit, so that must be what the loose wire is in there I can see. Just can't figure out how to get the dash apart!

Tonight I finally had a chance to work on this. I checked the city light with my multimeter, it's good. I tried to check out the instrument bulbs, but I can't get the dash apart. I got the 4 acorn nuts off, but it seems like I'd have to remove the odometer reset knob, and I can't figure out how to do that without forcing something. Something is loose though, Inside the spedometer. I don't know if you can see in this pic, but there is a yellow wire to a spade connector that seems like maybe its the backside of a light bulb holder. Anway, it was loose inside there, along with a spring. I'd like to figure out what that is all about, doesn't look right, but I cant figure out how to get the dash apart. also seems like I'm missing something off the back of the dash, shouldn't something be in the middle, covering that hole I can see wires through? I checked out the wiring diagram that Kiwi_Roy linked to, and since that whole circut is wired in parallel, I can't see how any one of these bulbs being out would knock out the whole circuit, so I'll start hunting around fuse with my multimeter and see what I can see.

Thanks docc ill check that out when I get home. Are all those bulbs wired up in series so if ones out, they all go?

Got on to ride to work today and discovered my instrument dash lights (not the idiot lights like oil, turn signals, just the tach and speedo) and the tail lights (running light, not brake light) were out. Same thing used to happen on my old honda when I'd get a short and blow a fuse, so after work I checked all the fuses. All good. Checked the tail light. It's good. everything else was fine, the bike started and ran well, just no dash or tail lights. From reading posts, this doesn't sound like an isolated problem from a relay, and the PO replaced them all anyway. Is it easy to pull the dash illuminator lights? How do I get to them? This is a 2000 v11 sport with a fly screen. Green.

yeah I'll try all sorts of things before I resort to pulling the clutch. The PO did say they had addressed the recalls. Tonight when I rode in, and yesterday when I went home, I had no troubles with it. I read through the threads you all linked to, and took to heart one post about how the transmission really has a lot of play in it, and you can't slam it around like a sport bike and expect it to behave. I've been very methodical about my shifting and it seems to like that better. So maybe some of it really is rider style. My old honda tranny had spoiled me.

Thanks for the feedback pierre. I was looking at the striker since it has the voltmeter, that's really what I was wanting to add. My tach is working (for now) so I don't need that function. What I'm thinking of doing is making a new aluminum frame to hold the trailtech speedo box and have a round cutout for my stock tach. Then I could mount the stock idiot lights in a stock-ish position, could look pretty trick. What is the low range for the temp sensor? I thought I might use it as an air temp sensor if it doesn't work for the engine temp.

Sorry guys, good point: 2000 V11 Sport. Profile hadn't been updated post-purchase. Thanks for the links. I have trouble finding stuff with search. "False Neutral" searches for "false" -or- "neutral" not -and-. Makes it tough. I ordered some replacement redline shockproof heavy, so I can venture into the bike's neather regions. Sounds like I should bleed the clutch too, thanks for the links about that. I'm at about 30K miles on this clutch i think, per the previous owner. Would it be a suprise for it to be worn out by now? I think it slipped as I was riding to work tonight. Maybe it was a one-time thing, but who knows. I'll try bleeding before I pay to have the clutch replaced for sure.

So the first few times I took out my v11 sport I felt like I got a few bad shifts, but chalked it up to getting used to a new transmission. Now though, its happening a little more frequently, and I've been able to narrow down the symptoms. Shifting from N->1, and 1->2 usually work just fine. 2->3 is also 98% good. 3->4 though is sketchy. I often get a false neutral, and it seems I've "overshot" 4th gear. If I toe down the shifter back towards 4 it will often pop right in, though not always. I can tell by the tach that I'm in 4th. I talked to the previous owner about it, and he said: So I may tackle this, check in there and see if anything looks bad. Anyone have pics of what it looks like under there? Or where I might find the case magnet he's talking about? I have a replacement return spring if the old one looks like a mess. Any other parts I might order before I pull it apart?

Thanks for the pic Docc, makes perfect sense now. I'll try to at least get them loose, and I'll keep an eye out on ebay for some extenders. Or I could put both sets of mirrors on, kind of the Richard Hammond in Saigon look.

I removed the speedo cable from the dash end and it it looks like maybe the receiver in the dash for the square cable is a bit worn. Maybe I could pack it with jb weld or epoxy to firm up the connection? What's the best way to grease the speedo cable? I hope I don't have to replace the 60 degree drive gears, mgcycles lists the transmission side bit at $140. For less than that one piece I could get a whole new digital speedo.

So which of the nuts is the locking nut? Which should I try to rotate? The one closer to the mirror or the one away from the mirror? Instinct tells me the one away from the mirror, but instinct has led me to breaking many bits.