Lucky Phil

Very good, look forward to the pictures. Ciao

Yep, they look perfect. Ciao

Ok whats happened here is due to the gasket not making contact at all the oil hasnt been able to push open the filter reverse flow rubber diaphram and due to the oil flow being from the outer to inner of the filter it would remain empty. Ciao

Yes it could also have another one on the other side of the ball but I didn't have one in my oring box. I use the same on my Ducati1000ss which has a horizontally mounted Ohlins steering damper which due to the changing angles during steering needs to rotate radially as well. Due to the horizontal fitment at straight ahead it can flop about so I fit an oring on both sides of the ball which holds it firm but also allows it to compress the orings a little as it moves radially maintaining function. Its all of course totally optional but if you can limit the unnecessary movement the bearing life will be improved. Ciao

This float is present on the 2 gearboxes I have, the one in service and my good spare. This output drive shaft float wont have any effect on the shifting as its simply a spur gear driven shaft with a shock absorbing coupling. Ciao

So, if I understand correctly, those spacers are free to turn? Strange.. They shouldnt rotate Chuck. I've had a Rossopuro arm on my bike for years and when I installed it I shimmed the spacers to the bearing inner ball so when the bolt was torqued up it wasnt trying to flex the two brackets together. clearly flexing of the cast brackets isn't desireable but as we know you need to "fettle" a Guzzi. Even aftermarket specific stuff needs "fitting". I also fitted an Oring of just the right size to one side of the ball that bears on the spacer to put a little resistance on the radial rotation of the arm, just to stop the tendence for it to rock around when there's no need to. I'll get a picture when I get a chance. Ok so working from L to R ( top to bottom) is the bracket the spacer then a thin steel shim to eliminate the squeeze,then the inner ball then on the other side the ball again with an oring that sits on the spherical face of the ball to control rod radial rotation a little and cushion the bearing if it does rotate around to its limit then the spacer and the mount bracket. My advice to anyone that needs a new arm is to buy yourself a Rossopuro one or go to the local machine shop with a piece of say 18mm ally rod and get them to chuck it up drill and thread each end for male rod end bearings go and buy youself a pair and fit it up. The machining process will take about 15 minutes, job done. Ciao

Sometimes the system just gets an air lock and wont prime. As a last resort if you're too worried about 15 or 20 seconds of light on before you shut it down you can pull the front cover off the engine take the oil pump drive gear off and use a piece of rubber FI hose on the pump shaft and a battery drill to spin the pump and prime the system. Lot of work though. Ciao

Received my new gearbox OEM seals the other day and they are apart from looking like they've been on a dusyt shelf for 50 years identical to Scuds in design. Now to get some time to remove the generic one and install the oem. Hopefully to last longer than a couple of thousand K's. Ciao

Nothing needs to have "been through the engine" to cause an issue, it may have been oil starvation. Having said that the big end shells do look to have some signs of particle contamination in them, maybe from poor assembly. A 25-50mm micrometer to measure the crank pin is cheap as chips, get one off ebay and measure up the pin. Plastigauge is also cheap as chips and an acceptable way to measure big end clearance without the need for a set bore gauges, which are also fairly cheap BTW. Also look at the internal faces of the oil pump housing where the gear teeth tips run for grooving and scoring. If the pump bearings are really bad its probably worn the housing as well. How deep is that radial groove in the front cam journal in line with the oil gallery? That journal isnt terribley critical clearance wise. Ciao

No this isnt the case, it just dumps back into the bottom of the tank. The head pressure even with a full tank would be very small. From memory 1 ft of water is around 0.4psi and fuel has a lower SG than water. Ciao

This MAY work but will add extra plumbing and complexity to an already messy area of the bike. So a balance pipe between the sides of the tank with the return plummed into it and some sort of mount arrangement for the regulator. Also you will be recirculating a proportion of heated fuel which may or may not be a problem in hot climates in traffic. Early Ducati 851's suffered from vapourisation issues in hot traffic until they revised the return plumbing layout. The issue is not whether it can be done its about doing it in an elegant way. Having plumbing running everwhere with additional possible external leakage points is not acceptable to me. I spent quite a while a few years back thinking this issue through and looking at the physical issues and decided it wasnt worth the effort. Big problems are the original tank fittings are very compact and the internal access in the old tanks is very difficult, so any internal mods or possible connection points for modified fittings is very very difficult. No one way valve fitted in the petcock. Ciao

One thing, your lower sidestand bolts wont have anywhere to bolt to. The other is if you still want to run the oil cooler then you need quite a messy oil filter adaptor plate, custom lines and run the stubby short filter. Forget about running a lower chin spoiler also if thats something you like. Ciao

I like the internal pump system because it keeps the external plumbing way tidier and neater. Ciao I looked at it once, it seemed to me adding an internal pipe from the regulator nozzle to send the gas over the hump would be the way to go, It woudnt solve the issue Roy as when you filled the tank you would still have unuseable fel in the right side. Ciao

Only because Roy, its a little bulky and also just one more thing that can fail and if it does its a show stopper. I spent quite a bit of time looking at the old style tank ( I have a couple of spares) and trying to dream up a solution to the hiding fuel in the r/h side but the tank fittings are so compact and the area around them so tight that I put it in the too hard basket. Maybe you could run a syphon hose over the tank hump internally but you would need to locate it and prime it initially and if you ever ran out of fuel. I like the internal pump system because it keeps the external plumbing way tidier and neater. Ciao

Whats the history of this engine? It looks like its run a big end at some point and been rebuilt with new shells and no work on the crank pin. I know the images alway look worse than real but the shells look semi ok, I mean I've seen far worse, down to the copper etc. ( I wouldnt re use them) but there is interesting marks on the pin which dont seem like normal wear. Is the pin round? any ovality? The pump I'd say is toast, I just measured up my Daytona pump ( which I would be happy to reuse even though they have a bad rep) and it has a shaft to body clearance of 0.003" and a wobble at the end of about 0.004". Bearing in mind the V11 pump has a rolling element bearing it seems too much in your case. New pumps aren't super expensive, better to be safe. Ciao

Yes thought of this a few years ago after running out of petrol a few times but its just to hard with the current plumbing set up and the external pump engines have far to much fuel plumbing externally as it is. The electric petcock is a stupid idea and only there for US regulations that insist that the fuel system has an automatic shutoff of some sort in case the tank is torn off the bike in an accident you wont have fuel spilling everywhere. I have fitted a manual petcock ( as many of you law breakers have) an it stays in the open position at all times, never touch it, why would you bother. Ciao

True, and thats why I tap the last bearing in the last 1/2mm with a hammer and small drift carefully until the spacer clearance is nil. It doesnt matter if the bearing outer race is a few thou off the shoulder in the bore as there is very little actual pure side thrust on the bearings. Ciao Thanks for this, guys. It explains a problem I had recently on my BMW's front wheel. There must have been too much pressure on the inner races and the wheel wouldn't spin freely. I used a socket for that. Since then I bought some bearing drivers that apply pressure across the whole bearing - inner and outer races. Or yes Scud, you could do it the easy way:) I was just saying to my wife yesterday that if there's 2 ways to do something I'll naturally opt for the harder way,sigh. My only defence is that most of the time it's also the better way. The aim of course is to make sure the axial or thrust load between the inner and outer race is minimal and the amount of axial/thrust load you can generate with 60 or so foot/lbs of torque on an axle nut is considerable if the spacer is too short. Ciao

True, and thats why I tap the last bearing in the last 1/2mm with a hammer and small drift carefully until the spacer clearance is nil. It doesnt matter if the bearing outer race is a few thou off the shoulder in the bore as there is very little actual pure side thrust on the bearings. Ciao

The axial play in the camshaft will be a worn bronze retainer plate. The axial play is controlled by the gap between the back of the drive gear face and the front face of the retainer plate. If the front face of the retainer plate has any sort of small edge to it its worn. Get the updated version with the oil slots. Oil pump radial play? radial play as measured by moving the shaft radially while holding it perpendicular to the housing or radial play by moving the end of the shaft up/down side to side etc? I would call the latter shaft wobble and if measured at the end of the shaft will be many times greater than the actual radial play in the bearing. You can measure big end clearance by the wobble method and a formular as well. Ciao

Bummer:( Ciao

Yes still a twin plater, I'm saving the RAM for the Daytona/V11 engine project. Ciao

A few things Scud, thicker clutch plates will slightly increase the lever pull effort. The springs are now .6mm more compressed so the lever load will be a fraction higher. It shouldn't however effect the amount of lever travel required to get the plates to release once you have shimmed the pushrod as you have done. Some thoughts on that, Firstly if the clutch friction compound is a little more aggresive than the std type or if the new plates aren't nice and flat as they should be then you will need a little more lever travel to create more friction plate clearance than you're used to. I know its obvious but is the clutch bled properly? If the new plates are as mentioned then there will be less tollerance for air in the system than the std plates and you may figure it was ok before so it should be now, understandably. All this will effect neutral finding and general clutch take up from a standstill but it wont have any real effect on shifting. A little bit of clutch drag doesnt really effect shifting much as the gearbox likes to spin to change nicely, its about real load when it comes to clean shifting not full and total release. I'm very used to clutchless upshifting on the track and so also use it a lot on the road even with the Guzzi. So unless I'm tootling around town or bumbling along in the country with my wife on the back i never use the clutch from second through to 5th gear. I'll use it into 6th only because by that time I've hit cruize mode and it's like relax time:) I've never, repeat never missed a clutchless upshift on the Guzzi, or my track bike so as I said full and complete release isnt that important for shifting as long as the load is reduced its fine. I really don't know why these aftermarket companies dont take the extra effort to just make the plates to the std dimensions, I mean the difference in thickness between a new clutch plate and a worn out one isnt that much and .3mm doesnt sound like a lot but is quite significant in the scheme of things when you consider it has to be multiplied by a factor of 2 in the case of the Guzzi. That .6mm may be just whats needed to allow for less than perfectly flat friction and drive plates. Ciao

Yes Chuck, my rear spacer was around 1/2 mm too short but I had a kind of off beat clattering feeling in the left footpeg on floating throttle. Ciao

All major bearing brands no matter where they are made should be very very close dimensionally, within a couple of tenths of a thou. You wont find the kind of variation that will cause the spacer to be too short. Ciao

I agree with your feeling on the short spacer. I have a box of Ducati crank and gearbox shims and I used one of them so I cant tell you which one it was exactly. All you need to do is figure how much too short you are by measuring the distance between bottom faces of the the bearing cavities with a machining block or striaght edge and a 6'' caliper and add 0.005 to 0.010" depending on how confident you are on your measurement and you can make one out of sheet metal. It will probably be around 0.020" too short from my experience. A little bit longer is better than shorter hence the extra 0.005" to 0.010" . Make it out of steel not aluminium. Aluminium that thin will crush and deform. Loctite the shim to the spacer and Bobs you mothers brother. Ciao