Lucky Phil

Just for you Chuck Ciao

The Mcintosh in the image actually has a 17" rear and 18" front I think. from memory the Mcintoshes came out with 18x18 combination at the time and the 17 was fairly recent and maybe that's why it has that combination. The 16" front came about as racers wanted quicker steering, less centrifugal mass,more rubber on the ground and better braking. So the theory's went A smaller wheel has less leverage on the brake assembly as well so you get a little more stopping power out of the brakes. It didn't last long and they finally settled on the 17" My TT2 race bike had a 16" front and the earlier factory bikes had an 18 and others used to tell me all the time how bad it would stability wise be but we raced Axles bike at the TT with the 16" front and the stability was never questioned. I rode a friends Mk4 Lemans with a 16 front and thought it was fine as was my 84 Kawasaki GPZ900. Racers eventually settled on the 17 front for various reasons some of which was pressure from tyre manufacturers wanting a std size for sports bikes. Interestingly 4 piston brakes were first invented to fit inside the small dis 16 front wheels and they went on from there. Look up Freeths bio, stout fellow and brilliant racer, typical Kiwi quiet achiever. Ciao

A Rickman would have been a lot less work. A friend of mine has owned a Rickman Kawasaki since new and has recently completed a full resto on it. The Motoplast came in a kit that was frame, swing arm rear shock and bodywork inc fairing. That was it.The original glass work, all of it! was of such poor quality and fit I actually threw it in the dumpster as I knew I could design and make better myself. It was a lot of work and the set cowling is a fairly ordinary shape. The Rickman was far superior quality in every way and a much easier build. Italians, you get what you get. Note the Nylon rear sprocket. Popular in the early 80's for about 2 minutes:) I had also mounted the battery under the swingarm which I may have been one of the first to do. Ciao

Yes docc, thats what the Magnesium pieces had in those days. Yes memories, cant believe it getting on for 35 years ago! I've got stacks more from Daytona,Suzuka, IOM etc but my scanner's broken and we're in a serious lockdown. $1600 fine if caught more than 5klm from home without a very good reason in one of 4 categories. I think on the edge of the Daytona image you can see the front wheel of the official Harley entry Lucifers Hammer Ciao

I came across these old personal images I had posted on the internet years ago. I had forgotten all about them but when I went looking for images of brake reaction rods etc there they were. This was my Bimota DB1 with its custom alloy fuel tank (hidden) its Racing Campag wheels ( hand cut slick on the back) Staintune mufflers made for me by Sandy that owns Staintune, four piston Brembo calipers and other mods I cant remember. In the background is my lovely modified Hailwood Mille that I smashed to bits,sigh and the fairing for my TT2 Ducati race bike just peaking out there. Here is our race bike after finishing the the 86 F1 TT. back to camera brown jacket Axle the owner of the bike, facing in the leather is Pete Muir our rider in the blue jumper is an English race whose name I have forgotten but we got friendly with and he assisted us in our pit stops when he wasn't racing. Next to our bike is the winning factory Honda of Roger Burnett, or Roger Hairnet as we called him. Here's Aussie superbike Champ and also successful WSB rider Mal Campbell at Sydneys Oran park for the 87 swan series on the Factory NR 750 oval pistoned race bike Honda sent over for him to ride that year. Mal was a factory Honda rider at the time and Aussie Champ as well if memory serves. ten years later I was mechanicing for him at the Aussie WSB round on a Privateer Ducati 996. Still racing now Mal and still way faster than most at Phillip Island on Post Classic bikes like Suzuki RG500's. 86 TT and David Tardozzi's Works Bimota that he later destroyed at the Glen Helen section. We went and helped pick it up and it was a molten pool of wreckage in the middle of the road as it had caught fire. Totally destroyed. Bathurst 85 and the late great Roger Freeths Macintosh Suzuki, note the Monocoque Suzuki Superbike in the background.( https://amcn.com.au/editorial/monocoque-master-steve-roberts/) Also note the unpainted bronze welded frame on the Mcintosh so he could keep and eye out for any developing crack in this prototype frame.Macintosh built beautiful bespoke frames for all sorts of stuff back then and we could buy road kits of this exact bike. Roger was actually and Astrophysicist and part time racer who was very very good and used to win this yearly race regularly and was also Mulitple NZ champion. He also was a keen rally car navigator at national level in NZ for Possum Bourne and was tragically killed in a rally car accident way too young. Totally fast and safe bike racer though. Swan international series 87 Oran Park and factory Yamaha GP racer Rob Mcelnea. Our working arrangements at the 86 TT sharing a house with Steve Wynn's crew. Our bike in the background, with back to camera is rider Pete Muir, partially hidden in red overalls is the bikes owner Axel and in the foreground is Wynn's bikes. None of the Steves bikes finished a lap in anger that year, we finished every race and practice session. They weren't amused at the time. The others are visiting German spectators that dropped by apart from the two Pete is talking to who were Aussies visiting. My TT2 race bike. I built this from factory parts and a second hand engine brought up to factory specs. I had a perfect example to follow as Axles bike was a genuine factory bike.My first attempt at 2K painting as I recall. My old 888 race bike with sump extension and home made rear brake disk and carrier. I didn't like the Brembo rear caliper at the time and decided to use the Nissan. factory frame, Ohlins GP forks, no brake torque arm, Marchesini wheels carbon tank and fairings, Corse radiator. And for you guys, Jay Springsteen and his mechanic, Daytona 87 Ciao

Yes rebuilt Kawasaki 900 powered with Malossi Carbs, Bitubo race shock and Magnesium racing Marzocchi adjustable forks. Ciao

The rear caliper on the Daytona race bike pictured is free to rotate on bearings on the axle same as the bevel box. Its just an inverted version of the bevel box and the torque is provided by the brake not the engine driven shaft. This is a bike I built from the ground up in the early 1980's with my own designed and built anti dive which we thought was worth having at the time. I also built all the bodywork including the original plugs and moulds. The dive mechanism is a leveraged version of a brake torque arm. Chuck might like the red engine cases. I was very avant garde back then:) Ciao

You sometimes need to do that so the guard bears down on the cover at the mount hole locations but you need to use special 11mm OD 6mm ID washers as anything of larger OD will cause a clearance problem to the valve cover. The Daytona/Centauro needs these smaller OD washers as well on the valve cover. I buy Titanium ones off ebay but have also made them up from Ti bar raw stock as well. Nothing looks worse than a 6mm washer thats 13mm in OD when it doesn't need to be. Ciao

I've been working on building, racing, riding Italian bikes for over 35 years and I have no idea of what Italian engineering logic is. Dont think I've experienced much of it to be honest. Of course add to that Muppet's working on particular bikes as they age and change hands and anythings possible. In the OP's case the aftermarket head protectors require different length bolts but who knows whether they're the "right" length bolts. Ciao

Ones the brake torque rod docc. It was fashionable at one time on sport and race bikes then when front brakes became the major stopping force as the rear brake wasn't really used or needed much on a sports bike it faded out. Now MotoGP bikes are reaching the limit of front stopping power the rear has gone back to this to promote squat under braking and to get a little more braking ability from the rear. So racers are again hitting the rear brake a fraction of a second before the front and the torque rod is set up to create a little squat. This lowers the c of g a fraction at the rear and helps keep it down initially. Its all fractions though docc for the very elite racers and even for national level road racers it a minor distinction. It was also thought that it isolated the rear brake forces from the swingarm and fed them into the chassis to help with wheel chatter on the brakes which was really more about decent suspension than brake forces. Ciao

Once you get familiar with Guzzidiag and Tunerpro you will realise you have previously been tuning your bike with one hand tied behind your back. Ciao

Forget the parts book,pull the cover and thread a bolt into the hole until it bottoms out or is flush with the end of the open threads and then measure the distace from the sealing surface to the underside of the fastener then the thickness of the cover and gasket and subtract 1mm and use that length. On the open holes you can obviously be a little longer but not too much as you dont want dirty/corroded threads running through the threads on the way out. Ciao

Interestingly on modern sports bikes and all road race bikes the rear end jacks on acceleration as a consequence of swing arm droop and the swing arm pivot positioned where it is (within adjustment capability) It's actually a benefit from the apex of the corner to the upright transition to keep the front tire on the ground and the rake steep and prevent understeer. You can see how it works from on board cameras these days. Interestingly Ducati with others following now have engineered a squat mechanism to compress the rear after the transition to the almost upright for traction and anti wheelie. So you get the jacking initially to help the steering and when you need the traction and anti wheelie you get the opposite via a dedicated system to produce the squat when it's needed. It's really apparent on the Ducati MotoGP bikes as they look like a chopper at the last phase of corner exit. As an aside Dr John's original degree was as a mechanical engineer and after 2 tours of Vietnam he transitioned to Dentistry as it was the fastest way at that time with his qualifications to translate to a decent paid job. Old bikes with skinny little crossply tires look weird to me these days docc. They actually look a bit scary to be honest as i grew up on them and remember how appalling the suspension and brakes were. Riding something where a degree of your concentration was simply absorbed by making allowances for mechanical shortcomings doesn't appeal anymore. Ciao

Like 90% of British circuits docc, narrow and a bit scary. Most haven't fundamentally changed at all since the days of the Manx Norton, Hailwood, Surtees, Bill Smith etc. Ciao

Standard reaction rod?....No. Cadwell a typical race circuit? ...No. A 50cc Scarabeo scooter takes off there. Ciao

A V11 rear wheel coming off the ground under spirited riding! Like wondering if a 50lb dumb bell might float away if it's not tied down:) But seriously I understand your point but in the real world it's not about such finite issues. If I were Guzzi I'd have gone with the standard setup because it's almost totally bulletproof and requires zero maintenance and gives the additional albeit remote benefit in the scenario you have described and Guzzi will traditionally over engineer most stuff and prioritise that over weight and style. Once again we enter the rhelms of theory over practical experience. I have my views on the two but that's a whole other topic. The rear drive unit is like everything on a Guzzi, about twice the weight and strength it needs to really be. I'm just reading Dave Richardsons New book on being a Guzzi dealer and aficionado for 35 or so years. It's a great read and I highly recommend it. The stories of the balls Guzzi has dropped over the years in marketing and engineering are amazing and i'm only a quarter into it. Ciao

Yes or my preference a Timesert repair. Ciao

Yep, nothing, it's pain in the arse to get adjusted right without loctite excess under the sensor making it even harder the next time.. The yellow paint is a factory thing so the factory assemblers can attest to the fact that they have been set. Some bikes have the same on major fasteners. The factory assembler installs the fastener,torques it up and then marks the bolt head with a paint pen to indicate it's been torqued. It's also in some cases a "tamper" indicator so the technician or mechanic can see if something like the "sacred screw" on the Griso or throttle balance arm has been played with or moved. In the Aviation world it was referred to as "tamper proof putty" Ciao

My bike has an Aprilia RSV cap. Anything from around 2000-2002 will work from memory. You can also just pull the cap assy off ( the cap and surround are held on with 3 screws and take it along to be sure. Ciao

Yes I agree docc, the torque arm isolators or lack thereof don't impact the transmission itself. It's a cost effective and maintenance free solution to the mechanical requirements not a better solution than rod ends. As I said swapping to rod ends made no difference to the feel or suspension performance it's just a more compact and neater solution. Ciao

I think someone came up with a replacement bush for the arm a little while back as Guzzi dont sell them separately. Ciao

Thats what actually concerns me docc. You now have the end faces of the bushings rotating against the frame tabs and the bevels drive support faces as the rod rotates with suspension movement. I'm actually impressed with the condition of the bushes in your torque arm docc. Ciao

I don't know about this docc. These style of bushes are actually designed to work clamped up as standard and the rubber flexes. It's served you well for many many miles now. The issue now is that you have 6 additional wear points, 2 on each side of the internal bushes and 2 on each pivot bolt. Car suspension arm bushes work the same way as the Guzzi torque arm with the isolating bush clamped up tight and the rubber providing the flex.I know it "feels" like a good idea but I don't believe it actually is. It's not going to be an issue in the short term though. If you want to go the other route you should use a torque rod with rose joints at the ends as my bike has. I cant tell any difference in performance or "feel" to be honest. Ciao

You cant leave the upper clamp in the position you have it. The underside of the clamp must be flush against the bearing adjuster nut. The upper clamp acts as a fail safe to prevent the bearing adjusting nut from the possibility of backing off. Ciao

I've mentioned before in posts that the sound of the clutch engaged changes depending on how you release the lever as well. On my bike ( previous 2 valver with std twin plate clutch) when I start it and it settles into an idle the clutch will be a little rattly. If you then give the clutch a quick as you can disengage and re engage it quietens down by a good 75%. So a quick pull and release of the lever and it quietens down. I assume its the friction and drive plates re aligning on the splines and taking out some of the backlash. I used to do it after every start to avoid public humiliation and so people wouldn't think I was riding a Ducati:) Ciao