RichMaund

Cheery Chernobyl Dayglow?

I can guarntee you it does! I had to do a total disassembly on mine to get the wheels powdercoated!

The front wheel hub is MUCH easier to disassemble than the rear hub. That cush drive is a tight press fit with much more surface contact area than the bearings in the front hub have.

Synch and break-in will greatly help smooth out an early Sport. But the main cause of the vibes in the bars was the heavy mirrors on their rubber based stalks! At a certain rpm in the mid 4's they would bounce up & down inducing a low amplitude vibe in the hand grips. Those rock hard grips didn't help either! Simply removing those damn mirrors made the bars feel quite smooth. I then removed the bar end weights and it was still smooth! I ended up with gel grips and bar end mirrors for comfort and a good rear view. I liked the style as well. By the way, I didn't come up with this solution. It was posted on the MGCL by others who experimented before me! Good info.

Block the wheel up on top of your bench so there's space under the hub. Place a hard wood block atop the spacer and whack with a mallet. That'll punch the bottom bearing right out the bottom. Then flip over and knock out the remaining bearing with spacer using a large wood or nylon dowel rod. I found mine to be a light press fit. Easy to remove and put the new ones in if need be. *** Make note of which side of the wheel the spacer goes on! You don't want to reassemble your wheel so that when you reinstall it the spokes and tire and runing the wrong way!

This engine's sweet spot is 5k rpm. But you can lug to lower rpm's with no problem as your bike becomes more well broken in. At almost 11K miles on mine, I can bring it down to 3K rpm with no lugging! It just pulls smooth. Never would do that new! Run the snot out of it and enjoy it!

The important thing here is to buy fuel line that is rated for fuel injection use and multi fuel use! Failure to do that will result in fuel line not rated for FI system pressures and line that will degrade internally when exposed to the crappy oxygenated and alcohol ridden stuff called gas in this country. NAPA stores carry good line and better clamps as well. I have had good service from their line & clamps. The silver braided stuff on top of the line may be decorative, may be a heat shield, I don't know. Makes a good rub gaurd though.

Michel When you play with the gear selector you are making the relay the neutral lamp is wired to cycle in and out. (Making and breaking the contact inside the relay as it goes in and out of neutral.) Since this seems to have helped it work, I would say that relay has a bad contact in it that isn't always closing properly to pass current to the starting system. Try replacing that relay and see if it works more reliably. Hope this helps and good luck to you! The poor relays my bike came with when new would sometimes fail to work. Cycling t he ignition off to on to reset them would help. Installing the new and better Bosch relays cured my bike's problem. The OEM Marelli relays weren't up to the job.

I tried to sign up and send them my e-mail address to get registered. It tells me that my e-mail address doesn't exist! Oh my God! Could all this computer use over the last five years have been a dream? Am I paying $144 per year to my server for nothing?! I better sit down, I'm feeling faint! There, I feel much better now. I think they still have some work to do on their site! Their translations stink too!

I can't wait to see close ups when it's done! I bet it's a beaut!

You may not have run it in long enogh or hard enough during break in to seat the rings properly. That consumption does seem excessive. Nigusil bores are tough and the rings need to be well loaded to seat. Swap back to Castrol 15w/50 and ride the snot out of it for a couple thousand miles. Use yellow line as a shift point! I broke my engine in that way. Very short spurts to hi rpm as the bike could take it. Graduating to more or longer sprints at rpm. Mine seems to have broken in well. About 1/2 quart used between changes. Some BMW owners have experienced this as well by babying the bike during break-in. Then they use alot of oil. You may need to go back to Dino juice for a while!

I'm not certain about this, but it seems to me you'd need a PCIII that is made to work with the same ECU as your Guzzi uses. Does a Quota use the same ECU as a V11S? I don't know, but worth looking into. I bought my PCIII at full price from Todd Egan at his Guzzi Tech site. Came to me pre-loaded with a map made for my bike's set up. Plug & play! No complaints. The bike now runs better than ever! I would make sure you know what you're doing before getting one of the "sale" PC's. Good to make sure it'll work for you. I have a Laptop now and can change maps all I want. But I didn't when I bought the unit. Getting it pre-setup from Todd was a fine way to go. No questions and no messing around with it!

Fasteners finally came in today. Bike is all back together and ready to tour. And it's pouring rain and I'm buried in seat work. Ain't that always the case?!

The air bleeds are used to adjust idle speed. Attach a carb balancing tool to synch the throttle bodies. A Twin Max is may favorite. Open the air bleeds to lean the idle mixture and raise idle speed. Close them to richen it and lower it. Do them evenly and the balancing tool will let you know how even they are. You have to play with it a bit. Get the idle speed you need as well as keep the TB's balanced.

In short commutes in Pittsburgh Pa. in hills I got mid 20's! That was my worst mileage, but real fun roads! Down here in the flatlands of SE Va. I get low 30's around town. Freeway I get 41 typically. High of 43.

Geez... All this time thought that since I was born in 1961 I qualified as an antique with high mileage! Little did I know I was so far ahead of my time!

Stock wheels heavy? Not really. The dual disks weigh about as much as the front rim! I don't see it as a problem. I went down one size on the width of the rear tire. I fitted a 160 vice the stock 170. With the rim width the way it is, that is much more appropriate to it. So now it'll handle better with the tire running at it's proper profile and with less un-sprung weight as well. The 160 tire weighs less than the 170. Please don't try to tell me that larger tires offer more traction! If you never use up all the available traction as it is, having more available is useless! With 80 rear wheel horse power, a 160 width radial will give the bike all the traction it needs. Bigger tires don't always handle better. They're just bigger. The larger size has it's own problems to deal with. More mass = more inertia. More sprung weight slows down suspension response. Everyone I have read about who used the narrower 160 tire on the stock 4.5" rear rim came away happier about it.

Al I found the posts on the valve guide wear fascinating. If they have a hardness problem, they will wear! Especially in the relatively high state of tune they're in for a air cooled twin. My bike will use a half quart between changes. 10K+ miles. But I tend to attribute that to often using yellow line as a shift point. Run them hard, and you expect increased oil consumption. It has stayed steady like this since new. Hopefully no worries yet. If it ever approaches a quart of use between changes, it'll be time for testing and possibly a bit of top end work.

Jason I think you just came up with a great idea for a sci-fi TV series! "Quantum Guzzi Leap!" I'd watch that!

Russ I agree with you in many of your points. Especially Hollywood being filled with morons! Yeah, he's been running roughshod over his own people and others for years. And except for his invasion of Kuwait, we gave him a pass every time to get away with it! He shot missiles at civilians in Israel during the Gulf War. They were non combatants. Others like Miloslovec have been tried for less. We gave him a pass. You can train a dog to be vicious. But then you blame the dog for being that way? We enabled Iraq to be this way. We've appeased his behavior for years. We never even quit buying his oil. It was just done through intermediaries. Even though he hasn't been linked to 9/11 (Yes, I know he supports terrorism. But his terrorists didn't instigate 9/11.), all of a sudden he is a danger and we're about to unleash all hell in the middle east over it? The biggest problem I see is that once we've invaded, then we have to rebuild the dang country! Ka-ching! $$$ I am sick of seeing my tax dollars wasted as it is. Enough. I have to stop talking about this. I do respect your opinions though.

Joe What you did was the normal way most mechanics go about an oil and filter change. Running at idle for those few seconds at no load did no damage as the oil filled the filter and then pressure came up. Being an abnormal and anal mechanic myself , I always fill the filter prior to installation. I do this on any car or bike with a upward facing vertical filter. Will that second of low oil pressure I am saving my engines from come back to me as good karma? Heck if I know! But I'm a slave to good engineering practices. Relax and go for a ride. At least you can! The Post Office still hasn't delivered the damn bolts for my rear disk from Eish yet!

Docc. I used 1" schedule 40 white PVC pipe to make the spacers. You can buy ten feet of it for under $1.50. It was a good fit and even has a thicker wall than the stock spacer. Of course, now I still have over nine feet of it left over. I'll probably use it to stake my tomato plants in the garden this summer. All Italian bikes are red. Wether it be inside (The Primer! ) or on the outside. It denotes the passion for motorcycling that went into their design! The prototype V11S first shown at the German show in the late 90's had red wheels and polished valve covers. With the silver bodywork, it was stunning! Still on my mind to this day. I wanted to achieve that look for my own bike. I thought the silver wheels dumbed down the look for the retail market. That was a mistake. I simply corrected it as I would an oil leak. Now the bike is what it was originally designed to be. I have had non motorcyclists look at this bike and just act stunned by it. Happened in a Barbershop once. That time was especially memorable. A guy in his 50's came in after I had already been inside for a while. He didn't even take a number. He just stood by the window and gazed at the bike. Lost in it! He finally asked who owned it. I answered up. He said "My God, that is a beautiful machine!". I asked him what he rode, he didn't ride! But, just as a guy can recognize an especially beautiful woman, he recognized this bike. I know just how he feels. That's why I was sad to see Guzzi go with fuzzy black engine paint, black frames with cheesy plastic pieces to try to hide the frame. And then they went with chopped up color schemes that ruin the flow of the bike. The 2000 and 2001 bikes set a high standard in their style. They had no where to go from there but down, so down they went. Just my opinion. I was glad to see the changes for '03. Especially the new engine paint. But Man! I miss seeing the red frames! Picture a metallic black Lemans with red frame and wheels and matching black Givi bags with red trim. NOW you're talking style AND function!

The wheels cost $75 each to strip and powdercoat. And he threw in doing the new passenger backpad bracket I made with the job. I had another larger passenger backet done for a customer's seat in wrinkle black for $15. I'm a Gulf War Veteran and did 20 years in our Navy. I am physically beat up and drawing 50% disability from our Veterans Administration. But in our country, they simply deduct the disability from my retirement pay, so I am funding my own disability. That is typical here. This country has always treated veterans like crap. All I really see is a tax break on it and some educational benefits. I am against the war, but support our troops. I have yet to be convinced by any facts yet presented that what we are doing is just and right. I hear our President invoke God on his side, and that scares me. Fanatics of any type who hide behind God are dangerous people. I see much drum beating and politicians exhorting people to the war. But I have not seen a true fact presented, just suspicions that his threat is bad enough for us to invade a soveriegn nation. As a nuclear mechanic I was taught to study my ass off and question everything. I was trained to think for myself. That, since on a submarine your crew mates lives depend on your always taking correct action in any situation. I never blindly followed orders, even if I was ordered to! I have questioned this situation repeatedly and find my governments answers wanting badly. This is a case where the herd is following the leader blindly. Afterall, ten million lemmings can't be wrong, right? I am disgusted with it. I look ahead at the fallout from this and it scares me badly. I served to protect a free country. I wonder if I wasted my time. Now we have shopping mall security gaurds telling a boy to take off his T shirt (It said "Give peace a chance" on it.) or leave the Mall. So much for free speech, eh? Am I supposed to hate the good folks that own my favorite diner because they're Arab? They lost business after 9/11. I refuse to give into that. They are the same good people who have always treated us so well in their restaurant. They had nothing to do with 9/11. They are just working hard to achieve their American Dream and I admire them for it. I've watched my country slowly and badly being turned towards being a fascist state since 9/11. That scares me very deeply. We are doing exactly what the bad guys want. We may as well be working for them now. That's all I will say on it. It is depressing to dwell upon. By the way, if they do call me up to active duty, be scared. That means it's a desperate situation. They'd really be scraping the barrel if they bring back crippled vets to active duty!

Russ Awww..... You're just saying that as an excuse to use all those neat emoticons. Thanks though! I appreciate it!

Folks Some of you have been asking for pics of the red powdercoating I had done to my wheels. Here it is! The rear wheel is still off awaiting the fasteners. The brake disk fasteners for the front wheel came in today. VERY fast service on the part of Mike Haven at MPH Cycles in Houston Tx. Thanks Mike! Eish had the rear fasteners in stock and mailed them Wednesday. But go figure, the post office hasn't gotten them here yet! I had the powdercoating done by a local shop in Newport News Va. Cost was $75 per wheel. Crimson red with clear coat. Very fair price for the quality of work they did! I serviced the front supension yesterday too. Pretty straight-forward job. I cut spring spacers that are 13mm longer than stock to increase preload. I used 7 weight fluid instaed of the stock 10 weight. Pumping the old fluid out convinved me that all I have read about these being over damped is correct. The 7 weight felt better and 5 weight, as recommended by Dealers here, may be best yet. But I'm a heavy guy and really load the bike. I'll try the 7W stuff for now. I think it looks sharp as heck! Hope y'all like it too!