RichMaund

I let my Dealer fix a oil leak on my tranny under warranty. All it needed was a new seal on the input shaft! He has two very competent techs there. But a couple factors turned the job into a nightmare for me. The first was MGNA's bizzare way of doling out parts and the slowness of all their actions. It took weeks just to get the job approved under warranty after tear down and then a few more weeks for new flywheel bolts and a seal to get there. These are grade 5 (Metric 8.8) bolts and a seal. Not rocket science. Then the reassembly was hampered by the shop owners policy of "last come, first served". Jobs that came in way after mine got pushed ahead of mine because I wasn't there to bitch as loudly and as often as owners who lived closer. His own people ratted him out to me on it. They didn't like it either. So I showed up unannounced one day and asked him how proud he was of the job he was doing. I familiarized him with the Va. Lemon Law. I said it'd make really bad fodder for a newsletter article, but what was I to do? That, since my bike was in the shop for two months! He agreed to get it finished and three days later I drove up again to pick it up. They are 240 miles away from me. Not cheap to skip work and drive up there! After that incident, my attitude became that I would never let a shop take my bike again. I could have done that oil seal job in about 12 hours. My bike would have been back on the road the next day and I only would have missed one day of work. The Lemon Law can be a useful tool of last resort. But as you already discussed. It must be used very judiciously. Good luck to you though! I hope you can work the bugs out of it soon. Guzzi's, once well sorted out, are very reliable bikes. BTW. I still really like that shop and do a regular business with them. The tuning work they did for me was excellent and accomplished in just a couple hours when I rode in for an appointment one day. No hard feelings. And they did give me a great deal on the bike when I bought it from them. I don't want one "whoops" to ruin a hundred "attaboy's". But it did make me seriously think about just doing all the major maintenance myself. So now I do and I'm a happy guy.

I have seen this problem on most of the FI Guzzis and Ducatis as well. My own has a slight weep occassionally from the right TB. My theory is that heat expands the fuel in the system after shutdown and it weeps past the injector and dribbles out the low point. It seems to be common and varies in how bad it is from bike to bike. Perhaps running some FI Sytem cleaner like Gumout thru it will clean the pintle valve and prevent drips? Worth trying.

I bought a used three year old Dell Pentium 366 laptop from Dell financial services on EBay this winter. Only $330 for the complete kit with cables, power supply and a fancy brief case! 12.1" display. It drops into my tank bag sideways. Though I haven't felt the need to do it yet, the bike runs great with the PCIII as it is now. Nice to know I can do it! The Palm is a great idea, but I think my used laptop is a good solution for us cheap bastards out there!

I remember back in the 1980's a Dutch Frigate tied up at the Sub piers at our Navy base. I was on a sub back then. The guys went out into town and picked up girls and brought them back to the ship for a party. Even served alcohol on board and the mess was done up like a disco. I got to see that for myself when we traded unclassified tours of each others ships. Man! You guys really know how to run a fun military organization! Guzzi's, dames, disco's and parties! I'm jealous.

Docc My Sport is a 2000 silver model with the red frame. It also has the silver Stucchi fairing and my homemade luggage system and custom seat and passenger backrest. I already polished out the valve covers. Now I want red wheels! I loved the look of the original V11S prototype shown at the Intermott show in the late 90's. That's the style I want for mine! I should get them back friday with new Michelin Pilot Sport Touring tires fitted as well! Pics will get posted when it's all done! I have heard stories about heat distorting cast wheels. But I haven't any first hand experience with that problem, so I hope it to be a rare one. The biggest problem with powdercoating is keeping it away from the surfaces you don't want coated! You have to carefully mask the bare areas with heat proof SS tape. The coater I am using is a pro with much experience with bike parts. Hopefully, it'll go well!

Folks I had a bunch of "fun" disassembling the wheels of my V11S for powdercoating last night and all of this morning. Hints: Don't even bother trying to remove those little allen headed fasteners with a allen bit on your impact driver! 2/3's of them will simply round off due to the red Loctite used on installation and the high torque values. Just go ahead and grind a 1/16" wide slot into the head with a pneumatic grinder. That will heat the fastener and help fail the Loctite. Then using a wide flat tip bit in the impact driver and a 2 pound short sledge, you can knock it free and remove it. The fasteners are basically single use anyway. Eliminate the middleman, in this case Mr. Frustration, and go to grinding right away! I busted my precious 18 year old $5 K-Mart impact driver as well as ruining two flat tip bits! Being a cheap bastard, I really hated to spend $10 on a new impact driver set! The coater will p/u my wheels and backrest bracket at the local Triumph Dealer tomorrow after they remove the old tires. Hopefully, I'll have the new "red" wheels back with new tires for the weekend! Wish me luck. Temporarily bikeless in Virginia!

I pulled the wheels off yesterday to get new tires and powdercoating done. The wheel bearings I replaced in the rear were fine as were the oem ones up front. The "hidden" bearing inside the axle area of the rear drive is good too. 10.3k miles on the bike. Broke my 18 year old K-Mart impact driver last night trying to get the disk bolts out. Bought a new impact tool this morning. Hope I can get these things disassembled for the shop by tomorrow!

I'm short, fat, bald and bowlegged and have two legs full of metal hardware as well as a bad shoulder and have had bi-lateral carpal tunnel surgeries and amazingly I find the riding position of my V11S just about ideal! Seriously. I am more comfy on it than I was on my '97 Cali. On the V11S I am in a moderate forward lean that perfectly balances me in the wind between 40 and 100 mph. But around town it isn't enough of a lean to strain my beat up hands. The clip ons are wide and the factory position was a set of perfect angles for them. The pegs put my feet right under my center of gravity so my legs and thighs bear much of my weight and my tailbone doesn't even touch the seat. I feel well balanced on the bike and if I take a very short stretch at half a tank (Even a red light stop is enough!) I can ride the bike all day in good comfort. Finally! A sport bike for fat cripples! Looking at the large fairing and redesigned bars on the Lemans and comparing it to my V11S makes me wonder if the fairing is TOO protective and will strain my wrists. Also, the bars aren't adjustable as they are on my bike. I don't know if I'd like the new position. I for one can't complain. This bike fits me like a glove! I took one last 60 mile ride today to help a friend work on his sidecar rig. Beautiful day! Now my bike is apart. But in a week or so the new tires go on with RED wheels and the forks will be serviced as well! Spring riding, here we come!

I've got both wheels off my bike now to get the rims powdercoated red and get the new tires on. I found the "hidden" bearing in the rear drive that supports the axle is fine. The rear wheel bearings I changed at 8k miles are still good as are the oem front wheel bearings. I got just over 10k miles on the oem BT57 radials and was pretty happy with them. But I'm looking to save a buck this time around. Which model of the new Cheng Shin sport radials would be best for the bike? Oh calm down. Y'all know I'm kidding. Geez.

Russ The charging system isn't a cheap-o. It has about a 100 watt leeway to spare. For a air cooled alternator of that physical size, that is about as good as it gets. I have this system on my V11S and it has never needed a trickle charge. Is there a chance you left your bike parked with the key switch in the "park" position? That'll do it every time. Don't ask how I know this can happen! I did it one day back in 1990 with a Honda. That was a heavy beast to push start! Barring that, you have a failed component. Time to do some troubleshooting. I hope you find it easily! Good luck.

Yeah... I forgotten about him being the head cheese. Those guys even donated some really good chunks of Wisconsin's finest cheese as door prizes at the 2000 Guzzi National! Having traveled through Wisconsin myself, I can say they DO know their cheese up there! (I prefer a white cheddar aged at least 5 years please!)

Jaap You'd just have to come up with more and grander titles for the 750 and thousand marks! Grand Phoobah of the Forum Head Cheese These come to mind! And of course, Al has earned the right to wear his stars on "shoulder boards" as part of his Guzzi Rally uniform. All hail Generalisimo Al, the first Grand Phoobah of the Loyal List of V11 Lemans! Sigh! It's always good to see someone excel at what they love!

Jaap You need a new "7 Star" category for "Forum Inundators"!

I would think that the map for Mistral cans, stock cross over, intake and filter would be very close to what you need. It's on the CD. That is what my bike is using. I have the Mistral cans. It made a great difference in the bikes drivability and power. NO loss in gas mileage either! Of course, ideally, a trip to a good dyno center with tuning link technology would get you exactly what you need!

Most of our local bike shops carry S100 products.

I found I could mount a pair of red & black LOUD Fiamms right onto the stock brackets! They're great!

>>>Is the weight of the whole Bracket + Panniers rest only on the Pillion Footpeg Mounting (is that what you guys call Huffler Hanger...???) Plus a little support from the Exhaust mount? That is correct. The upper hanger mount was welded well to the sub frame. With the extra bracing supplied by the exhaust system itself, it supports the rack very well! Two 20 pound bags plus a bag on the rack with the tent and tarps don't faze it a bit. I have about 5k miles on the system testing it now. I would feel better having a brace for it in the rear to attach to the subframe. But that would be very complicated to build and may let water splash up into the area under the seat where the electrical components are. So I have let it as-is for now. Ideally, I will sell this system and build another that incorporates mounts welded to the subframe itself that will come out from under the body work. That involves welding on the sub frame and making cuts into the bodywork as well. A much more major job. But I believe the results could be worth all the work to me. I have over 40 hours in building this one. I worked most every night on it for weeks to get it built! It cost me $700 in materials and services to put it together! So I can never produce them for sale to the public. It is something I can only build for my own use as time allows.

Here's a "backed up" view so you can see it all together. My design is very practical and carries quite a load. But I believe that Darths design is much more elegant!

Darth Here is a close up of the attachment of my backrest to the rack. There is a 13mm wide steel block brazed under each "leg" of the backrest. There is a plate with holes in it attached to the rack itself recessed undeneath the top surface of the rack so it doesn't interfere with cargo. You can drop the backrest asssembly into place and put the four bolts in place to hold it there. The 13mm wide steel blocks on the legs of the backrest have threaded holes, so no nuts are needed. Makes it much quicker to put on or take off. The side tubular luggage mounts are from Givi. Made originally for a Honda VFR. I chopped them up to make them as I needed them! They hold a pair of E360 bags. Not as tight to the bike as your design. But I didn't want to re-locate the passenger pegs or rear turn signals. The rest of the rack I made myself and attached the Givvi brackets to it at four places per side. Very strong and provides much lateral stiffness as well. The rack system attaches to the upper and lower mounts for the huffler hanger. That's it. Just four places! So the tubing structure had to be well cantilevered to take the stress with minimal deflection. It came out very well that way! I am a bit ashamed at the quality of the metal work on the backrest. I did it in a hurry last year so my son could ride with me to the WV Guzzi Rally. It was literally built in an hour and a half and looks it when you see it close up. It is painted, not powdercoated. And the bends at the top are quite uneven. I have never found time to make a better one! I really like this design and my passengers love it too. But I need to make a better one to match the rest of the rack I made. The pad itself is t he one I make for the Guzzi EV. I had some in stock, so I grabbed one that day and moved the galvanized T Nuts to where I needed them and then upholstered it to match the seat. The pad is great, but that tubing structure needs replaced!

Bravo! Very well done! Thank you for posting the photos! Hey! Now I'm not the only owner with a proper set of hard bags! Maybe Guzzi will see this and take a hint that hard bags need to be added to the bike as an accessory!

I have the alloy cans made by Mistral for Guzzi. Buy them from Guzzi and you'll get the "off road only use" plaque on them. Buy them direct from Mistral and you get a nice red Mistral sticker on them! I plan to have a alloy plate engraved with a MG logo and I'll form it to fit the curvature on the cans Then I'll drill the rivets and rivet on the new logos! Voila! All done and classy looking! I never understood those plaques anyway. I mean DUH! Let them drag on the road and they will get damaged! Keep them off the road and they won't! Guzzi must have some really prissy liability lawyers working there these days!

Congrats on getting it fixed! I moved my linkage connector from the outmost to the innermost mounting hole to shorten the throw. While I was there I did disassemble and grease the pivot bolt. I'd forgotten about that! I put a drop of light machine oil in the ball pivots too. I tend to be an anal mechanic. My choice of footwear seems to dictate how well my transmission works. Leather bbots are the way to go for safety as well as good shifting! I started using moly in the tansmission oil after break-in as well. That improved the feel of the transmission too as it did on all my older Guzzi's. When I last tore down my rear drive to grease everything, I found the factory had assembled everything dry as far as pivot bolts on the linkages go. I took it down further this time than when I built/prepped the bike to begin with. All those bolts were dry and beginning to corrode. I used the same #2 lithium grease on them that must be used in the universals. I believe Guzzi's should be looked at as "kit bikes". They get assembled by fools as a courtesy to ensure that all the pieces of the "kit" are there. It then becomes the owners responsibility to tear the machine completely apart to inspect and then re-assemble the bike properly! Sadly, my opinion of Guzzi factory build quality is that is still only one step ahead of what I had in my 1995 Ural. The newest Urals come from the factory just about ready to use. I wish Guzzi had assemblers as good as Russia uses!

That looks to me like they simply molded a recess into it to countersink the fastener. I think it looks pretty sharp! But hey! If I'm wrong, please, someone tell me! I know fiberglass much better than I know CF!

My '00 V11S was never known to have the return spring problem that plagued the '02 models. But it IS easy to get false neutrals if you shift it poorly. Though a very smooth shifter, it does have a long throw and has vague "feel". You don't feel it actually click, or "clunk" as older Guzzi's did, into gear. I moved my linkage to the shortest throw and wondered if it would increase the effort rquired to shift it. Throw was shortened and I can't detect that it needs increased effort to shift. That helped a bit. So on my bike, not moving the shift lever smartly and fully during a shift will get you a false neutral. I have found that if I wear my tennis shoes to ride the bike, their soft tops prevent me from pressing the upshifts positively. My upward effort results in a smushed shoe and a poor upshift. Yes. I know I shouldn't wear tennis shoes when riding. No protection from them. But I can't see changing just to run up the street to go to the bank! So if I wear tennis shoes, I often experience false neutrals. Conversley (Converse Tennis shoes, get it ?? ), if I wear my heavy leather boots to go riding in, it's rare to experience false neutrals. If I firmly move that shift lever all the way, it always goes smoothly into the next gear. I don't know if this will help you in your situation. But if you are wearing soft footwear, it could be adding to the problem.

That looks pretty cool! I have a pair myself like that. I haven't gotten around to milling the mounts for them yet though. I was going to mount them to brackets on the fasteners that bolt the oil cooler to the frame. My one concern is will a pair of extra 55 watt lamps overwhelm the alternator? My e-vest draws about 50 watts. I have used it on all day rides with no ill effect. But a pair of these is over double the draw of my e-vest! Have you looked at it hard to see if the output will handle it?