RichMaund

I live in SE Va. Similar weather to yours thanks to the Gulf Stream off shore. My shop is well insulated. Good garage door too. A 10k BTU window air conditioner works very well. Gets the humidity down well too! A small kero heater in the winter makes it very cozy as well. I do agree to get a couple 20 amp 220v ac outlets put in! I have three. One for the window AC, one for the big air compressor and one for my welder. Life is good when you can enjoy your shop all year!

Emry's right. My best results cutting these lines is to tape them and use a Dremel cut off wheel. Blow any dust from the line before assembling it too!

I'm sure they'll come up with something creative and ingenius to keep the Guzzi name alive. ...... Like re-badging Piagio scooters into Moto Guzzi's!

Thanks Ralph! I appreciate that!

He had pieces of closed cell foam duct taped here and there where the body touched the engine. I suppose it was to dampen the "buzz". I had that problem on my 1980 SP years ago. But I just tweaked the brackets to get the clearances right and then it was no problem. Duct tape is dangerous in the wrong hands! :!:

On the tank, the few specks of rust on the outside is more rust than is inside the tank! I was happily surprised at that. It will be no problem to clean the inside, cream coat it and then bead blast and refinish the outside. The rear MC weeped and he took it off. Another reason he parked it so many years ago. But I can get new MC's for the F & R brakes, disintegrate them and make my own SS lines for it. Rebuild kits for the calipers are cheap. I saw the bike as a diamond in the rough. I figure for $1500 in parts/materials I can make it better than new again. I'll probably put 300 hours into it, but what the heck. Every guy needs a hobby!

Here is one last photo of my son about to clean it all off. He has worked on these bikes with me all his life. He actually asked me to leave one for him and not to sell it once it's done! (He's still mad I sold a nice V50 Monza a few years back) It cleaned up well and we'll begin the tear down later this week! I need to clear a workbench for it first.

And... Since my wife is only 5' tall, the peg locations are good for us both. Here's a shot of the battery area where the rat made it's home.

I'm afraid it won't be a "concours" restoration. I always try to improve things to my own tastes as I rebuild. It will get modern switchgear, dog leg levers, an electronic volt regulator, a better seat, FAC front dampers and Progressive suspension shocks, etc. I plan to make it a darker metallic blue as well. Here's a photo of it on the trailer after we got home. Much of the bodywork had to removed to make sure nothing got lost in transit. But it is complete!

Paul That's the same early model I just got. It was their use of flat black paint that lead to all the rust. Really cheap finish. Even the headlamp is all lightly fuzzed with rust! Good thing I have a blast cabinet! Yours looks great with the Krausers! I'll make my own rack and passenger backpad for mine and add some Givi's later. I consider the SP to be one of the best two up sport tourers ever made. I restored a 1980 model back in '93. But I sold it as it was so similar to my Mille' GT. Then I got hit on the GT in '95 and my legs got crushed. I was walking a year later and really wishing for the SP back. But it was long gone, so I rebuilt the Mille' GT. I'm getting older now and so are these bikes. But this is the level of tech that enjoy in a motorcycle. I'll rebuild this one "my way". (A few improvements to the electrics and such.) Then I'll hang on to it and enjoy it. They're not making any more of them! Great photo, by the way. Thanks for posting that! Good inspiration. Jaap, I've got some pics. Just have to process them. But I have a big order to ship out today. I'll have to do it after that's done!

I must be freak'n high. Seriously. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now about rescuing "barn fresh" bikes. But I went ahead and did it anyway. I've been thinking about another two wheeler since Donna can't stand sidecars. I wanted something I could easily handle even on a bad leg day. And one of my favorite Guzzi's of all time was the SP1000. A local guy called me last week. Found me by asking for Guzzi folks at local bike shops. He has a 1979 SP1000 he wants to sell. Parked for 20 years! But he's the original owner. 52k miles. Bike died due to electrical problems. Switchgear and bad coils from the sounds of things. One thing led to another and it's been parked ever since. A rat took up residence in the battery tray. So the old girl needed a couple hours of pressure washing to cure the hanta virus problem. Engine is locked up. I'll work on that first. But the fuel system was stored dry so the tank and carbs aren't too bad. This one had the flat black frame and flat blue bodywork. So there is very light patina of surface rust all over it. It'll be a frame up restoration. But the bike is a good candidate for it once I investigate the top end further. I didn't have to pay much for it, but I did get what I paid for! LOL! There is something in me that can't resist rescuing an old bike. Especially one I want to fulfill a current need. On the good side, I am no longer "between Guzzi's". On the bad side, this is my 13th Goose! Lucky bike? ;-) Wish me luck. I know how I'll be spending my nights this summer!

That would be a great donor bike for a Morgan 3 wheel replica!

Or how about.... You couldn't carry a tune with a forklift!

I spent five years on the 689 boat, one it's sister ships. Tough and fast boats. They used to send two of us up from the engineroom from time to time to "plot dots" in Control as a manual back up to the computerized sonar and fire control system. (Dam sonar techs spent most of their time reading Westerns! ) We used old manual equipment left over from WWII. We'd diligently plot a contacts course and tell the Officer of the deck when we detected a change in it's bearing. He'd answer with a curt "Very well." A few MINUTES later sonar would report that THEY'D detected a change the contacts bearing and the damned Officer would tell them what a great job they were doing. I think they got medals for it too! Us engineroom types were never very welcome in the Control room. The 689 Boat had a bad collision in the early 90's some years after I had left its crew. My old Engineer was it's Captain. Boat came home under it's own power, but was decommissioned not long after that. The Navy has an old saying.... "A collision at sea can wreck your day." The Russian sub they hit has been docked ever since too. That photo brings back alot of bad cold war memories!

I'm glad you like it Ben! Thanks again for your business! Please let us know when you do the back to back seat comparo Al! Good, bad or indifferent, I'd like to know what you think of that seat. Constructive feedback is always welcome!

Thanks for the comments folks! Rich

Here's another in all oxen grain black vinyl.

Folks First off I'd like to thank everyone who has supported my little seat shop this Winter. I'm very serious when I say that the "Spring Rush" started after New Years this year. Thank you for that. Seems like This Board and the Ural folks have become 3/4's of my business all by themselves. With the help of brainstorming with some Customers, I came up with a new intermediate design seat this winter. This is reshaped for two up and the cowling cannot be used. I know from experience that 3/4's of you want to keep the cowling. So you guys can move to another thread now. Many of the folks who didn't want a two up seat had one reason. They didn't like the way I made it so wide under the passenger's bum area. This is done for a reason. The passenger sits with their legs splayed out. So they need extra support on an all day ride. But some of you wanted an intermediate seat. "Lose the Wings" seemed to be the cry. You wanted one better than stock for the passenger, but not as full blown big and supportive as my other design. This is what we came up with. The sides of the passenger end come straight up from the pan edge and not outwards over an inch as the touring seat design did. You can see it has an ergonomic shape for the passenger. There is a rise in the front center to keep them from sliding forward as much as the stock seat allows. Also, the step has been moved 1.5" forward to better balance the room between the rider's and passenger's ends. You can see the front of the riders portion has been narrowed and rounded up front to prevent leg splay at stop and allow a better tuck when riding. For smaller lighter passengers, this could be a touring seat. For larger passengers, I would still recommend my old wider design though. It has been well tested over the years. I have worked out patterns to make this design repeatable. I can add Italian flag trim to the sides or even colored welting for no extra charge. It can be made from any of my available marine grade materials. The price with shipping in the USA and a custom gel sheet installed in the front is still just $305. Add $110 to that if you wish gel padding in the rear as well. (But residents of Va. will have to pay our 5% sales tax on top of that.) If you wish to leave your stock seat alone and get a new one rebuilt, I can get a new Lemans seat ordered in here for about $200 from Joe Eish in Ohio. (A note here. Guzzi jacked their parts prices last Summer due to the sinking dollar. My price on a new seat ballooned up to over $220! But the last seat I got him came in at the old price. No explanation either. So if you order in a new seat to be rebuilt I can't be sure of it's price until Joe gets it here to me. Guzzi must play havoc with their prices. But he gives me a 20% discount because I'm a member of the MGNOC. I pass that along to you and I don't mark up the seat myself. I earn my living from the rebuild of it. So if you order in a new seat to be rebuilt here, you'll support Joe's old shop as well as mine.) All my materials have gone up in price quite a bit this year. Most about 10%. So when you look at my web site next month expect to see changes to my pricing. This will be my first price increase in three years to my customers. BUT!!!! I am well practiced on these seats. I have rebuilt over three dozen now. So there are time savings to be had from the patterns I have developed. I don't have to spend as much time tailoring these covers anymore. So as a thank you to the Folks here on this Board, I will hold my price to it's old level for you (As stated above.) for the rest of 2005. Consider that a thank you from me in appreciation for the support I get here! So if you write me about a seat job, just remind me you're on this Forum and you get the old price. Thanks for your time!

There's nothing wrong with this mechanism that a lighter spring can't cure. It comes stock from the factory with a spring made for a Bear Trap. Since there are no wild bears left to trap in Italy, but the socialist government don't want an old traditional business to go under AND the business owner has family connections at Moto Guzzi, the consumer winds up with a fast idle mechanism capable of crushing a bear's paw. Man! Can I shovel it or what? Great thing is, in the Italian business environment, this COULD happen! Solution? On mine I took a spring from a retractable tip ink pen and substituted that for the monster suspension spring Guzzi installed. The fast idle mechanism then worked fine. For the cost of a disposable pen and ten minutes time you can make this headache go away!

Here's a few links to on line Yahoo picture albums of trips I took on it. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgmaund/albu...m/ph//my_photos http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgmaund/albu...m/ph//my_photos http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgmaund/albu...m/ph//my_photos I do hope it finds a good home!

Yeah, I can't believe it needs washing. Geez! I tore it apart and mechanically detailed the heck out of it when I owned it. The rack and bags system I designed and built cost me $700 in materials and took over 40 hours to build. It had Give E360 bags and a drop in/ bolt in passenger backrest. With the two seats, it could go from solo to two up sport tourer in a couple minutes. The bike ran super when I sold it to Steve. He has since had a good Dealer do the tranny recall work, though it always shifted great while I owned it. It had some of the usual Guzzi bugs when new and suffered from the usual lack of grease from the factory. But I expected that and spent three days prepping it before I ever ran the bike. I prepped it, not the Dealer. I brought it home still in the crate! It's adventures were very detailed here on the forum. I don't know why he's selling it. But the guy is a real bike enthusiast and probably just wants to sell it to get another bike. It IS a 2000 model V11S. I purchased it new in the winter of 2001. Supposedly it was the last silver 2000 V11S that MGNA had in the warehouse. The Dealer ordered it in for me and I was there when the crate came off the semi and onto my own trailer! I do drop by here almost every day to lurk. I'll follow this thread if anyone has any questions that Steve, the seller, can't answer. This was my 12th MG over the years. I've gotten to know them well.

I see Fringe Idea's up there as a site sponsor. And that's cool. But their site has been off the web for a while now. Anyone know if they're still doing business?

I have much fun with telemarketers! Perhaps this is why we get so few calls anymore. A vinyl siding company called one day trying to sell me "siding". (We have a brick house.) So I channeled my inner "cracker personality" and yelled at the lady "What the Hell Mamm? Wut kinds fool you think I am anyway?! I din't buy a house with no sides to it! Hell! Whattdaya think is holding up the blamed roof?! I don't need no damned siding." Another good one was when some salesman called from a "brokerage" in Florida. A Boiler room is probably more like it though. He said he was "Into gas and oil" and wanted to talk to me about investing. Right off the top of my head I replied "So you're slimy and flatulent and for some reason you think I'd let YOU handle my money?! Go screw yourself!" Then I hung up. But my favorite is my trusty old whistle I keep near the shop phone. If there's obviously someone obnoxious on the line I blow it into the mouthpiece for all I'm worth and then in my best "announcers voice" I say "Thank you for calling the Police Whistle Hotline! Remember that your credit card will be billed $500 per minute for this call. To hear this whistle again in Spanish, please press 1." Funny thing. No one has ever pressed one yet. Sadly, I don't get many opportunities for fun like this anymore. I have to settle for terrorizing my teenaged daughters boy-friends.

I know why he shot himself. You see... Deep down he was really a normal and sentimental old guy. His "act" was just to earn a living. In private he'd listen to old Folk Music albums and watch Debbie Renolds movies in his garage. But he couldn't go on living in a world without Sandar Dee. It was too much for his broken heart to bear.

Thanks Guys! I appreciate the comments!