pete roper

You'd have to admit that the Combat Wombat manufactured by Hodaka was pretty silly! V-Strom I think just about takes the biscuit at the moment though, what's that all about????? Pete

I dunno what clutch your bike has in but the last of the 10 spring, twin plate units are about as light as you can get them. OK, you can drill a few holes but apart from that I'd suggest that you might compromise their reliability if you take too much out. There is the RAM single plate option. Lots of people swear by it, but Having seen a few I reckon their weight is too far out from the centre of rotation to make much difference. I'm quite happy to be wrong on this though, after all, my favorite bike is a heavy flywheel Convert, (Currently spread from arsehole to breakfast all over the workshop Pete

I've got no love of coppers. The old question of why are coppers like banannas always comes to mind and Highway Patrol/ Traffic always seems to attract arseholes but as an institution I've come to accept they are a necessary evil. Most of them really are *Just Doing Their Job* and went into it with the best of intentions. If we, in democracies, continue to elect cretins who enact bills which create laws that are purposeless, meaningless and, at the end of the day dangerous for the future of us as an inteligent species then it's these blokes that have to enforce them. In all democracies based on the Westminster principle there is something known as the 'Separation of the Powers'. While Wallopers may mainly be bum-faced freaks who haven't got a clue and fancy themselves 'cos they get to wear funny clothes, at the end of the day the only people we can blame for having such a crap system are ourselves for electing the *Statesmen* (Sigh, and Women!) who pass stupid legislation and won't pay wages sufficient to get educated *quality* into the job of policing. OK, rant mode off and I'll crawl back under my rock. Pete

Mind you the forward mounted oil tank fed by weir suggests 'Panther'????? Pete

Lookingat the shape of the tank badge I'd guess it's an Ariel. Obviously a twin port sloper, I'd also guess from the late twenties to early 30's. I forgot to look to see if it had rer uspension, (I think not.) If it has that's blown my theory out of the water. The only thing that makes me wonder is the tower that looks like a cam drive. It's not a Chater-Lea face cam is it???? I thought they went out of production in the early twenties???? Pete

I picked the Vic. but then I used to own a swag of Lilacs Pete

Looks like a Benelli 2C but it might be a 125 variant although I thought they were all singles. Like any air cooled two stroke you had to ride the sods with one hand hovering over the clutch for when they nipped up . best to carry around a pocket full of pistons for when they got holes in and a couple of sets of barrels for when the ring pegs fell out! Pete

Nah! Bloody Clog-Wogs, got no class at all! If you're gouing to design a ride like this you have to have a section where two opposing *teams* rush past each other in close proximity so if one 'Parks a Tiger' in all the excitement it is possible to do it into the path of the on-coming *opposition*. What on earth is the point of having a chunder-inducing ride if it doesn't a.) turn the punters upside down so all the money falls out of their pockets, and b.) ensure that nobody wnats to sit next to them on the bus on the way home!?????? That's the problem with fun-fairs nowadays they've all been taken over by kitten-jugglers and nonces! When I was young you didn't think you'd been to an 'Enormity' (as they were known.) until you came home with only half a spleen and having lost 2/3rds of your blood and other vital bodily fluids!!!! The only nice girl I ever met called 'Tracey' I met at a fun-fair. In retrospect I think she was neither very nice or even recognisably a girl unless you had a skinfull of warm beer and had consumed several kilo's of soggy potato chips and a couple of those burgers that look like something you scrape off your shoe after a day at a stock and station show! Lets face it, when you're a teenager it isn't worth doing unless it involves booze, fighting or sex! Prefferably all three together!!!!! Pete

We don't have 'coons over here, I could substitute Possum tails or more likely fox, which are a feral pest. I think tassels and ape hangers would be a good look too, I might even get to meet one of those women with the 'MotoGuzzi' G-string that somebody found, (Tex???? ). The problem is when I meet women like that I usually get sprayed with mace and have to spend several days in a police cell, I can't understand why??? Just becaue I sort of have a pick at the edge to see what's underneath Pete

I don't want the shit-bag, ugly, V11 tank, I want the lithe, gorgeous, sinuous, Daytona tank. Yeah, Yeah, I should look at using Cliff's 'pooter but, (Watch my lips!) I LIKE CARBS!!!! I understand them and they work perfectly well for my chosen useage. Barry's Carbed Daytona goes like stink, I'll just pester and moan at him until he helps me out if I get grief Nah, I'm getting itchy! I detest the MGS01 I think its an ugly, derivative, turdbox and I'd rather have a sumo wrestler play timpani on my buttocks with blunt scalpels than think that that was the best you could do with a HiCam in a spineframe. anyway, if I do it myself I can paint it pink and fit a set of leather saddlebags with mother-of-pearl inlay and rhinestones on the back to shit off the purists. A nice mural on the tank of a naked girl with unfeasibly large breasts fondling a snake would be a nice touch too!!!! I'm thinking!!!!!! Pete

Paul, as you know I covet your motorcycle in a way that is both demeaning and unhealthy!!!! How much would it actually cost me to buy all the shit so I can stuff a HiCam with a six speeder into a spiney? OK, so I'll piss lots of people off by putting some sodding great carburetors on it rather than using FI, (Shut up in the back row! Nobody asked you!!!! ) but every time I see pics of your unit I sort of go all weak at the knees and get brain-fade. Is it possible to cram a HiCam into a V11 chassis without too many problems? this would seem to be a cheaper option than going the whole hog with your mods. Damn, stop posting those pics!!! I'm quite happy with my crappy old Tonti's Pete

You're welcome Pete

Errr, and you could always email Stucchi ! Basically though if you want the easy route just get into contact with Rick and Gordon at MG Cycle. Top blokes and a pleasure to do business with! Pete

Go get a late '70's early '80's T3. It'll go all the places these poofterish 'Dual Sport's' can go and you can fix it with two rusty screwdrivers and a big 'ammer! I vomit on anything with a rotax engine over-complex, underbuilt bits of sh!t!!! A pox upon them all!!! Pete

Take Ye, One part eye of newt, three parts scrotum of willdebeast, add in three boa-constrictor bladders and stir while singing ' Chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep' to the accopmanyment of a tuba and piano-accordian. Cook over a slow fire until it smells a lot worse than it did when it started and then stick your head in the embers. The medical bills will at least get you something which this piece of useless plastic flatulence can't possibly deliver!!!!! Pete

Yeah, OK. I apologise too. I think it may just be a cultural difference, the US 'In your face' type attitude. It just grates a bit with me from time to time and i still found, after re-reading the thread, that there seemed to be a whole lot of derision and accrimony that was un-necessary Anyway, I'll crawl back under my rock and play with my brass tubes pete

Just one point on physically moving the timing. The trigger is the *missing teeth* on the 'Phonic Wheel' as Guzzi so charmingly call it. This is behind the cam sprocket and the pick-up is mounted in the wall of the timing chest. To change it's position you would either have to make slots and some sort of clamp to enable you to move the pick-up in relation to the sprocket and my guess would be that sealing such a mechanism would be a right frontbottom. The other alternatives would be to slot the 'Phonic Wheel so that it could be moved in relation to the locator peg, this would be probably the easiest but changing it's position would require removal of the timing chest each time you did it, this idea also has whiskers on it! I believe you can change the timing a tiny bit by varying the gap betwixt wheel and pick-up but probably not by a meaningfull amount. For these reasons I think it has been widely assumed that probably the best way of doing it is by programming timing changes into the ECU. Now. NONE of this is my province. Other people may like traffic lights! I like Carbs, I even have a sort of medieval attatchment to point I make no claim to being able to offer any scintilating insights into this debate but I have to agree that it'd decended into fatuous, masturbatory, tripe. S'probably why Cliff seems to have given up on it. I find the sort of agressive, hectoring and derisory tone of a lot of the contributions tedious beyond belief. If people want to come here and offer help and advice? I'm all for it. If the aim seems to be to belittle other peoples efforts, (For why? To corner the market in tuning FI Guzzis? Well, I wish them a happy retirement to the Bahamas on the strength of that ) and generally big note themselves while putting down other peoples work??? I also find people who post serious tech stuff annonymously tedious, don't you have confidence in your own abilities??? Ahhh, bugger it. I'll shut up, s'not worth getting all hot under the collar about. Pete (Who reckons it's about time to hop on the mighty Convert and adjourn to the pub where he'll inject a couple fof Carlton Draught's into his system )

The bastard probably has to put bricks on the seat to stop it blowing away Time for another fix Paul, post up some pics when they're on so I can hate you even more Pete

It's a Ner-a-car Jim. Very inovative for it's time HCS and all!!! Pete

Mainly down to my experiences with the sintered bronze twin plate units available in the early '80's which were awful and wore out in next to no time and my mate Dave's Transkontinental unit that used a bronze plate that wore out in about a week!!!!! We use bog-standard fibre plates in our race bike without problems I just tend to think Bronze is a recipe for rapid wear for little or no gain. Pete

FWIW, the Cali came up and we extracted the lifters, bled them down, re-installed and lo and behold they were way out of whack Now we didn't drop the sump to check the lobes but I phoned the Oz. Importers and was told that, yes, this bike was within the range of the recall, (Which recall Buggered if I know????? Look, speaking to Dave, The head honcho for this stuff, he did seem genuinely concerned, (And for a miserable cynic like me to think that I think there is some hope ). I also phoned Todd Haven in Houston who kindly gave me the stats on what was acceptable in terms of bled-down clearance etc. I'm hoping that Dave will send me a couple of buggered cams, some buggered lifters AND the shiny, new, replacements so I can graph them all, (If poss.), hardness test them at the mint, and see if we can get a categorical answer to why such a great idea, (For a tourer, I hate the term 'Cruiser' even though it probably applies to the Cali's.) went arse up in the first place? Using my prior knowledge of Guzzi hstory I tend to point the bone at accountants rather than the engineers. I still believe that Guzzis are fundamentally excellently engineered. What DID piss me off was that this $22,000AU EV was delivered without any clamps on the mufflers, the bling from the LH pipe was missing and examining the threads where it is supposed to be bolted on there was still chrome plate on the threads and the splines of the bevelbox were ungreased and that was a cursory 15 minute examination before we hooked into the lifters. You might be able to say the bling fell off, but NO motorbike should be delivered to a customer without exhaust clamps!!!!! It's imbecelic!!!!! On a lighter note I had a Ballabio in as well for a bit of a looksee and we removed the restrictors from the Remus pipes. Cor! didn't that make it a bit more lively . And to top it off another bloke dropped in with his My 16M equipped 1100 Sport! Good grief! Thre bikes under 10 years old in one day!!! Be still my beating heart!!!!! Pete

Yes, and there's the fact that there are a lot more reciprocating bits that are heavier in the old pushrod donk. Bore/stroke ratios are different and the secondary inballance factors are probably higher too. To my mind though all of the newer bikes are almost antiseptic in their smoothness compared to my old dungers, (With the exception of the hot rod but thats a super-short stroke motor with a better rod/stroke ratio.). You'll find that making sure the TB's are synced and ballanced properly will make a big difference too. Lets face it the Guzzi motor is almost medieval It's one of the things that gives it it's, (Nowadays.) almost unique charm. Check the tune is right and if you get numb fingers expriment withdifferent bar end weights. Oh! And don't ride it at low RPMs, they much preffer a good thrashing!!!!! Pete

Yup, I'd read that thread with interest. I was just sounding out if people had had follower problems because it was mentioned on Phil's board by the local importer dude. I'd not heard of any such problems on solid liftered bikes, only the Hydro Cali's, which have a completely different follower design which *might* concievably be part of the problem with them lunching their cams. Anyway, sorry, you're probably not interested in that so I'll shut up. Thanks for the responses, or lack of them . It puts my mind at ease a bit as I'm not wanting to chase any mor chimeras than I absolutely have to with this issue. Pete

I strongly advise against using another sintered bronze plate. Whether these failures are consistent or it is a case of poor quality control on some items I don't know but I do know that, generally speaking, fibre plates are better. I've said as much on WG but I'll reitterate it here but at the end of the day it's the man's choice and it may work out fine. Pete

Well, it got your attention Look, Oz importer sez that there have been several cases of V11 variants trashing their cam followers as well as the Hydro Cali's. My gut feeling is that some V11's that have been taken apart have shown the pitting associated with Guzzis that use wilder cams and run too large valve clearances, I've seen it often and don't think it is relevant to V11's at all but I thought I'd just ask here? I've not heard of a single case of failure on any of the solid bikes and definitely DON'T want to start some silly scare campaign, (Bear this in mind if anyone decides to on-post this on another forum, I've never, in 30 years of Guzzi-ing seen a failed follower/cam problem caused by the solid lifters.) but if anyone has seen problems please let me know as it *might* be relevant to my investigations of the problems with the liquid lifter bikes. Thanks. Pete