pete roper

And thereby hangs the nub! Over the last few years I've done several short production runs of not only my own interpretations of things but also stuff that people were clamoring for. Tapered roller steering head conversions for smallblocks! Real ones, not the shite only one taperered roller on the bottom because that is where the stress is ( ) with inserts and a longer stem to take 30205's at a fraction of the price of the Guzzi-crap cup and cone bicycle bearings. I was told people would slaughter their mothers for such a thing and they stayed away in droves!!! It took me a year and ahalf to get rid of 'em and I didn't turn a cent! With the trays? I made a run of 50 and still have at least a dozen! I've given several away. Kev got two! One is going on our Mille and if he wants he can stick the other one on his MkV. I gave one to Greg, Enzo and Cam, Wayne and Bill also got them for nix. I sourced and offered to supply the Fiat springs I recommend for hotter motors and once again I ended up with stock on the shelf that I ended up puting in customers' motors just to get rid of 'em. "Rev your T3 to 9,000 Sir? No worries!!!" Look, Guzzis are such a weird and eclectic field that everybody is going to try and skin the cat differently. In my tiny mind there is nothing wrong with that, but it does mean that it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a.) agreement on what is the *best* way of doing things or b.) an easy and guaranteed way of turning a quid from it. If you want a simple example just look at the arguments about sorting out or altering the fuel injection! Daggers drawn at two paces on that one and the thing is all the solutions work but their protagonists get all hot under the collar and protective about *their* speciality! Look, I'm all in favor of people modifying their machines. I personally see any factory product as just that, a factory product, built down to a price and compromised at every step of the manufacturing process. Anything from adding shiny bling to modifying the f@ck out of the engine, gearbox, driveline, chassis, is FINE by me but I'm afraid I'm no longer naieve enough to beleive that any of us are going to be able to retire to the South Pacific and have nubile young titters wait on us hand and foot for the rest of our lives on the profits from manufacturing weirdo parts for obscure, obsolete, Italian motorbikes. If I read about something that I see as actively dangerous or damaging mechanically, (Poxy alloy timing gears f'rinstance! ) I'll rail against it with all might but otherwise I say live and let live. We're all experimenting and with experimentation there is always an element of risk. If you can't hack that I'd suggest selling your bike, (Any bloody bike!) and buying something simple and trustworthy like Toyota Camry. The downside to that is that travelling in a Toyota Camry is like travelling in a hearse without actually being dead. In fact being dead in a hearse is probably considerably more exciting AND enjoyable than a Camry! Me? I'll continue to bugger-arse around with my poxy old 's because a.) I can and b.) they deserve it. And so should you, because without striving for betterment we all might as well give up and start watching 'Reality TV' and personally I'd rather stick my @#$$#! in a blender Pete

I was planning on doing the calcs when I had a spare moment but you've got in first, thanks. It's alsp worth remembering that the crank itself is a bloody great irregular shaped piece of steel that is in no way aerodynamic so drag is going to be *up there*!. Yes, ideally a propperly designed plate to maximise the efficiency should have web scrapers and screens but this would require a lot of farting about. A large amount of the benefit can be achieved simply by 'dry-sumping' the engine with a plate such as Enzo's, this isn't a new idea, it's been around for many years on Guzzi big blocks and is known to cure the breathing problems on older machines. The baffling effect of the plate will also be very iseful on the broad sump models, (And yes, the Sport Corsa is essentially the same internally as the V11 motor.) which have the nasty habit of exposing their oil pick-ups. Pete

Continuing, (Belch!) the cam lobes are not pressure fed on any motor I'm familiar with. Some of them may have oil jets directed at the cam but the wedgeing action on the oil is a result of the oil that gets deposited on the lobe by splash and the rather extreme forces that act on the face between flank and follower during the opening sequence. At anywhere aproaching moderate RPM the need for protection on the closing flank diminishes as the force exerted by the spring will, effectively, diminish with a rise in engine speed. All the oil that gets flung off the crankpin will come off in great streamers directly at the area of the camshaft where the lobes are located, belive me, there is MORE than adequate oil there! Guzzi themselves have used a variety of connecting rod designs over the years. Some have no oil squirters in the rods, some have squirters on both sides of the shank and some have squirters only on one side! ALL replacement big end shells have two oil feed holes in them which to me would imply that a.) Guzzi haven't worked worked it out at all. b.) Whoever was given the job of drilling the rods was an idiot or lazy, or c.) It was just rabid conservatism on the part of the designers who were, periodically, given the task of making any damn chage they liked as long as it was CHEAP!!!! My Carillo roda don't have squirters and they've never caused my pistons to melt. Why? Perhaps because enough oil gets flung up under the pistons to render them un-necessary, neither do the Argo's e are using on the new racebike motor and belive me I don't worry at all about lack of cooling or poor lubrication on that, only on it not emptying it's sump all over the rear wheel, (Although by *law* we have to run a catch bottle.) Look, I heartily respect Mike Rich, in fact I Rob and I are thinking of sending the racebike heads to him at sometime soon-ish when we can afford it, but on this one, especially in a roadbike application, I think he's got it wrong. That's not to say I'm *right*, there are always many ways to skin a cat, but I think his fears are unfounded on this one. pete (Dunno what that is, but I like it )

Chris Rampen, who some of you may *know* from the Oz forum has spoken a lot about this and the development of windage trays in general. I did a bit of hunting and found some time-lapse/ strobe pics of an operating crank with the sump off and it was fairly amazing! On the subject of cooling and lubrication though just think about what needs lubricating and what gets hot! The bearings need lubrication, at pressure, to form a decent hydrodynamic wedge to protect the bearings and oil flow to remove heat but this oil is delivered, directly to them by way of the galleries, none of the bearings per-se are lubricated by splash, even Guzzi have gone beyond the Briggs and Stratton principle of a dipper-spoon on the rods !!!!! The bits that will most need lubricating are the little ends and the cam lobes. Look at where they are and you can see that oil flung off the crankpin through the side clearance on the rods will do a more than ample job. Pistons are mainly cooled by conduction through the skirts and a lesser extent through the gudgeon pin. (Bear this in mind when looking at the supposed *performance* aftermarket pistons, especially the FBF units which to me look like their thrust faces are too short and these are what generate more heat rather than dumpng it.). Sorry, I'll come back to this, gotta go, it's supper time ! Pete

I really don't see how it could cause overheating? Oil is flung out of the side clearance on the rods, out of the main bearing journals and out of the cam. The cam has a gallery down the middle which is *filled* from the rear and then oil is sprayed out of drillings radial in the cam, (Have a look.) I don't know if all cams on all models have these radial drillings but I think they mostly do. There is always going to be bags of oil flying around to cool and lube. You just don't need the drag or the excess picked uop from the sump. As for the timing chain? it isn't lubed by oil being *sloshed* into the timing chest. The holes at the bottom of the chest are drains to allow oil that gets into the chest from the front main bearing, cam bearing and oil pump driveshaft and bearings to return to the sump. As it squirts out of the bearings the windage of the chain whizzing around ten to the dozen will ensure that it gets flung around enough to lube everything up! If you are really concerned an easy solution is to block the holes in the bottom of the chest and add another couple of drillings through the back of the timing chest into the crankcase proper about level with the oil pump spindle. This is a trick recommended for people who run timing gears, (even the good ones!) as it ensures the oil pump gear runs in an oil bath and feeds oil up the geartrain. You can use the same principle to ensure that the chain is adequately lubed too but since a chain will quite happily last 120,000Kms without this sort of cosseting I can't really see the point. I did perform this mod to my Hot-Rod when it was in roundfin form and running gears, (Good, steel ones.) but only when somebody pointed out to me it might be a good idea. Prrior to that it had done approximately 200,000 miles with the gears in and no mod and the gears were still really good, as in, almost brand new looking! Look, I'm not claiming that a plate is a panacea for all ills or that it will give huge power increases. Neither Enzo's or my plates are particularly sophisticated, they don't have scrapers or screens, but certainly in my bikes they run cooler and don't overwhelm the breather system. What was the failure Ed experienced Todd? Pete

The vast majority of Guzzis that used to race in the Endurance series in europe in the mid '70's always retired with 'Oiling Problems' namely that the oil was all over the outside of the motor . I can't see how a windage tray could contribute to the destruction of the motor unless the drain back orifices were too small? All parts that are fed by splash will still get more than adequate lubrication from the oil that is being flung out of the side clearance of the rods and the front and rear main bearings, the main purpose of the plate is to prevent oil being picked up and kept in suspension in the gas within the crankcase by the cyclonic forces generated by it's spinning at high speed. I must say I am surprised that Enzo noticed a huge performace benefit but it is possible there will be *a* benefit. The real advantage of using a plate is that it relieves a lot of stress on the breather/separator system and it was for this purpose I did a run of them as especially with older Tonti's that don't use the frame as a condensor it is very, very easy to embarasingly over-tax the breather and return system and heavily lubricate the rear wheel. One of the biggest advantages on the 'Broad Sump' V11 machines would to my mind be that the plate will act as a baffle helping to delay or prevent the exposure of the oil pick up under hard acceleration or pulling wheelies and therefore helping prevent boundary lubriction occuring at big ends and mains. Interesting to note that both I and my traveling companion who I was riding through the depths of Sydney with last weekend on VERY similar bikes both equipped with oil temperature guages. LeMans top ends, 950cc, midrange cams, I run 36mm PHF's, he has 40mm PHM's His flywheel is very light, mine is out of an Eldo . The biggest difference is that my machine has one of my plates installed. His oil temperature was consistently 15 + degrees hotter than mine during the entire boring drone. I put this down to the oil being less aerated and remaining in suspenion for a shorter time allowing better cooling in the sump. Seems to work though, at least on older models. Pete

Unless you're going to fit some sort of vernierable gears, (And you probably know my opinions on them!) you're stuck with the factory timing setup on the gears or one tooth either side of it which with a Norris RR3 will certainly put you in valve bending territory so you basically have to trust that Norris have ground the cam accurately. I'd avoid pocketing the valves, it's not a good way to go, get the pistons flycut instead if there are clearance problems. Pete

In which case you'll need to pull the whole top end anyway to check the piston to valve and valve to valve clearances, The orris RR3 is a fairly radical grind I belive, not something you just stick in. Pete

Yup, that's the one. The higher the state of tune and especially compression the greater the acceleration and deceleration of the crank, (And therefore flywheel.) so if the clutch is pulled in the friction plate/s rattle around and flog f@ck out of the boss. KB, you'll love this, I just stuck an Ambo flywheel in my SP, it's bigger than Ben Hur and rides B-e-a-t-i-f-u-l-l-Y. It's like a Burrel Road Locomotive! Brilliant!!!! Pete

Moto Guzzi, Going out of business since 1921! You gotta love it Pete

I had a bit of a closer look at the whole wretched pile of sh!t while I was working on my own bike today, (Bloody SP, It's only done 89,000Km's and the clutch had started to get touchy. I went in to give it a wash and the next thing I know it's two and a bit hours later and I'm holding the rear main bearing in my hand thinking, "Why did I take that out? The seal nly looked a *little* wet?" ) and while obviously the flywheel is 'Donald Ducked' what caught my eye was the fact that the clutch boss was incredibly worn, as were the friction plate splines. I'll take pics but there is at least 1.5mm of free play betwixt the boss splines and the plate splines and this to me indicates that the idle speed was way too low. Whether the idle speed was set ower than the manufacturers recommendations who knows but I'd certainly suggest that with this light a clutch assembley that you should get it up a bit. With my little hot-rod which a;so has bugger-all flywheel and is in a fairly high state of tune I have the idle, (For a variety of reasons.) at between 1,300 and 1,500. With a motor with high comression ratio and a cam designed for more top end the power pulses at very low RPM are going to be harsh and irregular. The lack of a heavy flywheel to even out the pulses by storing and releasing energy over the whole 720 degree cycle is going to exacerbate these problems so to my mind, get that idle speed up and DON'T sit at the lights with the clutch in, (I've been telling Guzzi owners this for years and still I see buggered clutch bosses and flywheels. The small spline boss in my hot-rod is the same one that it left the factory with in 1979, it's done nearly 300,000miles and while less than perfect it's still serviceable. I'm not a bloody magician but I do set my idle high and don't sit at the lights with the clutch in, so..... ) Just to prove to you that I am *really* perverse I'll tell you that the real reason I took the gearbox off the SP was to fit an Ambo flywheel. You know. The one that weighs about as much as a complete V11 . Why? Because for a fast, point to point tourer a VAST flywheel is GREAT!!!! At the same time it's getting LeMAns mid-valve heads, 88mm barrels and pistons to suit and a cosmetic freshen up to ensure it's devine ugliness is around for another 30 years Pete

Well, Bruce's clutch and flywheel arrived yesterday and I just got a chance to pull 'em out and have a look. To be honest I think the issue is that the alloy basket is simply too bloody thin! Compared to one of the anodised Alloy wheels that are available for the (Less powerful.) earlier models the thickness of the RAM/Guzzi part is a lot less. The last *real* RAM unit I installed was on an 1100 Sport C and from memory the whole unit looked substantially different and I certainly don't remember the back of the wheel being quite so skinny? Do you want me to take some pics so someone can post 'em up here???? Pete

Nah, you don't have to pull the motor. I haven't done the cam on a v11 but you have to remove the rocker gear, pushrods and sump. Open the timing chest and remove the sprockets and chain then pull out the cam. The followers will drop out as you do this but if you're replacing the cam it matters not a jot as you have to use new ones with a new cam anyway. To install the new followers you coat 'em with thick grease and slot 'em on a philips head screwdriver through the oil holes in the sides of the followers and post 'em in through the front cam bearing and wiggle 'em up into their holes in the case. The grease holds them in, you then slip the new cam in and reassemble all the rest of the gubbins,. Pete

Offhand I couldn't give you a figure but I find it *just* possible to lift a motor on my own but don't like to as it's a real strain! Usually I rope one of the lads from Graham's workshop to help me as I'm way past trying to do myself a mischief lifting up heavy things that shouldn't be lifted alone! Put it this way, if you try it on your own you WILL fart when you take the strain Pete

Really? Do I detect the smell of frogshit in the air ? What sort of washers are used with the mounting bolts? Given that all the alloy wheels I've seen that have gone tits-up have had the alloy marked by schnoore washers I wonder if this is a consideration? Perhaps the bolts or their washers are starting stress raisers in the alloy? The torque argument sounds like a 'We haven't got a clue' answer to me. Oh, Thanks for sending me the clutch Bruce. If I can see anything specific I'll let people know but obviously I'll just be making wild guesses probably so don't take what I say, (If anything.) as gospel. Pete

Bruce. I'd be really, really, interested to have a squizz at it if you'd let me. I've got to come down to Melboring at some point erasonably soon as I've got a motor and gearbox to drop off and my beautiful, lovely Convert to pick up. D'you know Phil Doland or John Ferguson? They're both in the Vic club I think. If you could drop it off to one of them or just get Steve Denny to send it up with my next parts order I'll just have a squizz at it and return it to you, I'll pay postage etc. Pete

No Dan, I'm just a mechanic who just happens to like Moto Guzzis and have been working on them for 25 years. I'm not a shit-hot race engine builder or anything special in any way at all but I do consider myself competent in my trade and in my selected field of work. It's my opinion that all too many people in the metal trades nowadays are more concerned with calling themselves 'Technicians' or some other damn fool name than they are about actually putting into practice what they were taught in college and should of learnt during their apprenticeships. Especially with which most of the young bloods see as ancient, obsolete, sh!tboxes this leads to a cavalier attitude and poor service which in turn leads to a poor reputation for the company. Lets face it when you have a reputation as bad as Guzzi it can't *all* be the product's fault ! On the other hand, would you do a job where you had to train for at least 4 years, spent most of your work time surrounded by and covered in carcinogens for not a lot of money and had everyone think you're a lying c@nt? Nah. Probably not I have never claimed I was sane either Pete

Hurrgh! Well, you might just be lucky and have done no serious harm. It is a after all which means you can't kill it with a shitty stick! . The usual cause for filters coming off is that people don't luricate the gasket/ seal before they screw them on. I know "Why would lubricating something stop it coming undone????" well, it's for the simple reason that as you tighten it the gasket will slide until it is compressed enough to hold the filter in place. If it isn't lubricated it will tend to deform and then with heat cycling it regains it's original form by unwinding the filter. In most cases this will only be a small amount and won't matter but on odd occasions it will either cause the filter to loosen or the gasket will tear. In either case you lose pressure and in some cases, like yours, it can have disastrous or near disastrous results. All the more reason to do your own oil and filter changes! Pete

I'm not saying it doesn't or can't happen. Simply that it is extraordinarily rare. The thing is that I know for a fact that many, many people have had their motors out to fix seals that were completely fine and the problem just recurrs because the seal wasn't the problem in the first place. Just trying to save people the hassle, if they know this and the dealer doesn't a bit of gentle suggestion may save a heap of hassle. Pete

I didn't look carefully at your self-descripion thingy before. It's a '99 model, (Short frame? Yummy ) but that means that the poxy breather pipe is now 5 years old and if you ride it lots it's probably cooked. I'd go the hose before anything else. You haven't sudenly had a brain-fade and gone to synthetic oil from mineral have you? I'm told that there is a replacement pipe of higher quality than the original that is a John Deere part, (Which I find wonderfully appropriate ) but i haven't got a part#. Sorry. Pete

If you rode it home three miles and it didn't lock up solid than it is highly unlikely to be a major problem. Plain bearings need a constant supply of oil under comparatively high pressure, if it ain't there they will kark it in seconds, not in many seconds. If you are tooling along at speed major damage will of been done even before the oil pressure light has time to come on as the mechanical switch takes time to operate. Having said all that I would drain the oil, drop the sump, (not just the oil filter plate.) and check that the filter/thermostat housing is still bolted to the front of the case tightly. This isn't much of a chore and the likelyhood is that the dealer you bought it off hasn't done the sump drop at the first service anyway, even though it's specified in the service schedule. (They may well of done but a lot of dealers don't because they aren't really interested in Guzzi.) Once the sump is off you can check the mounting bolts and see if anything is loose thatmight cause a pressure drop but my guess is it will be the crappy sender switch. A quick test to see if you have *any* oil pressure at all is to take a rocker cover off and start the bike. If oil comes out of the area at the top of the rockers where the retaining springs are then chances are everything is fine, the delivery system is basically impregnable, (I've never seen a Guzzi oil pump fail. Wear out? Yes. Fail? No!) the pressure relief valve is so simple that unless a chunk of shite has jammed the plunger, (And all oil the the relief valve is filtered.) it can't really fail. Try replacing the sender, check the above listed things and see what happens. you can't do any more harm than you have already if there really *is* a problem. Pete

Oh for f@cks sake!!! Look youse blokes, if a rear main seal goes it's like the bloody Exon Valdez, pints of oil everywhere in minutes!!!! I can't believe that even if your local dealer is a complete cretin that he doesn't know that Guzzi rear main seals very, very rarely blow unless the sump is grossly overfilled. In fact it is one of the few things that the *modern* motors do even less than the old ones!!!!! While it may disapoint some of of our more naieve posters the basic Guzzi donk is exactly the same in all real respects as the venerable V700 of 1967 and oil leaks cone from the same places! 1.) Almost always leaks from the bell housing can be traced back to the breather hose that comes off the pipe from the top of the bell housing. Guzzi, for expediency clamp this with a shitty clamp like the sort of thing that they use for ringing birds! they also use really crap hose that tends to perish quickly and crack. When the clamp loosens or the hose cracks or collapses the hose leaks, it then runs down through the hole the pipe pokes through, through the bell housing and dribbles out of the drain slot and people who should know better say, "Uh! You've got a blown rear mainseal mate! That'll cost you a zillion dollars to fix!". If you're lucky while they are pulling the old tart apart they'll notice the pipe is a bit ordianary and replace it and then the leak will be fixed. If not then the leak will recurr within a few days, you'll get the sh!ts, the dealer will get the sh!ts with you, you'll sell the bike and then spend the rest of your life saying Guzzis are awful sh!theaps. Simply replace the hose first, make sure the ball valve is there and not gummed up and use decent clamps to secure it. 2.) If that doesn't work there are a couple of other areas prone to leakage. a.) The cam end welch plug. Solution? Clean it with carb cleaner and slather it in epoxy. b.) The two bottom bolts of the rear main bearing housing aren't in blind holes. They should be sealed with Loctite and, if you're paranoid, (Who? Me?) PTFE tape. Finally you may be unlucky enough to have a porous rear main bearing flange but this is stupidly rare! 3.) Sniff the oil. If it is gear oil chances are it's creeping up the clutch thrust pushrod because the seals have hardened. Offhand I can't say if the V11's use the same seals (But I'd bet London to a Brick they do!) as the older 5 speeds but these are notoriously leak prone, (Funnily enough mine never leak, I don't know why? I'm not a magician?).Replace them? Problem goes away! Look, obviously I can't say definitively that you haven't got a blown rear main seal but if it were my bike I'd certainl;y replace the breather hose and, if suspected, the clutch pushrod seals, before pulling the motor out. No, I'm not trying to be smart but I've been working on these things for twenty five years and the only blown mainseals I've seen are on bikes that have sat idle for a few years or have been grossly overfilled with oil. Oh and the odd one that had been owned by the sort of moron who's idea of preventative maintenance is to bounce up and down on the seat and as long as the rims don't rub on the road? Well, it's fit to go!!!! Always think *easy*! It's a Moto Guzzi for God's sakes!!!!! Put petrol in it and ride it till it stops!!!!! Pete

Stiffhead? Nice Look, I'm a carburetor sort of bloke as you're probably aware. I like 'em, even a mouth breather like me can make 'em work. What i can say is that I've ridden Cliff's Sport Corsa with his earlier itteration of his 'pooter that was built to replace the excrable 16M. All I can say is that it's awesome, jaw-droppingly, wonderfull! OK so it's Cliff's own bike and he's spent a lot of time setting it up but it's power delivery is flawless, (OK, he was still pissing and moaning about it but I thought it was flawless!) right from idle to WAY too bloody fast!!! No, hiccups, flat spots, etc. Just twist the handle and watch the horizon come towards you at an indecently rapid rate of knots!!!!! Cliff can explain it all, as I said, I'm a bonehead when it comes to FI. The thing is it's a complete replacement ECU and it can now be run closed loop if required. Compared to the other options, flashloaded programs from AM suppliers, (Haven't found one I like for the 15M yet.) or a PC III, which I know work and people are happy with but I don't like the idea of stacking a box on another box, if you see what I mean, Cliff's unit is streets ahead. Yes, he's a small operator a long way away, but all the folks I've spoken to who have bought and used his product are very impressed with the level of after sales service he provides and are more than happy with the product. You know where to send the xheque Cliff Pete

The grease pot at Mandello has an almost mythical status, a bit like the Unicorn . Not only does that bearing rarely have any grease in it it also has a nice little hole to allow water in through the inner bearing race I dunno if my little schpiel on stripping a bevelbox is still available on this site? If it is the pics there show you the various bits and pieces. Incidentally, if it *is* stored somewhere could somebody e-mail it back to me or to the Guzzitech site as I think it's probably worth keeping even though most people are a bit confused by the chicken. pete

What makes this so enraging is that there ARE good dealers out there, but if your dealer is a complete dipshit, and there are lots of those around, it means you can't get ANY information at all. This is insane Pete