pete roper

If the Tekno brackets are available I would love them. I’ll happily buy the bags as well but only really want the mounting kit. I have Teckno bags but in their travels my brackets went AWOL. A set is a bit of a holy grail for me. Yeah, I’m in Oz but we can sort out shipping. thanks. Pete

This is the second or third time I’ve heard of camchain/tensioner related failures on an MGX 21. First one I heard about belonged to the bloke who runs Wildguzzi. It I believe actually snapped a camchain somehow trashing one side of the motor. It was rebuilt and from memory did something very similar again shortly after. The story really frustrated me because ALL of the second generation Hi-Cam motors are essentiallt identical as far as the bits that spin and go up and down are concerned. The cooling system is plumbed very differently in the small port 1400 motors but the lubrication system, which includes both the cam chain tensioner feeds, the under piston cooling sprays and the cam, tappet and cam bearing feeds is all identical to the 1200’s and the MGS is the same, identical, to the other 1400’s which are all much of a muchness. Once the flat tappet fiasco was sorted out the motor was pretty much bulletproof. I’ve seen a few dropped valves but that is usually due to the valve timing being incorrect after rollerisation or lack of oil changes but other than that most problems are oil leaks and oil pressure and phase sensor failures. What made these MGX’s fail really frustrates me because nobody seemed willing to dig into it! Shops just seemed to shrug and either replace the motor or just push the bike into a corner and forget about it. Something like that would have driven me batty! Fixing it is the least of the problem if you don’t know why it failed in the first place! There is no point in just rebuilding something after it has blown up like that unless you work out why because, oddly enough, if you don’t, the chances are it will just do it again! I’d have had at it like a dog at a bone but alas I never had the chance. My best guess, and it really is a guess, is that there is some fault in the machining of the oil galleries in the crankcase in the rear wall of the timing chest. Unlike earlier motors the front main is a pressed in steel sleeve with a tri metal coating, it’s not designed to be replaced. I’m sure this system was adopted for cheapness of manufacture but the upshot is that oil delivery around that bearing to supply both it and the under piston sprays, the cam chain tensioner feeds and the front cam bearings and rocker/cambox feeds is done through a fairly complex system of drillings and machinings in the crankcase itself. The ‘Guess’ I’m making is that somehow or by something that main delivery gallery is somehow blocked or partially occluded preventing the tensioner plunger from priming properly and maybe starving the front cam bearing of oil and causing a potential cam seizure in the cambox. Sadly I’ll never get the chance to follow up on this hypothesis and nobody else is likely to want to so it will, no doubt, remain as one of those eternal mysteries that blacken the company’s name from time to time. As it is I was never a fan of the ‘Small Port’ motor anyway. Too smooth and it seemed to have moved away from the bare bones ‘Engineering Purity’ I see in the Big Port 1200’s. That’s just my own bias though. That and the fact I think the 1400’s are huge, under suspended, overweight, tubs of shite of course!

I’m a big fan of the Centy, but I’m me……..

It helps if we know left or right?

On the bottom end there is always the risk of oil pick-up exposure on the ‘Broad Sump’ engines but it really simply depends on whether you’re willing to risk there being damage. If you grab the rods from underneath and try and move them on the journal, as long as they don’t noticeably move or make squelchy noises they are probably OK. If you want to make sure simply drop the rod caps off, push the pistons and rods up the bore enough to see the top shell and make sure. Now ‘Best Practice’ is to never re-use rod bolts unless they are ones designed to be torqued to stretch. The reality though is that many, many Guzzi owners regularly and repeatedly re-use rod bolts with no issues so if it were my engine? That’s what I would do. It’s not a race engine. It doesn’t need to be treated like one. If the shells show signs of wear? Flick a new set into it. You can give the crankpin a ‘Poor man’s linnish’ with some wet and dry as well if you think it needs it. If it is scored or pitted though it’ll need regrinding and the rods closing and grinding.

Sorry, I haven’t been following this topic. I’ll have a scan through.

No worries. You’re welcome.

OK, so here are pics of my vast tool! Well, actually three tools. I’ll endeavour to get the pics up and then if anyone needs further explanation I can add some. The largest one is for the clutch boss nut, the intermediate one is I think the driven shaft nut and the two smaller, three gear shafts use the smallest one. The dimensions are nut OD and tooth size for the peg slots. Many thanks to Rolf for making them for me and sending me a set. They’ve served me very well over the last probably quarter of a century!

On that, who should I meet outside the Bungendore pie shop on Monday but Bart! After raving about the Beetlemap Michael had just installed in his Greenie he went on the rant about having found the company that now owns the jigs for the S’toons. I think he said they were in Tassie? Anyway he’s sending his, (Terribly lightly damaged, like tiny surface dings, but this is Bart!) pipes off and they’re going to re-tube them for him. I think the sum of $800 for the pair was mentioned but I’m not certain. I’ll see if I can get more details…….

Yup. None for the ‘Old’ six speed shaft nuts though. Sorry, Michael’s workshop is still a horror show from the crane installation. I wasn’t able to get near the ‘Special Tools’ box today. Hopefully I’ll be able to in the next few days and I’ll get dimensions and take some pics.

Unless similar nuts are used in some of the later bikes, (And apart from the pinion nut in the CARC bevelbox I can’t think of any.) I would be very surprised if the factory still has them available. Certainly the CARC six speed boxes don’t use them and I’d be surprised if any of the smallblock, three shaft, six speeds do either. The V100 I know next to nothing about but from reading the manual I can’t remember seeing or having reference to any similar fasteners.

I can probably measure mine in the next few days. They’re at Michael’s workshop though and his new crane is being installed at the moment so the place is a shitfight but I’ll see if I can dig ‘em out and measure them. Having a socket is infinitely better than buggering about with alternatives, believe me.

Nice to hear from you again Dave. Nah. The two machines have little in common but, at least for me, they compliment each other perfectly. My sig is actually accurate but both Grisos are goers, although the red one is up for sale, but only my white Mana is currently working. The black GT has a blown motor and my red 2008 is ‘Hors de Combat’ at the moment with a buggered starter motor and/or solenoid that I haven’t got around to fixing. Did you ever get your Griso back on the road after ‘The Hammer’ buggered it up?

You’ll get no argument from me……

Bart! Look at the date of the ad! It’s seventeen years ago! And what are you doing chucking it on its side you dork!? Words will be spoken next time we meet!

https://www.skf.com/au/products/rolling-bearings/accessories/lock-nuts/keyway

I think they are MK or MB nuts or washers. I’ve got a link somewhere, I’ll see if I can post it up? Bear with me, I’m in NZ on holiday at the moment.

We had on in recently that had done the same thing with the retainer nuts on the intermediate shafts. The nuts and lock washers are standard SKF items. SKF can supply a socket for tightening/removing them as well but I have a complete set for all the Tonti/V11/CARC nuts made for me by Rolf Halverson twenty or more years ago. They’ve been a godsend. Michael has inherited them now.

Yeah, that’s it.

On the subject of flat tappet inspection there is a video in my YouTube feed of me pulling the left hand cambox on an 8V Griso that I made after some poor bloke on another board was told that his shop was going to charge him $2,000 just to inspect the tappets! A figure so mind numbingly absurd I felt compelled to react! The video from the point where I started on the motor, (Having removed the ‘Wing’ before the filming started. The ‘Wing’ is retained by three fasteners.) is thirteen minutes long to the point where the cambox was disassembled on the bench! Working on the dodgy shop’s pay scale that would put me at being able to bill myself out at $8,000 per hour! I would have liked that! I’ll see if I can link it up here later. I wasn’t rushing either.

I think my definitive guide to rollerisation is posted here. It covers which models the factory say were flats but experience says some later than listed 2012 engines were still flat tappet. I’ve never heard of a 2013 plated bike with flats. In my experience unless a flat tappet motor is really ‘Ridden to Death’ rollerisation fixes the problem safely and effectively. For the layman I would say yes, seek out a post-‘12 model but as someone who has more experience than most of this issue I would say there is nothing to fear from a flattie engined bike as long as it was addressed when first the problem was detected via either noise or inspection. If it’s just some poorly maintained and neglected dunger that has been owned by Cletus the pig-f*cker and maintained by his seven toed cousin from the next holler over I’d say run a mile but there are numerous ‘Tell Tales’ that are easily checked on inspection that will enable you to easily identify if it’s likely to be a ‘Good-‘un’ or a ‘Bad-‘un’. Probably time I did a proper write up on that. Personally my opinion is that if you’ve ridden a properly tuned and mapped 8V you’d never look at a 2V the same way again.. And don’t get all ‘In my face’ over the odd numbering nomenclature. It’s just the way it is. Get over it. Even I’ve managed to…..

Yah. It’s the Ducati permanent mag Alt. One thing I can think of is was the stator or rotor removed and the rotor not stuck into the stator as a ‘Keeper’ for any length of time? If so it’s possible it may of lost its magnetism which will hinder charging.

Whenever I see things like that I always think there has to be something wrong with the bike? I mean? It’s a Harley, it’s got a wheelbase a mile long, its rake and trail figures are enormous, it’s travelling on a seemingly smooth road and it’s not even going very fast! Even shitty motorbikes don’t usually go bonkers if their fundamentals are sound. Tyre pressures, steering head bearings, swingarm and wheel bearings etc.

Michael can do it I’m sure. He’s taken over my biz, was my understudy for best part of a decade. Best Guzzi mechanic I know. Knows enough about V11’s to do a clutch easily enough. Might not be the fastest because of the chair but I can guarantee it will be done right. PM me and I’ll give you my phone # and then I can text you his details. We’re just outside Canberra. Pete