pete roper

Yup, and, providing the world doesn’t end, IC vehicles will end up being an ‘Enthusiast’ hobby, a bit like steam trains are. Oh, they will, at least for the foreseeable future, remain a lot more popular than steam trains simply because unlike steam locomotives IC vehicles were, and are, ubiquitous and everybody in the western ‘Developed’ world will have memories inextricably woven in to the fabric of their lives that will involve them. Be it memories of family holidays as a kid or that thrill of discovery when you took your first trip *Away* independently on your first motorbike or car? Almost everyone will have those and ‘We’ and the generations up to the present will wish to preserve those memories and the items associated with them. I don’t think IC will need to be legislated out of existence. I think it will just fade into the background. What will replace it? Who knows? Whatever it is will still have the potential to be just as exciting, if society wishes it to be so. As it is more and more people nowadays, and not just young people, seem to be more interested in consumerism and living out a ‘Fantasy’ life vicariously through the lives of others on a small, glowing, screen. Is that wrong? Or bad? It’s not really my place to say. I’m an old man at the end of my (Enormously lucky!) life. The world I am bequeathing to my children is pretty f*cked up! If I were young I wouldn’t listen to a godammed word people like me say!

Well, off the top of my head…….. They used a very tall final drive. Enormously tall. Compensated for by lower internal ratios in the gearbox. The driveshaft and universal joint are a ‘One piece’ unit and they use the 20 tooth spline form used on the V11 and later bikes rather than the ‘Standard’ 10 spline system. It is critical to keep the ignition timing spot on as if the motor ‘Kicks Back’ while starting it has a tendency to round off the hexagonal key that drives the torque converter fluid pump. Drive is then lost as the fluid overheats. They are also very touchy about what type of ATF to use. Early ‘Verts had a lightweight, pressed steel, flywheel that tended to rip its centre out. Later ones have an enormous forged steel item that weighs about as much as a neutron star! As well as the standard ‘Vert, which closely resembled a T3/G5 with cow-horn bars and a weird tail light, the engine and transmission were also used in an automatic version of the California II. All their owners are strange, hump-backed midgets, usually with a withered arm, buck teeth and rickets. They tend not to bathe often and may or may not have communicable diseases so it’s best not to touch them. In fact try and keep them at arm’s length and stand upwind of them if possible. I am, obviously, the exception that proves the rule……….

I have to say I also thought that figure was most likely a ‘Pulled out of my arse’ statement rather than one that has any statistical veracity. I’m sure some people commute on two wheels but the numbers would probably be small percentage wise. It’s also important to realise that an awful lot of European countries have much, much more effective public/mass transport systems than most cities in the US or Australia. Even the UK which generally lags behind and has shit public transport due to decades of ‘Privatisation’ and lack of investment coupled with high fare prices still offers services that mean that old friends who live there, while they may own a car for personal transport, only use it occasionally and if travelling between towns of any size will generally take the train and then taxi or Uber it at their destination. For an awful lot of travel one’s own personal vehicle simply isn’t a necessity.

From a member on WG I believe?

There was also a run of them, that we didn’t get in Oz, that were white and, wait for it, BROWN! It’s a very dark coffee coloured brown and although I usually think ‘Brown’ anything is awful, (When Australia still had an automotive industry all the really shitty looking cars were always painted a sort of ‘Squittery Brown’ colour! Puke!) I actually really, really like the brown and white Norges.

The ‘Changing on the fly’ problem is that the transmission is not a ‘Shifting’ transmission in the traditional sense. It is really just a torque converter drive with a two ratio gearbox behind it. The difference between high and low ratios is so great that if you pull in the clutch and try to ‘Change Gear’ as you would in a conventional constant mesh box the speed differential between the dog clutch and the pinions is enormous! It will engage, either up or down, but with an almighty crunch as the dogs engage and this ends up rounding them off so, if you are just using high range say, and you whack the throttle open at low speed it may spit itself out of high and into low which can cause rear wheel lock-up and loss of control. I’ve ridden ‘Verts that have done it and it’s f*cking dangerous! There is also the issue of the clutch itself. Because it was never meant to be used as a moving gear-change clutch it won’t handle the load for long. It’s a small, dry multi plate unit that was originally designed and used for something like the Stornello or Lodola as a wet unit. It’s not supposed to cope with large sliding friction torque as it is only on the transmission to enable the swap from low to high or visa-versa, at a standstill. If you use it ‘On the fly’ the considerably greater sliding frictional loads and power pulses ensure that both the clutch hub and clutch basket get notched very quickly and after that the plates won’t separate so the clutch ceases to function! Back in the day the owners handbook covered this quite forcefully but because no bugger ever reads the owners handbook or they ‘Know better’ an awful lot of ‘Verts ended up with rooted clutches and transmissions. There are several other ‘Vert’ specific oddities as well I can list if you like? And if I can remember them!

My first long tour of the US was done on a 1980 ‘Vert. I bought it back from the US to Oz and kept it until a couple of years ago. I’d stopped riding it by then, not because I didn’t love it, but because I simply love the CARC bikes more and by then I’d got my Mana for my ‘Auto’ fix and I was totally ‘Over’ using 40 year old bikes as daily riders. I got to know them pretty well, including their quirks, they are a great machine but you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. There’s really no in between with a ‘Vert!

Sadly, this is very true. Even newer bikes can be a problem. I had some real doozeys when I was an official service agent in the Noughties. On more than one occasion I was threatened with physical violence by disgruntled customers who thought their bikes should be fixed for nothing after they’d done stupid shit to them. As for the folks who own 1970’s and ‘80’s Guzzis? Well they expect ‘70’s prices for parts and labour! In my last twenty years or so I just had a policy of refusing to work on any bike not built this century. That was after I had one arsehole dispute the cost for some clutch parts and a gearbox rebuild on his Eldo. While I was off dealing with another customer he went through my toolbox and stole a whole load of my Guzzi special tools! Then he had the temerity to phone me up and get shitty with me because I dobbed him in to the police! With something like a Gen 1 Hi-Cam things are much, much worse. They were never made in large numbers and were built at a time when quality control was in the toilet and many of Guzzi’s suppliers had cut them off for non payment of outstanding bills! This led to some, errrr? ‘Creative’ assembly at Mandello. As Chuck said of the Centauros of that period the only reason the factory bothered assembling them was to ensure the owner got all, or at least the majority, of the parts! Parts for them are generally very hard to get and things like belts have long been available only as NOS which means even your ‘New’ belt is probably thirty years old! Then there’s also the fact that many workshops don’t employ skilled labour and those that do have clever, qualified shop staff can basically name their price! I certainly wouldn’t buy a new Guzzi if I couldn’t service it myself and wouldn’t trust any ‘Official’ shop to do it properly. A thirty year old orphan is orders of magnitude more difficult!

Oh yes, if a belt lets go they are definitely a collision motor. The fact it’s cracked a head would indicate it was probably motoring hard when it let go so chances are that everything above the crankcase apart from cam and rocker gear and the rocker cover will be junk. The rod may well be damaged as well and it will need big end shells on at least the side the damage occurred. I’d suggest buying it would be a ‘For parts’ exercise rather than a rebuild option, but that’s me.

Opening a spin on filter is really easy. Just use an old school, (Only type I possess.) can opener, (As that’s basically what the filter is, a can for the filtering medium.) whizz the flange off, lift off the ‘Dome’ of the container and ‘Voila’! There is the filtering medium. You can also see and work out how the bypass system works which for a lot of people is an eye, rather than can, opener! (F’nar, F’nar! I slay myself sometimes!)

Here’s the reason you don’t use Phil’s machine. https://www.self.com/story/how-to-clean-your-sex-toys-so-you-can-use-them-safely

Nah, I wash my dildos by hand…..

Looks like a steam punk dildo washing machine!

I’ve asked him to email me. I’ll give the full skinny that way. It’s a nice looking machine but it has a few issues that make it less than desirable.

I’m out. I’ve shared the sum total of my knowledge.

I had a customer a couple of decades ago who had imported a CX1000 (?), the American market MkII LeMans with the SP1000 motor. It had the speedo with a light that came on at 55 and amazingly it still worked! So a light was a *Thing* at least on some bikes. Very odd. I would of disabled the irritating thing immediately but he’d grown quite fond of it.

I’m not certain of any of this but I know there was a period in the US when speedometers had to have a light that came on when you exceeded a certain speed, 50 mph or some such nonsense? I would have thought that that predated the early Daytonas but I really have no idea. All I do know is that speedo seems to be equipped with such a light. Whether that means the speedo is non genuine? Whether I’m completely wrong? Or whether when building that run of bikes, (And it was one of Guzzi’s ‘Cash Crisis’ periods.) and they just found a box of speedometers under the bench and said “They’ll do!” I have no idea. Anyway, Mike Haven is both honest and very talented, as is Davey, his offsider. As such you can be sure that any old bike they’ve revived will be as well sorted as it’s sensible to be. Would I own an early Hi-Cam? F*ck off! I’m not that mad! But they are a lovely thing in their own special way………

Also Guzzis don’t make a noise like a parson farting in the bath! They may make a cacophony of other odd noises, (Especially the Hi-Cams.) but no priestly flatulence!

Compared to the Guzzis I was used to riding at the time they were terrifying at speed. Mind you they were also nearly twice as powerful! So it’s hardly surprising I found them a handful! I’ve never been a speed demon or super-skilled rider so I was probably out of my league. If memory serves me it was the same sort of terror I’d feel nowadays getting off my 8V Griso and spooling up an RSV-4!

Looks original to me too but when I worked on them was a long, long time ago and my memory of such things is probably sorely lacking. I never got the idea of the fuel door and spout on the RGS? That always struck me as gimmicky and weird as @#!#$#!

I did some work on them back in the day. The one that’s for sale is an RGS which had the 120 degree crank, they were considerably smoother than the earlier SF1000’s and Jotas which used a 180 degree crank and, as you would expect, to use the words of one journalist of the time, vibrated about one and a half times as much as a Triumph Boneville! The 180’s were a beast at the time though. Fastest production model in the world and the first ‘Genuine’ 130MPH motorcycle you could buy! Terrifying at anywhere near that speed but they made a fantastic noise and if you put noisy moron pipes on them you could set off car alarms by ‘Giving them the berries’ around Clapham Common near the shop I worked at. The main source of spares for them now is, I believe, a bloke whose name eludes me, in Canada of all places. Would I want one? F@#* no! One of my customers in Bungendore has a black Jota he’s selling if anyone is interested.

John,get it back off him and send it to me and Michael. Your $ is strong, ours is weak and postage, if you don’t send it express, shouldn’t be any more than you’ll save on the exchange rate and at least we’ll do it! Whats wrong with it?

Also, if you think it is running lean give it a full tune up before you do anything else. If it has leaky manifold rubbers I’d expect it to be a barely running, spluttering mess. Very often simply ensuring the TPS value is correct and balancing the TB’s will work wonders for *Fixing* issues.

As I said. It may not be the same bloke. Looks very similar though.

I rode a very early V85 and hated it. A truly lacklustre motorbike that didn’t excel at anything with shitty suspension and an uninspiring engine. I haven’t ridden a €5 model yet and they are supposed to be better. Lots of people love them though and they, along with the V7 series, have been the backbone of the company for yonks so I guess I’m an outlier in that regard.