pete roper

If you don't understand you're obviously far too young Pete

Kilo, while not directly V11 relevant if you want to see an examination of a Guzzi Big Block motor coming apart and going back together I did a photo journal of a Mk IV LeMans engine rebuild I did and it's posted up, with extensive pics at. Apart from the sump the motor is pretty much the same as the V11. http://www.guzzitech.dk/english/index.htm Look in the left hand column and go to the 'Engine strip. (With pictures.)' Jens's site is actually a treasure trove of links, you'll find all sorts of interesting an vital stuff from people like Greg Bender and Greg Field linked there. If you want some good info? It's on Jens's site! Why Denmark??? Why not! It's as good as anywhere else Pete

Dave, your engine hasn't blown up because it's as tough as buggery And I was NOT suggesting that anyone on this forum had been abusive, in fact it's a model of civility and decorum. Methinks the paranoia is kicking in! At the end of the day the *correct* level for oil is the point where the motor no longer tries to pump it out of the breather, on a well maintained motor in serviceable condition this should be the governing factor as long as the crankcase/sump volume is adequate to allow enough oil to be inside the engine! The Guzzi block is still, essentially the same as the one on the V7, 700cc donk of 1967, the increases in swept volume meant that the crankcase/sump volume had to be increased to cope with a number of factors, this as been done over the years in several ways, the 'road sump' just isn't a particularly successfull itteration of the process, that's all. It probably shows a more piecemeal attempt at design rather than a hollistic approach, that's all. Pete

Look, firstly I'm not going to get ticked off with people if they disagree with me, that's fine. I will get ticked off if people start being abusive. If people want to think this is Guzzichondria that's fine. There may well be some machines that for WHATEVER reason don't suffer the problem. The fact remains that I am ABSOLUTELY, 100% Cast Iron CERTAIN that there is a problem, I'm as CERTAIN as I can be without actually mounting some sort of fibre-optic camera in the sump and filming it that I know the cause of the problem and I'm pretty sure that fitting some sort of sloppage sheet to delay the rearward surge of the oil under hard acceleration will be sufficient to prevent any pick-up exposure. Interestingly Mike Harper of Harper's Moto Guzzi is apparently being given a very hard time by Aprilia's lawyers about information he published on the net about the pick-up exposure problem! As he pointed out if they take it to court it will be very interesting when he pops out the factory blurb for the new Breva and Griso which states something along the lines of "Among many other improvements is a complete re-design of the sump to help overcome problems of oil starvation under conditions of hard acceleration and braking." Sorry, but if it looks like a big, rotting fish and it smells like a big, rotting fish then I'd say there is a very, very good chance that it's a great, big, smelly, rotting fish! And believe me, when I get these plates made I will NOT be retiring to the Whitsundays to lie on beaches and have nubile young porn starlets massage me with cocoa butter on the proceeds. Sorry, but that's NOT what it's about and has anybody seen me, Greg or anyone else who as offered their worth tried to coerce anyone into buying a plate? Pete

In the next day or so I'll try to have a bit of a rant about the 'Why' of oil supply being so important, thing is I've been sick with the flu for the last couple of days and have a backlog of stuff I really need to catch up on so pleae bear with me. Pete

OK, this is going to be very simplistic but I hope it will clear up a few matters pertaining to how the oil delivery system works. While I can't be sure the subliminal message I'm getting from some posters is that they seem to think that the oil pump and delivery system is much the same a s a garden lawn sprinkler! Oil id pumped out of the sump and then just sort of casually sprayed around all over the place and hopefully some of it will get to where it's needed and make things slippery. Sorry, there is a bit more too it than that. Firstly though lets look at the Guzzi motor. It is a very simple, robust and durable design and it will generally take abuse quite happily. One of the reasons for it's inherent strength is that it uses 'Plain' or 'Slipper' type bearings. These work by having a journal, (on the crank or camshaft.) that rotates in a bearing either in the crankcase itself in the case of the cam or in replaceable, bolted in inserts in the case of the crank main bearings and split shell type beaings in the rods. In between the journal and the bearing there is a gap, the bearing clearance, and this is absolutely critical because what prevents the bearing rubbing on the journal is a thin film of oil. This film of oil alone is ompletely inadequate to deal with the pressures being exerted on it by the forces of combustion but as the journal spins in the bearing, as long as there is an adequate supply of oil at an adequate pressure provided between the two parts, will form what is known as a hydro-dynamic wedge, conveniently at the point of greatest pressure on the film of oil! The thing is to get a decent wedge happening you need to not only have a decent and CONTINUOUS flow of oil supplied to the bearing but the clearance has to exactly right and both the journal and the bearing need to be as near as damn-it perfectly round. So how do you get the oil into the bearings? The clearance betwixt journal and bearing is about 1 to 1.5 thou per inch of journal diameter! If we were working on the 'Lawn Sprinkler' principle, especially with something whizzing around 6,000 times a minute we are scarcely going to get much oil into the bearings and it's going to be under bugger all pressure. So, what do you have to do? Well, it's pretty simple really, you feed the bearings from INSIDE the journal in the case of the big ends and through a series of drilled galleries in the case and crank to get the oil to where it needs to be. So lets look at how oil gets to your bearings. Well, it starts off in the sump. In the case of the V11 'Broad Sump' motor the pick-up protrudes down to close to the bottom of the sump from above, through the gauze screen designed to take out the 'Big Lumps' should any suddenly appear! The pick-up goes more or less directly to the pump, this in itself is important because, and here is one of the most important things to remember when dealing with anything that is being pumped, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SUCK! The oil pump doesn't *SUCK* oil out of the sump, all it does is create a low pressure area within the pump body and the gas pressure within the crankcase will PUSH the oil up the pick-up and into the pump. Once the oil is through the pump it is then under pressure and being forced along mechanically but until it gets to the pump it is only being pushed by a fairly weedy sort of pressure. For this reason it is important to have as few impediments to flow as possible, that means a short, wide, gallery with as few bends as possible. While the pick-up on the V11's is quite nice and large the oil does have to turn through 90 degrees, twice, before it reaches the pump and the gallery in the block is no bigger than the earlier motors. Once the oil is through the pump and pressurised it is sent to the filter where the bits are strained out, (we hope!) the good news is that Guzzi motors are very clean and there isn't much inside them to wear or shed bits of 'emselves and load a filter up. Once filtered the oil then passes on to the oil pressure relief valve which is contained within the oil filter/thermostat housing bolted to the bottom of the block. The purpose of the relief valve is simply to prevent the oil pressure rising too high either when the oil is thick and cold and possibly at higher RPM. The oil itself has internal friction and if the pressure is too high it will both sap power and also try to spin the bearings. While the 'Ring' type main bearing inserts Guzzi uses are not prone to this and the back clearance of the shells to rods also seems to be pretty good a spun bearing is a rare thing in a Guzzi, or any other engine, nowadays but it can happen. Maintaining the correct oil pressure also means that the filter won't become over-pressurised, pop it's gasket or explode, which tends to be messy! After this the oil will pass over the thermostat which, when it gets hot enough, opens and allows the oil to pass through the cooler before going off for delivery to the bearings. From there on the oil simply has to get to the bearings and it does this through a series of galleries and pipework bolted on to the bottom of the block, essentially though it's very simple. After the thermostat the oil delivery is split. Some of it is sent to the front main bearing, some of it to the back. Both front and rear mains have a groove in the centre of the bearing face that allows some oil to circumnavigate these bearings and from there go on to the front and rear cam bearings. Also, above this groove, in the journal of the crank's front and rear main there is a hole drilled at a 45 degree angle in the crank itself that goes up to the crankpin. The crankpin itself is hollow and cross-drilled so that once the oil has filled the gallery in the pin it can flow out thrugh the big end bearings and out of the side clearance of the rods. The camshaft too has a gallery running down the centre of it and some, but not all, Guzzi cams have cross drillings to allow oil that is forced up the inside of the camshaft to spray out and feed various bits like cam followers with oil by splash, Some of the more aggressive aftermarket cams even have cross drillings in the cam lobes themelves. Finally oil travells up one further gallery to the top of the block above the front cam bearing where there are two drillings, one to take the oil pressure sender unit and the other one that takes the feed to the rocker gear in the cylinder heads. OK, that's how it gets there. Next we'll look at why the clearances are so critical and why even a momentary loss of pressure can be catastrophic. Pete

No worries, it's very simple, but it will have to wait until tomorrow morning as I have developed some disgusting disease bought home by the last fruit of my loins! Horrid little sh!t! I'm running a fever and am liable to become hysterical if I try to do it now! Pete

Oh for f@cks sakes! Look, do you honestly think I haven't done this before? With any engine with a sump extension, or a 'Broad sump' if you stick three litres in it it will come to very close to the bottom of the BLOCK. Not the spacer that the thermostat, filter mount and all the rest of the munt hangs off. The issue isn't *how much* oil, there is no point in faffing about worrying if you have the *exact* quantity specified by Guzzi, me or Uncle Tom Cobbley! The issue is that under hard acceleration it will slop away from the pick-up, exposing it and causing BIG problems. Over-filling may help prevent the exposure of the pick up but it also means that the oil level will be in closer proximity to the crank, this is a bad thing because the cyclonic forces created within the gas inside the case will try and drag oil from the sump and it will follow the crank webs around. If you look in there with a strobe you'll see that the crank looks like a bloody great dough-hook in a bakery with streamers of oil flying off in all directions, another advantage of a sloppage plate is that it will discourage oil from being picked up and will help diminish oil aeration. I also think that there might be some people here who aren't fully conversant with how the oil delivery system in a conventional engine like ours works? Does anybody want an explanation of that? Pete

Guzzi have a long and less than illustrious history of supplying information that is inadequate, inaccrate and quite often downright wrong! Sad but true. While it is very easy to assume that the 'Factory knows best' the sad fact is that quite often the factory doesn't know best, or it will make choices based on lowering production costs or to pander to whatever is trendy at the time. Why the 'Broad Sump' was addopted was mainly, (my guess.) because people had been pissing an moaning for years about not being able to change the poxy oil filter without removing the sump. There *may* also have been an issue of trying to improve ground clearance and lower the mass of the engine in the frame a tad but I'll wager the main reason was that they wanted a quick-fix for the oil filter *problem*. Since there are several people here who have 'V' sumps on their spineframes I don't know how valid the 'Ground clearance' argument is but I do know from having looked inside 'Broad Sump' models that, IMHO, the whole oil cooler thermostat, PR valve, Oil cooler mounting bizzo looks like a horrible Heath Robinson lash up and it is obvious even to the untrained eye that when you're accelerating hard the oil is going to migrate rearwards. If you want to see the final result of this happening have a look here; http://www.guzzitech.com/shrapnel/Bugger_1.JPG No, that wasn't a direct result of the oil starvation but it started a train of events that led to that! Greg has been working on Guzzis probably longer than me, he works at one of the most respected Guzzi shops in North America, I'll tell you, I listen very closely to anything Greg says and would trust it a lot more than most of the old tosh that comes out of the factory Pete

The sump spacer pictured below the V sump is the *standard* sump extension that can be fitted to all oil filter eaquipped models prior to the Mk III LeMans which had one of them fitted ex-factory as did all subsequent models up until the 1100 Calis. This is the item that is fitted NOT to increase oil capacity but to increase the crankcase volume to help lower pressurisation and windage problems and keep the oilfurther from the crank. Fitting one to a 'Broad Sump' model would be possible but also fairly pointless, ou'd also find that it would lower the 'Broad' part of the sump to such an extreme that you'd find that going round anything but the gentlest of bends you'd start grinding away the edges of the sump! I don't think it would in any way affect the oil surge problem unless you chose to fit one and then grossly over-fill the sump. Pete

Look, I'm sorry about that last little outburst. It's just I've been having to put up with a bit of flack from someone on one of the other boards and it's shitting me to tears. At the end of the day I don't really give a stuff what people think but I just find it tedious to have a place where I like to spend time become a target of a 'Three minute hate' every couple of days. S'OK, I've had me meds now! Normal service can ow be resumed! Pete

Ben, when I did a run of plates for earlier bikes I made a bit of beer money, that's all. My intention is not to produce a 'Killing' for myself, to put it bluntly I don't think anybody does that. It's possible to make a moderate living out of Guzzi if you are totally dedicated and also carry other brands and pick and choose your work. I certainly don't make enough to keep body and soul together, (Never mind feed my family and keep a roof over our heads!) by running a business dedicated to Guzzis, I'm lucky, my wife, who is a lot smarter than me, earns the bickies. My business makes beer money and sometimes pays a few bills. Whether people choose to believe it or not the reason I work on Guzzis is a.) because I can. b.) because I enjoy it. Sorting out problems like the oil pick-up exposure is fun and a bit of a challenge, that's why I'll be doing it. I'm very lucky that way. I don't want or need any of the accoutrements od *material* success. I'm more than happy with what I have which is a modest house and a beach house with a small mortgage a few old motorbikes and a car. I don't have a 60 inch plasma screen TV or all the latests and greatest 'Lifestyle' accesories and Jude and I spend all of our *disposable* income on travel as that is what gives us the greatest pleasure. I can assure you I won't be making a *mint* on this and if by any chance I do manage to sell a couple of hundred of 'em and make a couple of thousand dollars the profit will probably be given to Medicein Sans Frontieres next Christmas. I'm not trying to say I'm some sort of saint, far from it, it's just that I don't like to be seen as venal. Pete

Nige, whip a rocker cover off. If it's a Hydro model there won't be any tappet adjuster lock-nuts on the rockers. If it is a hydro model it should say 'Idrauliche' or 'PI on it somewhere though. Pete

Pavel, while it may seem odd to you most long term Guzzi owners are used to the rather weird engineering and manufacturing practices of Moto Guzzi. The thing is Guzzi are a very small company in world terms and for the last thirty years have effectively been 'On the ropes' financially, staggering from one form of administration to another or being bought out by ever more venal purchasers keen on a fast buck. Unfortunately this means that money for R&D has long been thin on the ground. The fact that the motor has remained virtually un-changed for forty years should tell you something! I'll believe that Moto Guzzi have built annew motor when the part number for the rear main bearing changes, it's still the same as the one on the original V7 in '67! The end result of this is that stuff quite often gets released to the public with either insufficient development or problems due to the bean counters in accounts recievable deciding to go with a cheap-sh!t part like a bearing rather than one that costs a couple of dollars/euros more from a reputable supplier. The end result is that stuff ups like the crappy single plate clutches, (Both types!) and poorly dsigned sumps DO unforunately occur. So what is the answer? Well, really there isn't one. If you want *appliance* like reliability then probably your only option is to go to one of the *appliance* manufacturers. I'm not saying that Guzzis aren't reliable mind, I know and have lots of customers who do no more than service 'em, stick petrol in 'em and cane the living daylights out of them and nothing ever goes wrong with 'em but with a small, poorly funded outfit like Guzzi you are bound to get more problems than you will with a huge combine producing more vehicles in a week than Guzzi do in a year! Having said that you can look at Honda's poor history with cam chain tensioner design and cam wear and Kawasaki's seemingly unsolvable problem with pourous head castings and see that *issues* are not a Guzzi only thing As for your statement that your bike is 'Virtually new' well, I'm sorry, but it's not. It's a second hand 2003 model. While I don't doubt for a minute that you DO have a clutch problem as this issue was well documented the fact remains that the bike is four years old and you are it's, (At least.) second owner. It has only done very few miles for sure but when should a warranty expire? I had a customer recently who had picked up a virtually un-ridden, (less than 5,000KM) 1980 T3. Because his bike was a genuine low mileage one should Guzzi still be honouring a warranty on that too???? I do honestly sympathise with you. You shouldn't have got stuck like this, but think that people here, Greg especially, have tried to help you and steer you in the right direction as well as trying to make the reapair process as cheap and pain free as possible. Ranting and railing against the fates will serve no purpose so make your decision based o whether you like the bike, (In which case you carry out the repairs.) or you decide it isn't worth it and turn it over at a loss or try to wreck it out and recoup your loss. Either way you can chalk it up to a learning experience. Me? I've been 'Doing it myself' with Guzzis for 25 years and well over 3/4 of a million Km, (At least!) and still believe them to be probably the BEST designed engine ever put in a motorcycle. They are also, overall, so simple that almost any *fault* whether factory induced or simply the result of age or abuse can usually be fixed with a minimum of fuss and bother and with comparatively little expense. YOMV Pete

To the best of my knowledge any 'Broad Sump' model is going to be identical to any other. Unless there were some with different oil cooler plumbing, but i can't see how this would change stuff internally . As was said in the other thread I don't think we need anything particularly sophisticated, all it needs to do is stop the oil all heading south under hard acceleration, while I can't say for certain I don't think the cyclonic vortex idea holds water, i think it's purely rearward slop. Pete

I have a V11 coming in in a couple of weeks for a service, with the owner's permission I'll whip the sump off and start work on designing a sloppage sheet if Greg doesn't get there first. How many people would like one just out of interest? Pete

Richard, the Cali clutch problems are completely different to the Scura ones. Yes, I think there shoukld be a recall on the Scura clutches, but i don't think it will happen. The difference with teh Cali clutches is that there HAS been a recall. The CAli clutches, unlike the Scura clutches, don't grenade the flywheel, the problem is a fiction material one, the bronze stuff they used wears far too quickly, whether this was poor choice of material or simply a duff batchfrom their supplier who knows but wear out they do. As Greg has said there seems to have been quite a few problems with supply of the replacement twin platers with some folks, (There was one bloke, up in Canada.) waiting months and months for parts. Now that is really pretty piss-poor but whether things have improved under the new US Guzzi distribution system seems to be a question on which the jury is still out! The subliminal messages, (And sonme not so subliminal ones ) from the likes of Todd and Greg are that the new management also would have severe dificulty finding their arses with both hands in a well lit room! I think that Pavel is going off a bit early here though. So far it seems he hasn't contacted an official dealer? Bloody difficult to get the company to respond if there isn't a relationship between the shop he's gone to and the importer? Oh, and Pavel, on the oil pressure warning light issue I suggest you read the thread just down the board here on the question of pressure drop under hard acceleration. I think it's causes have been fairly well isolated and explained and no, it's not simply a question of 'They all do that'. Hopefully someone will soon come up with a 'Sloppage Sheet' for the broad sump motors. Certainly as soon as I get one in I'll try and design something to address the problem, but broad sumpers are a bit few and far between around here Pete

It's a straight bolt on, I think Moto Spezial in Boxheadland make 'em. Pete

Duh! I didn't even notice Pete

How insane do you want? You could get a Convert cam and grind the lobes off and either get a convert timing chest and weld on some bosses for the front sub frames to bolt to so it would fit onto the front of your Daytona motor and use the 'Verter pump as a scavenge pump from the dry sump. Drat! Thinking about it it wouldn't work because of all the belts and crap that hangs orr the front of the Hi-Cam timing cover, bugger! Actually I don't know whether the 'Verter pump would have sufficient capacity but it's a great, loony idea! It would also allow you to drop the motor by a couple of inches to lower the C of G but that might make for problems with the driveshaft etc. Do you really want to go here? No I haven't been smoking anything funny Pete

Start with Greg's idea, replace the o-rings under the blanking plugs. If that doesn't work then clean the area thoroughly with carby cleaner or some such and just cover the bungs with a dob of epoxy and allow to dry. Pete

The Isle of Mann is a British Protectorate. In theory you are an independent country that voluntarily gave up your independence to be taken under the British Wing. This rather odd state of affairs also applies to the Channel Islands and was also applicable to quite a few other places in the British Empire, Botswana being a case in point that springs to mind, there must be others too. Odd thing nationalism eh? Pete

The deep 'V' sumps, unless I'm very much mistaken, replace not only the sump plate but also the spacer that the oil cooler thermostat, pick-up and all the other extraneous 'Broad Sump' munt hangs off. It is in effect very similar to the earlier Tonti sumps in that the pick-up is cast into the bottom of the sump and the OPR valve is in one of the cast-in feeds after the front mounted filter. It is heavilly finned and this is supposed to negate the need for an oil cooler but it doesn't have any form of baffle plate betwixt crank and sump, although because of it's design and the fact there is nothing poking *up* high enough from the bottom or hanging down from above to neccesitate holes in the plate building a 'Slopage Plate' (Great description Skeeve ) for the 'V' sump would be a piece of piss. Pete

Just guessing but the earlier, filterless, motors also had a downward poking pick-up but rarely, if ever, suffer from oil starvation BUT, being sensible, none of them accelerate faster than a slug on mandrax so the rearward surge is going to be scarcely more than tidal . We comprehensively trashed a race motor that I'd built using a filterless case which I'd chosen because of the reduced resistance prior to the pump. It cavitated and exposed the pick up on the front straight at Eastern Creek, that cost us two motors that The *early* filtered motors and up to the current Calis the pick up is slightly more rearward and also the pick-up pipe itself is cast into the sump. It picks up from the very bottom of the sump. With the V11 with it's downward poking pick-up there has to be a decent clearance between the bottom of the pipe and the sump itself otherwise it would be too restrictive. Remember, there is no such thing as 'Suck'. The pump doesn't 'Suck' oil out of the sump, all it does is create a low presure area and crankcase pressure working on the surface of the oil pushes it into the pump. Since the pressure inside the case is unlikely to be much above, (At a guess, with good ring seal etc.) 16-18PSI you don't want any major restrictions between the pick-up and the pump. From memory the pick up pipe has little castelated type *legs* on the end of the tube but whether these actually come close to the floor of the sump I haven't a clue Whatever the reason, be it exposure or cavitation, there obviously *is* a problem. Yes you could go all out and build a really ellaborate *real* windage tray with scrapers, screens and the whole banana. It would be hideously expensive and the gains you'd make would, IMHO at least, not be worth the time or expense. What is really needed is something that will prevent the oil migrating away from the pick-up under hard acceleration, the forward position of the pick up means that exposure under heavy braking is less likely as Greg has observed. Any sort of baffle plate should, for a road bike at least, be fairly robust. The reason I used 2mm stainless plate for my earlier ones is because thinner alloy versions are crack prone. There is little point in having wonderful, uninterupted oil pick-up if your end up feeding great chunks of alloy plate around the engine internals! I don't doubt that you could go thinner than 2mm in steel, I just tend to be ridiculously over-cautious with something like this. Te weight penalty isn't that great and lets face it, we are talking Guzzi big-block here, not Racing RGV Pete

All very useful, thank you all. I think I'll probably try a Z6 on the rear, as I've said often before, I ride like Gumby. The vast majority of the now available and quite superb 'Super-Sticky' rubber will be absolutely wasted on me and consequently a waste of money that could far easier be spent on something useful like beer or taking my darling Missus who allowed me, nay ENCOURAGED me to by the 'Pig, out for a good slap-up feed somewhere. I live in a very, very dry climate. When I ride in the rain locally it's mainly to keep in practice! Honest! It's dry, dry, dry here, the road surfaces are crap, the other occupiers of the road, (I won't dignify them with the name 'Drivers'!) are bordering on the cretinous and if I get done for more than 30kph over the limit, (100KPH on 2-laners, 110KPH on freeways ) they will take my licence off me on the spot and if I'm more than 50kph over they take me to gaol! Why in God's name would I need a tyre that will stick like sh!t to a blanket with 150BHP going through it on an overweight, underpowered turd-box like my Griso? . My prefference is always to stay with matched tyres but I'll be buggered if I'm going to chuck out the still useable front Rennsport and I'm always happy to have more 'sticky' on the front compared to the back. I'll go the Z6 on the rear and probably they'll both be up for renewal next time around and I'll probably ask again and cause another f@ck-fight . Once again, thanks for the advice. Pete