The oil pressure light troubles

[kecup]

Hello people,

 

I got a beautiful 2004 V11 Le Mans that I ride almost daily and I love it. I can see the bike is much more refined that the initial V11 sports and Jackal (my previous rides). My only concern is the oil light - it will come on for a ~second (pretty long time), but only after hard take off, on first gear from the stand still. Nothing in other running regimes. Nothing if one takes off gently.

 

I checked the engine oil level several times and it is normal. I can imagine the g-forces are high when accelerating hard from 0 speed, potentially causing a drop of pressure somewhere, but I am not sure. It is quite difficult to find any remaining dealer in LA, California, but of course I'll do my best if you think this problem is serious. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks a lot

 

Pavel

[Guest ratchethack]

Pavel, this has come up many times. Some bikes apparently tend to be prone to exposing the oil pickup in the sump under hard acceleration when the oil moves to the back of the sump, allowing the oil pump to draw air. During the time it's doing this, the most critical bearings in your motor are running DRY - that is, metal-on-metal. The only solution I know of to keep your engine happy and a known-to-be-good oil sender from turning that indicator light on (other than adding a baffle plate to the sump) is to run the bike with the oil level closer to the top of the "high" mark on the dipstick, or don't accelerate as hard....

 

BTW - Not that I'm condoning such behavior, mind you, BUT..........I've got a riding buddy with a '04 LM. He gets the same symptoms, but this hasn't ever kept him from hard acceleration - or the occasional wheelie.

 

I have no idea what his main bearings or big-end journals look like, and he doesn't have the slightest clue what these things are. I'll tell you this - having seen his oil light come on as many times as I've seen it myself -- I'd never purchase his beautiful LM (or any other Guzzi I know of that had been ridden like this) - no matter how gorgeous she looks.......

 

BAA, TJM, & YMMV

[orangeokie]

For any electrical gremlin I always recommend that one should . . . "KNOW THE RULES"

[G.POLEGATO]

Hi Pavel I think your problem is easy to remove. Try to change the pressure oil sensor in the middle of the V. After is too difficult you can see red light on your control panel. #60

[Greg Field]

Hi Pavel I think your problem is easy to remove. Try to change the pressure oil sensor in the middle of the V. After is too difficult you can see red light on your control panel. #60

91100[/snapback]

 

Look.

 

You V11 guys have been assuming what the problem is for years, now.

 

You're gonna make me hook up an oil-pressure gauge to Billy Bob, and pop some wheelies, aren't you?

 

Bastards! I have enough work, already.

[pete roper]

Look.

 

You V11 guys have been assuming what the problem is for years, now.

 

You're gonna make me hook up an oil-pressure gauge to Billy Bob, and pop some wheelies, aren't you?

 

Bastards! I have enough work, already.

91111[/snapback]

 

Stop yer whining Field! You bought a V11, get on with it . Also I'd have to say that fitting a guage would be pretty pointless! for one it's going to take time, (Which is of the essence!) to react and for two, when are you going to be accellerating so hard AND looking at a guage?!?!?! When I'm doing that I'm usually more woried about the state of my underpants

 

Pete

[Guest ratchethack]

Look.

 

You V11 guys have been assuming what the problem is for years, now.

I reckon that's a true enough statement, Greg. But I (for one) am simply a-dyin' to know - if this ain't y'er assumption also, what's is y'er prognosis, Doc?? Don't leave us in the dark here, Greg!!

 

You're gonna make me hook up an oil-pressure gauge to Billy Bob, and pop some wheelies, aren't you?

 

Bastards! I have enough work, already.

Well, it'd be a great benefit I'm sure to all of us if you would, and then of course post y'er most competent analysis! NOTE: despite the remarks of our most esteemed colleague, a spectrum analysis of y'er underwear is NOT necessarily required!!

 

BTW - Is it just me, or does, "You bought a V11, get on with it" sound a lot like, "You made your bed, now you've gotta lie in it!" to you?

[Greg Field]

If, even once, I had seen my oil light flicker, I would've had a gauge on it before I rode it again. Mine has never flickered, so I'm not sure what I'll learn that will be germaine to the situation on other people's machines.

 

I think a gauge will react approximately as quickly as the light does. I'll try to kludge something together today or tomorrow, and see what it tells me. I'm guessing cavitation is the problem. I keep my oil to the full mark and hope for the best . . .

[guzzi323]

I've had the oil light come on a couple of times under hard acceleration or braking when my oil level was not kept at the top mark. There have people who've talked about windage plates to help keep the oil in it's place but the only patterns out there I've heard of are for earlier Guzzi's.

It's funny this topic came up again this weekend because I'm doing my 42k maintenance and had decided it was time to make a plate up. I doubt I'll have anything done today but before I install it I'll trace out what I end up with and post it.

I make my parts the old fashioned way, with a vise, hack saw drill and dremel so it won't look as nice as custom machined stuff but it'll do the job. More info when I have it to share.

 

 

johnk

[Guest ratchethack]

I make my parts the old fashioned way, with a vise, hack saw drill and dremel so it won't look as nice as custom machined stuff but it'll do the job. More info when I have it to share.

Outstanding, John K!

 

You make parts the same way I make 'em. I reckon a decent custom baffle plate (including testing and revision process) is a semi-non-trivial project. (At least by Shade Tree standards.)

 

We'll be eagerly awaiting your results - with photo's, of course!

[Greg Field]

I modified one o' the Roper plates for Enzo's Cobra Replica V11 Sport. I even made a pattern, which I gave to him. I have no idea what became of it, unfortunately.

[Guest ratchethack]

I modified one o' the Roper plates for Enzo's Cobra Replica V11 Sport. I even made a pattern, which I gave to him. I have no idea what became of it, unfortunately.

It's truly a shame that pattern seems to have gone the way of the Rolling Air Rats , but hopefully John K can re-create a good workable design. Maybe we can get a list together and do a quantity run? I'd be one of the first to sign up for one myself.

 

Good place to call for an important distinction. At one point Pete had made this clear (as few can do so well) in one of his posts on the subject. EDIT (see next post below) - it was Mike Rich who made the distinction, with Pete's approval.

 

As I recall, a WINDAGE plate is typically used in racing to limit drag-inducing and power-sapping friction caused when most of the mass of the sump oil gets whipped up around the crank at high RPM like a high-speed dough hook (did I imagine this, or was that Pete's exact term?). Windage plates tend to be relatively elaborate, having chambers and baffles in 'em to combat aeration of the oil, and have more of a "knife-edge" shape to the part that "cuts" the oil off the crank throws within a fairly close tolerance of the crank's swing radius.

 

A BAFFLE plate, OTOH, is much more simple, and though it likewise serves partially to decrease oil drag on the crank, it functions mostly to wall off the bulk of the oil so it can't escape the vicinity of the pickup at the bottom of the sump.

[Guest ratchethack]

FYI - I found the superb thread from 2 years ago here (see Pete's post #3):

 

http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...ic=3466&hl=

 

More excellent wisdom on this topic! It's also a relief to stumble upon something that indicates the dain bramage hasn't yet entirely addled the memory, the considerable topsoil erosion of two years notwithstanding -- here's some excellent discussion that makes the distinction between WINDAGE plate and BAFFLE plate I raised above (see comments in posts #41 and #42 from Mike Rich by way of Al R., and Pete):

 

http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...=3923&st=30

 

FWIW, as an example of what a true WINDAGE PLATE is, here's a link to a site with multiple photos & descriptions:

 

http://www.crank-scrapers.com/

[jimbemotumbo]

I wonder if this is not so much a "real problem" as a percieved one for those of us who are not racing or riding around on the back wheel for miles at a time. I know of alot of Guzzis with an intermittent oil light. I know of zero that have suffered real damage from oil starvation due to this. Please correct me if I am wrong ... I just have never heard of one.

 

Despite the brief moment of "change" in oil level, oil is still getting picked up properly. The advice of filling to the top most indicator should minimize risk. That, and limit wheelies to tenths of a mile.

 

Again, I bias this opinion on the fact most if us are not racing. If I were, or otherwise riding as if I was, I would consider fabbing up a baffle, as Ratchet suggests.

[Guest ratchethack]

JMB, your thougts are well taken. My read on this is that we've likely only begun to hone in on the reality here, and that only time will tell the whole story.

 

As Pete has pointed out, real damage has been done by the time the indicator light comes on, particularly if it comes on when the engine is under heavy load, as is the case when under heavy acceleration and/or during a wheelie - the very circumstances that tend to expose the oil pickup -- heavy engine loads with dry mains and big-ends being an ideal one-two combination for an eventual "TKO" ...... The damage from this is never immediate and catastrophic, but rather slight and cumulative, but nonetheless devastating -- like a relentless left jab..... I expect the hard reality is that as we have more V-11's making it into the "later rounds", there may be consequences here -- a rising rate of KO's and TKO's.

 

Being merely a Road Geez myself, with no racing or pseudo-racing inclinations whatsoever, I'm generally no more interested in most racing modifications than I am the latest marriage partner of the current Hollywood Pop Tart du jour as featured on the front page of the slimy Smut Rags at the grocery check-out... I don't wheelie my Guzzi. Somehow, to me anyway, Guzzi's, like Beemers, just don't seem conducive to riding on the rear wheel....... I have a much more bullet-proof dry-sump thumper for those kinds of shennanigans. However, I have seen my Guzzi's oil light flicker very briefly under hard acceleration at least once, and I suspect that if I tried, I could easily make it a regular occurence.

 

I'm thinking that should there be an "oil starvation syndrome" in the making here, the V-11 series hasn't been out there quite long enough to produce a sizeable population of high-mileage bikes that have been consistently run hard enough to make the syndrome show itself yet....

 

I have, however, been observant enough to suspect that the V-11 series MAY soon start to show up on rebuild benches with premature crank, big-end, and other damage as the miles accumulate in the lager population over the next several years. What I'll be watching for is to see if those engines that have been run particularly aggressively MAY turn out to appear to be less robust than the earlier, more "sedate" Guzzis that didn't generally lend themselves to hooliganism. I figure the older bikes weren't generally capable of the kind of acceleration (let alone wheelies ) that would expose the oil pickup anyway, which would tend to separate the older bikes from any "oil starvation syndrome"......

 

As a Road Geez with a definite long-term goal for ownership of my Guzzi, I'm looking at a baffle plate as another form of cheap insurance.

 

BAA, TJM, & YMMV