Another fine mess!

Well, I finished putting the now "rollerised " GRiSO back together and wheeled it out of the garage to fire it up. It started quickly and quietly...good news. I was standing to the right of the bike, and just as I was about to pat myself on the back for a job well done, I began to smell oil burning. I went over to the left side of the bike and saw the GRiSO doing its best impersonation of the Exxon Valdez, as oil was poring out around the left valve cover. I shut the bike off and cleaned up the mess. I'm stumped as to why it's leaking. I pulled the valve cover and checked that all the gaskets were in place. So I started it up once again, leaving the plastic sparkplug cover off, and to my surprise, air (and oil) were blowing out from the spark plug tunnel. If you've ever started an engine with an oil filler cap removed, that's what it was like. The spark plug is tight, but there is about a table spoon of oil in the bottom of the tunnel. For some reason, the center gasket is loose and there seems to be too much room between the cover and the lifter block casting, like the cover isn't seating all the way. But I can't figure out what would be causing that? Anyone run across this problem or have any ideas? The "b" kit comes with a new set of gaskets, but I was led to believe the old ones could be re-used. Is there a change in the gasket design I'm not aware of?

Errrrr! Is it only on one side?

Two possible causes.

If your bike has the 'Short' plug tubes it needs an 'A' kit rather than a 'B' kit.

You didn't change the o-ring at the base of the plug tube and it's leaking.

Could it possibly be that you have one 'Early' type cambox and one 'Late' type?

I haven't checked the right one yet. With the bike on the sidestand, I suspect gravity was helping to expose the left side leak first. I'm not familiar with the location of the O-rings? I see two large O-rings in the kit. My bike is an early 2012 with the "drill mark" on the heads. That indicates a "B" kit, does it not?

Do the insides of your rocker covers look like this?

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These are the ones that require a 'B' Kit.

if your rocker covers look like this.

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Then you require an 'A' kit.

The difference is that the 'B' kit has the top of the rocker support around the plug machined lower because they use the earlier 'Long' plug tube that goes between the head and the rocker cover and the sealing is done with an o ring in the cover, (See pic #1). The later system uses only a short tube that goes between the head and the bottom of the rocker support. It is sealed at the head and in the support by O-rings but the top of the support is machined so that the kicker cover seals against it with that circular neoprene gasket around the tube. That requires that 'A' kit.

If you've bought the wrong kit there is a way around it but it isn't cheap due to the early rocker covers being very spendy!

Looks like I ordered the wrong kit, as my covers have the center gasket. So what was the point of the "drill mark" that led me to believe I needed the "B" kit. Not really to happy right now. How much are a set of the older valve covers going to set me back?

So if I understand, the only way to fix this is to order two "old style" covers ($257 US each) and the long tubes and o rings? It would appear that the information given on the WildGuzzi site as to which kit is needed is incomplete at best. There seems to be a lot more to it than looking at the model year and a couple of drill marks on the backside of the heads before choosing which kit to use. Somewhere Pete had a listing of parts to convert one kit to another, but I can't find it now. Looks like there is one GRiSO that is going to be sitting through a long winter before I decide what to do. Sad.

The drill marks indicate whether the heads have shims installed under the exhaust valve spring seats which is critical for the seating poundage of the springs. The rocker cover issue is separate again. This is why there are four different kits.

'A' kit, for bikes with the later rocker covers which will all, by default, have the shims under the spring seats. (These heads have the drill mark.)

'B' kit, for bikes post-mid 2010 through to some point in 2011 which have the shims but still utilise the early rocker covers and long spark plug tubes. (These heads have the drill mark.)

'C' kit, for bikes from 2007-mid 2010 without shims and which use the long plug tube and early rocker covers. (No drill mark in paint on heads.)

'D' Kit for later model 1200 Sports which have the late type rocker covers and short plug tube but don't have shims under the valve spring seats. (No drill mark in paint.)

Pete

Pete: Your last post should be widely disseminated. A 'sticky" I think they are called? Perhaps I missed it in all the various posts concerning using this kit or that, but yours is the first "clear cut" explanation of which kit goes to what bike. Would have saved me a lot of grief and money.

Let me have a dig about. I might be able to furnish you with a couple of rocker covers exchange. The tubes are cheap as chips.

Pete

I know this doesn't help you but posting your experience should help others avoid the same problem.

Based on my experience there is no way to predict the required kit without opening the cam covers first and carefully check what is fitted as it appears all variants are possible eg I had a 2009 pedigree bike with 2009 head, flat tappets, short tube and new covers....reason was the original tappets had failed in 2013 and the replacement 'kit' just like-for-liked the flat tappets but uprated rocker support, covers & tube (main dealer did this work and then sold me the bike). At least meant I only needed an A kit plus shims & head gaskets.

This is a possible on ebay
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Now that I've had some time to come to terms with my rather expensive mistake, what I probably will do is order the correct (A) kit (but after the holidays, due to other more pressing expenses) and then sell the B kit I have here or on Ebay to re-coop some of my costs. Ad: "Like new! Only 3 mins idling time! Well oiled!" Besides, if I'm looking at the parts diagram correctly, I have to pull the cam blocks off anyway to fit the longer tubes. Might as well just install the correct kit at that time instead of the mix & match only to find out I'm missing an o-ring or something. I should have done more research and pulled the valve covers. Although I might not have been aware of the difference in design then. I'll get it done, but it will be a few weeks away. (Hey, don't feel too bad for me...my V11 Coppa Italia runs fine!)

Pete...any speculation as to why Moto Guzzi made the running change in the Cover and tube design? Any meaningful difference as to which style is better? ie: was one design more leak-prone that the other?

The earlier type can leak with constant removal and replacement of the tubes, (Sometimes the tube stick in the rocker covers so the hard to get at bottom o-ring becomes leak prone.) with the later type the o-rings are never disturbed unless you take the cambox off.

Pete

Guys are the rocker cover interchangeable. I mean can you upgrade to the better (leak less) cover from the old?

Not without changing the entire cambox. This is the problem the OP has.

Ahhh cheers Pete.