Saving an abused GRiSO -or freak out trying

This week I finally had the chance to pay a first visit to my bike. It's currently located at my parents' house, where I have a garage -one of the reasons this project will probably take forever. Another one is that I'll have to replace lacking knowledge with commitment.
I bought the bike used in S/E Asia; it's been repossessed by a bank and I know nothing of the previous owner -except that he did some weird things to the bike, including messing up the wiring and setting a user code that has got nothing to do with the VIN...

For starters there are some really good news:
Looks like I've got myself a roller engine
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Without any cheese in it
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The bad news are:
After 2 months+ being compressed in the shipping container, the fork is leaking. Added another point on my to do list.
The seat has a mark from the shipping crate.
They yanked off one mirror without unscrewing it -I didn't have a look if it can be fixed.
The rear fairing has been screwed on so tightly that they not only fucked up the screw, but also broke the plastic.
After I recharged the battery and adjusted the valves, I wanted to start it up. Nope. Fuel pump is humming and relay is clicking but the starter does nothing, not even draw power. Seems like I now have the startus interruptus. Gnah.

One thing I'm curious about is the recall for the rear double connecting rod. The Moto Guzzi hp says this recall is pending for my bike, the local mechanic said it has already been performed. Is there any way to determine if the update is already installed?

this looks like its going to develop into a long and interesting thread, i shall pull up a chair and wish you luck

Only big deal is the shock linkage 'double conrod'. This is a safety issue and needs addressing. If for whatever reason you can't get it fixed under warranty don't despair, they aren't that expensive.

Pete

sidrat wrote:

this looks like its going to develop into a long and interesting thread, i shall pull up a chair and wish you luck

looking forward to it. best of luck.

Thanks guys!

I don't think anybody will give me any warranty on this bike, since it's probably never been officially serviced. My question is rather if the new "double conrod" is visibly different from the weak part -I don't know which part is actually installed.

Unfortunately no. The problem was that the linkage castings are made from an extruded beam. After the extrusion proces the beam is supposed to have a certain length cut off each end and discarded as for whatever reason it's integrity is suspect. Unfortunately the 'Bad' linkages were made from these end bits of the beam and are weak. Other than that they look identical.

The good news is they aren't terrifically expensive.

Pete

Thanks for the clarification. Guess I'll just install a new one then.

Time for some news here I guess. Last session was pretty productive -I did the entire "Greaso" mod: Took out CARC, swingarm and rear shock to lubricate all the bearings.

I was surprised to learn that the swingarm bolt was loose, even though the color markings on it were still aligned... After reading the threads here I put on my dust mask before removing the bearings. Interestingly, the right swingarm bearing was pretty well greased, but the left one was almost dry. Must have been lunchbreak in Mandello and the guy forgot his grease gun in the canteen. All bearings of the shock linkage were pretty dry too, which makes me think that they haven't been opened before; so that recall probably never happened for my bike, despite everything the Malaysian mechanic told me. However, the bearings still looked good to me, so I reinstalled them -of course only after I had to search the garage floor for that one dropped needle...

Next up was the fork service, that still leaves me puzzled. After taking out the preload tube and the spring I found myself shaking the fork leg like a maniac, but there was no lower spacer coming out of it. Preload and spring, that's it. Do I only own half a fork?
Here's a picture of all the special tools required to do the fork service (in case you want to check if you've got a lower spacer installed):
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I also removed the complete exhaust to clean it up (burned-in plastic on the headers) and install the cat con in my Agostini. Getting the can aligned with the mounting bolt  required quite some persuasion, I might go back and cut the connecting pipe by a cm or so.

Couple of other things I did while digging through the bike:
-recut what felt like 100 threads cause they've all been rusty
-replaced the rear brake line, found a blocked piston at the caliper
-removed sticky stains of good Malaysian palm oil plantation soil everywhere
-replaced the clutch line
-cleaned and greased the throttle bodies; it still didn't snatch back fast enough afterwards, so I also increased the tension of the spring
-painted the footrest plates, oil cooler frame and starter cover

More funny things I found or didn't find:
Isn't there something missing in this picture? Oh yeah, an M12 engine mount bolt has disappeared
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Until now I didn't realize, but yes: braking fluid can form crystals! This is what I found in the lid of the clutch reservoir:
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There are always news things popping up, but overall the list is getting shorter. If only the parts I'm missing would finally arrive...

Wow, this better than i thought it would be, when is the first video being posted :-)

seriously, well done for being persistent

"Oh yeah, an M12 engine mount bolt has disappeared..."

Mine were both loose before my Saturday ride. I slathered them with blue lock-tite and reinstalled. 480 miles of NY and VT roads later they are still in place. I marked them so I can see if they start to loosen again.

If you're doing the front fork think about getting the right springs for your weight. Italian bikes are notorious for being under-spring and over-damped.

Mark

sidrat: I don't know if videos of me cursing in my garage are really worth watching -in any case I would only publish them after bike got its road legal sticker...

guzziownr: I replaced the lock washer with what I think is a better one -but I also used like half a bottle of loctite on other screws. Should be good now.

not-fishing: Thanks for the hint, but the current objective is just to get the bike through technical acceptance. I still don't know if it's going to be a piece of expensive furniture in the end. So once it's on the road I'm going to decide if I need improvements.

Here are the news:
Tried to reinstall the front brakes when I found out the brake line is too short. The seller sends me a replacement free of charge, but I wonder anyway: Has the handlebar or anything changed between 2009 and 2012? Because the brake line was labeled for GRiSO until 2009.

One of the tank overflows was blocked -the lower one when resting on the side stand. Tried to poke it free but the plug in the connector on the tank was too hard. When I tried to remove the connector it snapped as soon as I put the spanner on it. Aluminum connector in a brass socket from what it looks like. Removing the snapped part was impossible without ruining the tank, so I had to drill out the whole mess.

Repainted the plastic of the mirrors and when I removed the masking tape the paint of the metal rod came off. Duh.

For the first time I tried this "use Lego bricks to repair fairings" trick. Seems to work quite well -good adhesion and dries way faster than I thought. I put some glass fibre on the inside to strengthen the part. We'll see what it does once it starts vibrating on a regular basis...
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It's definitely not very useful as a body filler -at least my mixture was too ...um... chewy? for that. But instead of grinding it you can try and wipe the excess off with acetone. Still I wish I had used filler instead.
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Some time in the near future I'll have to start working on the wiring, and I have two questions regarding that:
1. The bike has LED indicators. Is it really necessary to replace the whole resistance of the original ones for the error message to disappear? Or would, say, 8 Ohms be enough to trick the self test?

2. I've read too many posts on the "startus interuptus" and I'm totally confused now. People keep talking about "pin 5" and the "yellow wire" of the starter relais, but in my schematics yellow goes to pin 3. To help things, I could swear the clicking relay was the one second to right in this picture:
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But the wire colors of that don't match any description. The bike didn't start and just clicked -but never blew a fuse.
Does anybody have the definite answer which connection I have to replace right away or do I really have to get my multimeter?

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The yellow is the original wire and the red is the new fused wire direct from the battery. (2011 GRiSO)

Thanks Guzzi Cat! Any idea about the resistance needed too?

thekenheld wrote:

Thanks Guzzi Cat! Any idea about the resistance needed too?

I have the original indicators, so not sure. On my son's CBR With led indicators I bought a relay on e bay to make them work properly!

Bulb resistance measures 1.9 ohms cold, but I wouldn't use a resistor this low. Start at 27 ohms (= half an amp per indicator) and if the "blown bulb" icon appears in the dashboard, then reduce until it stops appearing.

Frankly, I've never understood the attraction of LED bulbs in this situation, unless you're looking for miniature resizing (and I don't understand that either). Novelty for the sake of it.

Me neither Dave

10 years on, I still have my indicators working. Blew a number plate light once and totally screwed the headlight on mine by riding hard on a dirt road (pretty corrugated) at speeeeeed. I had fun and Pete sorted me out with a new headlight assembly at a good price (stripped a 7mm thread internally - purchased a 7mm thread repair kit from JB Tool Sales and now I have a spare headlight assembly ready to go - different form the GRiSO/V7 version).

Thought about LED indicators but couldn't be arsed, really.

Actually the bike came with LED indicators, I never had the original ones. PO just didn't care to put resistors in.
I put in 18Ohms after I got it, but that already seems a little much. I think I remember the frequency didn't change with the load, so I would only have to trick the self test.

And yes, I do like LED indicators anyway.

I switched to LED's for my rear turn signals because my Mistral high pipe interfered with the left side lamp. I used a 10 ohm resistor on both lamps which cured the fast flash and error message.

Thanks for that!

I put in 11 Ohms resistors parallel to each indicator and it all works fine. Why 11 Ohms? The resistors came with the Rizoma indicators, 2 in each package -nice!

Direct feed to the starter relay is also installed. The original connector was heavily corroded, on most of it it wasn't even possible to measure the resistance. Cleaning it would probably have been enough for a (temporary) fix, but since it's a known bug I installed a new wire anyway. I also cleaned the battery connections with baking soda.
Pressed the starter button and for the first time ever the automatic start mode worked Bike fired up and ran like sh*t Hooked up GuzziDiag, changed CO trim to zero and reset TPS. Bike ran like sh*t.  In the end it was another faulty connector in the fuse box -so I cleaned all the connectors. After balancing the TBs it runs fine now.

Fitted a kc34 license plate support. Seems like a nice and sturdy build, but I had to cut off 2/3rd of the threads on the indicators to make them fit.
Oh yeah, and the airbox drain hose slipped off the fitting when I wanted to route it down to the swingarm. Anybody here has 20cm long fingers with four joints?


Took the GRiSO to the technical inspection (TÜV) and it PASSED!

Winz!

Well done.

Woohoo!

Ok, one final update to this thread:
With the TÜV passed, the final question was if I could register the bike here in Europe (it doesn't comply with the current Euro standard and has never been on the road in this part of the world). Getting the documents seemed pretty straight forward -there is Guzzi service website where you can order everything online... but actually that's just there to keep the customers busy. I ordered a COC for my bike 4 months ago and rang up the hotline twice since then, but nothing ever happened.
To my luck I've found a TÜV guy who is both nice and smart -he managed to dig up an officially stamped technical datasheet for the bike. In the end this was even cheaper than buying the documents from Guzzi.
With that, the original registration, the customs report and a translation of the Malaysian export permit I could finally register the bike here.

So, long story short: Another GRiSO is back on the road!

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