Dear Piaggio...

Once again, for the umpteenth time, fuck you. Fuck you for souring me on Guzzis. Fuck you for making everything difficult. Fuck you for blowing massive amounts of my time on bullshit.
Fuck you for kicking bikes out the door without enough lube, with substandard components, soft fasteners, uncoated fasteners, and just plain crap craftsmanship. Fuck you for failing to build a decent dealer network.

But most of all, fuck you for making me cringe every time I look at my GRiSO, a dynamically fine and handsome machine.

This time, I was pulling the spark plug cables to replace the caps, after getting the proper replacements off the interwebs, a situation which constitutes a cruel joke which nobody ought to have to deal with.
Left side came off easy. Tip: Use two feet of paracord, make a loop around the body of the cap that then crosses under the elbow. You can use both hands and the pull is straight up. The right side just would not come up.

So I put some muscle on it.

And snapped the ceramic right off. Now, the way it was running, it's possible that it was already cracked. Wonder why.

And you cannot get the damn plugs locally. Napa, Autozone, Sears, NTB, nothing. Well that's not true. I found some at the local Ferrari dealership. $37 USD, each. Another cruel joke.

So here we go, another week of that thing sitting there like a paperweight. This is my last Gooz. In fact, I will entertain a reasonable offer. '09, barely 3k Mi.

Try the NGK Iriidium (CR8EIX) which is wholly compatible and readily available at virtually any autoparts store. Should run about $7-8 per.

Hot tip! Pun intended. Thanks...will check on avail now. I looked and asked but no one could offer a cross. Stay medium rare.

BEHOLD!, the power of the Ghetto. That # worked, my local-yokel auto parts house is pulling in a couple from Maryland, they'll be here this afternoon, installed before sunset.

Now let's see if I can make this bitch run for more than a couple hundred miles before something else craps out. Honestly, I've spent more on parts and tools than on fuel.

Any weirdness associated with pulling the plug? Left-handed thread? Olive oil-based anti-seize?
Sockets with 1mm walls?

All hail the Steak.

Good deal.  No real biggies, just be careful to pull the plug boots by the stalks and not the elbow.  Some string/cordage is helpful here.  You can also pry up the bottom of the boot with a long, thin screwdriver via the water drain ports at the front and rear of the heads.

On reinstall, do not overtorque the plugs.  Squash the washer a bit and call it good.  A thin walled socket should not be required.

A couple of tweaks will make the job a lot easier next time:

Quote :

Here are two shots of the zip-tie trick to make plug boot removal a bit easier during the next service.
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Along with lubing the boot inside and outside on the sealing ribs for the easy slip. Around the lip, for the big dip...
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The vestigial tail...
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Wot lube on caps? Any anti-seize? Voodoo? The blood of a black goat sacrificed at midnight on consecrated ground?

Dielectric grease, and anti-sieze never hurts.

Fuck me. It runs. And it seems to run pretty well. Gonna find out as soon as it stops raining.

Ah, you see?  The GRiSO is still tapping you on your shoulder...

Pay attention, or not.

Ok, it's back to its old, rough-running, sputtering, hesitating self. At least it's rideable.
Now I can get back to dealing with the rest of the bullshit.

And thank you!

What's wrong Rusty? Tell Dr. Beetle your woes.   

Oh boy. Where oh where to begin? But you are a few wee hours ahead of me, and I'm snuggling with either a whisky, or the missus, or both, so I will respond to your kind query tomorrow.

But concisely: GRiSO-itis. Every bit of it. You name it, I've got it or am likely to get it, based on history.

Mmm...Bourbon, or malt?

Cheers!

Probably too late, but: bourbon. Or a nice "real" tequila. Either will make the GRiSO Probs fade...

rustyrotor wrote:

Oh boy. Where oh where to begin? But you are a few wee hours ahead of me, and I'm snuggling with either a whisky, or the missus, or both, so I will respond to your kind query tomorrow.

But concisely: GRiSO-itis. Every bit of it. You name it, I've got it or am likely to get it, based on history.

Mmm...Bourbon, or malt?

Cheers!

I'm certain there are many fine Bourbons out there that I am not aware of, but I have been enjoying of late some Bulleit Bourbon. "Frontier Whiskey" (orange lable) It will cure your ills.

I like the Bulleit, and try to stick to stuff actually made by the folks selling it. Which can be a challenge:
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Try OYO, or HillRock. I think they're legit. But I can't be sure. Sounds like a shady business.

As to the bike, long story short, it's only good for a little mileage before something breaks.
Picked it up 2nd hand from a New Hampshire lawyer with just 150mi on clock. Had a Termi mounted, no baffle, and I later discovered that the dealership (rhymes with toast) never prepped it. Which meant it was virtually unrideable, and probably the reason manlyboy, esq, dumped it with so few miles.
It really was close to terrifying in town.

I rode it to Virginia, in some places hitting a hundred in 100F weather, only to discover upon initial, and meticulous, service at SteelHorse (defunct) that the TPS's were way off, ditto valves, gearbox was only half full, bevel drive was 3/4 full...yada yada. He tuned it. And it helped.

Installed a Daes Mototec muffler, that helped too. Termi, no baffle? Bad idea.

Since then the bike has gone through three speedo sensors, an oil pressure sensor, which was a bitch to diagnose, and which the Piaggidiots supplanted with a 'kit' that requires you cut the wiring harness and install an adapter in the block. MPH gave me a part # for a BMW automotive pressure sensor that I sourced locally, cheap, and is working perfectly so far. Thank you MPH. All this shit takes forever, BTW.
So am back on the bike for max 500 miles, definitely needs a remap as it surges and has an unacceptably abrupt on/off throttle response at low speeds. Am starting to fiddle with suspension settings and tire pressures, very gingerly, and bang, the spark plug caps go bad. I mean BAD. If that's even what it is. Loss of 75% of power? Power seems to be back...I only rode it about a quarter mile yesterday, will take it out today. There's also a fuel system problem that needs fixing, but I can't attribute the power loss to it. Neither can I exclude it.

Anyway, Pete Roper, (Thanks again Pete!) has offered some good advice on how to proceed, which will take me a little time, as it involves Guzzidiag, the hardware and knowledge to make good use of it. All of which am missing. Anyway, hope it's rideable this Sun, the Maryland breakfast is on and Travis has kindly offered to help out.

Thoughts? Many of these problems turn out to be so common as to be predictable. There apparently are others, like headstock grease, swingarm grease, etc., and I'm just not set up to deal with crap like that.

Thoughts?

Oh, and...I replaced the stock spark plug caps with straight ones. SBO5E.
Any issues/concerns/fixes associated with restoring the wire covers? Or should I just leave em hang?
That's not a problem, because just like Luigi and Vitto back in Mandello, I-a no longa givva fukk-a.

Well, that was...illuminating. Took the bike in to the village to gas up. 4 mi ea way? 35 mph roads, which every sane person ignores.

The bike has never run better. I'd say bad caps were part of the problem from day 1. Smoother, more low end grunt that's more progressive. Still surges, still snatches, in fact it's snatchier than it's been since the first tune, hates on/off transitions, cycles back and forth on that transition, and refuses a steady throttle. The only thing it really likes is on-throttle.

And there it is. Thanks for the help, and suggestions welcome and invited.

Have you removed as much free play as possible from the throttle cables? That really helps with throttle transition issues.

Pete.

Negative. Am gonna pop out there real quick and see if it looks like an Australian MP or an American Congressman could do it, if not I'll ask if there's a how-to out there.

Ok, that looks like even Sarah Palin could do it. And the rubber sleeves are shot. Should I care?

So. Review. Eliminate all free play in cables. But no more. Right?

Don't forget to turn the bars to both extremes before locking things down - that bit me once...

Whereyat in Bay Area? First Guzzis I ever saw were on Skyline on the Peninsula, and in SF. Nothing looked as cool as a LeMans in the 70's.

rustyrotor wrote:

Anyway, hope it's rideable this Sun, the Maryland breakfast is on and Travis has kindly offered to help out.

Thoughts? Many of these problems turn out to be so common as to be predictable. There apparently are others, like headstock grease, swingarm grease, etc., and I'm just not set up to deal with crap like that.

Thoughts?

I'm wondering if a big source of earlier rough running problems was a bad sparkplug? You said the plug broke when you were trying to pull the boot so maybe it was cracked and acting badly all along?

Re: snatchiness - do you think this is maybe the standard "as factory" lean setup to get by the EPA made a tad worse by an aftermarket muffler? If it's a muffler Mark has a map for I'll bet that'll clear a bunch of that up. I'm inside the Beltway up here on the "other side of the river" so if you need help with GuzziDiag and loading maps I'd be glad to help. I have the needed cables and have done it several times. Warning! You might void you warranty

You say (st)ealership never set it up? Is there a chance there's no air filter in there? A long shot, but if it's missing then that would cause problems too.

Finally - Maryland breakfast? I live in Maryland. I like breakfast...

Just north of SF, in Marin.

rustyrotor wrote:

Whereyat in Bay Area? First Guzzis I ever saw were on Skyline on the Peninsula, and in SF. Nothing looked as cool as a LeMans in the 70's.

Can't help with the faulty bits. You unfortunately seem to have an "after-lunch-with-too-much-Grappa" bike. Adjusting the cables will help a lot.

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Installed a Daes Mototec muffler, that helped too. Termi, no baffle? Bad idea

Never a truer word said about the Termi. Are you listening Ralfz?

I can help with fueling.

For the Daes muffler, do you also have the cat adapter pipe or are you running cat free?