Well...

It's been awhile since there's been any major progress on here and there's a reason behind that. I'm still waiting for the engine case/covers/pan to get bactk from powdercoaing.

When I do stuff, I usually knock out things piece by piece, in a sequence. I hate starting multiple things at once because it's easy to get distracted and lose focus. The engine powdercoat is priority one, once I get that back, I'm going to drop off the frame and suspension bits for powdercoating, and while I wait for them, reassemble the bottom end so it's all done when the other stuff comes back and then I can really start putting stuff back together. Now I find myself with a bunch of crap in pieces and more questions/problems that need to be taken care of.

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen some of these, but at least on here I can provide some more info.

First off, splines. The female rear drive splines were on backorder for awhile, but they finally came in. I like that Moto Guzzi splines are bolted and pressed (at least on the wheel hub) on, the male splines to the far right of the pic are BMW splines. If you want to replace final drive splines on a BMW your options are getting a specialist to weld and machine new splines on the old crown gear, replace the entire crown gear (and pinion gear because they must be replaced in a set), or do what I did and buy a replacement spline piece, where you need to get a machinist to cut out the old one from the crown gear with a lathe, then get the new one pressed and then welded into the crown gear and machined down, The BMW splines are on deck after this V7 build.

I also plan on getting the rear drive case powdercoated to match the engine. So, again, I've got parts strewn about while I wait for one thing to get back before I drop off the rest. I may do a write up on a rear drive rebuild. You don't see that many online and the ones you do see usually don't have pictures. This V7 drive might be a bad example though because it doesn't need re-shimming, which is the more tedious part of a rebuild, especially for Moto Guzzis. BMW final drive cases are marked with a +/- tolerance, as are the crown/pinion gear set, which takes the guess work out of shimming, these Guzzi ones seem to go by trial and error. I do have an Ambassador rear drive that I have to fully rebuild that does need a re-shim, so maybe the write up will involve that one.

More parts strewn about. I am probably going to write up something about fork rebuilding as well, but guess what, I'm getting the fork sliders powdercoated, so that's still in queue...

Here's something I don't need to wait on. I have to sand down and polish these original Borranis as someone in this bike's past wasn't easy on them with tire spoons/irons. There were digs and mars all over it, but they're cleaning up nicely. I'm doing this the hard way, but varying grits of sand paper before a final polish. It sucks, but it'll come out nice.

These were the tires that came off those rims. I joked on Instagram about selling them to Hipsters, but it turns out that some people actually do want old tires like this (I guess for display purposes?). That being said, if you want them, make me an offer, but please don't mount them and go riding.

One more thing. When I bought the V7 it didn't come with keys. I could've cheaped out and bought a generic automotive ignition switch, but MG Cycle sells a newer FIAT switch that was supposed to be a drop in replacement that allows you to retain the old metal securing ring. Well, the switch is obviously deeper than the old one, it's also wider and doesn't fit into the MG dash, and finally the machining of the threads is so poor, you can't retain the old metal ring without modification(notice how it tapers/gets wider the closer the threads get to the base of the switch). I haven't touched this since I made these discoveries, but the plan is to file down the indentations on the new switch and try to get it to at least fit the dash, then I'll worry about cleaning up the threads and trying to get the old ring to fit. If neither of those prove successful, the final resort will be to try and switch lock cylinders from the new switch to the old one. The depth of the new switch worries me and I'm thinking I'll likely find that this can't be accomplished either.

So that's that. Hopefully there will be better news later this week and things can start moving again.

Stuff for sale: Moto Guzzi Wixom Fairing, Gasket Kit, etc.

Grab it now before it goes on ebay (contact for details:

SOLD SOLD SOLD Early MG Big Twin Wixom Fairing (V700, El Dorado, Ambassador). Rough, but usable, black with white pin stripes SOLD SOLD SOLD

Vintage, NOS V7 Sport (the original ones) complete gasket kit. Made in Italy

1967 Aermacchi Sprint 250 SS Generator. No brushes, untested

BMW /5 Flywheel, excellent shape with brand new BMW 10mm bolts .

Moto Guzzi V700 Sludge Trap

The Guzziology book says to just destroy the sludge trap plug when removing. They tend to be seized, besides being punched to further lock up the threads. My plug was punched in the 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock positions and was super seized. Allen key wouldn't free it, hammer impact driver wouldn't work, impact gun succeeded only in messing up the hex slot in the plug. My plug was stuck and I don't have a M22x1.25 tap to remove it, so I took it to the old timer machinist over the bridge to drill it out for me. $20 later I have a nice crank with very little stuck in the sludge trap.

I used a special factory tool to clean out the big pieces of sludge. Chemical cleaning with a brass brush will happen later.

Not bad for a utensil

Digging into the Guzzi part IV - end

Had some time to completely finish stripping the Guzzi this morning, what a beautiful machine.

The brass drain plug was super seized. I tried using an impact gun on it, but all that did was round out the head. Next I ground down the edges to use my long 19mm wrench on it, and that couldn't break it. Since I'm going to be getting a new plug anyway and I needed the oil out, I drilled right through, drained the oil, and will be dealing with that plug later.

Sludgy...

Oil strainer, feed lines, and pump. Looking pretty clean.

 Oil pump gears look good too, but I'll still need to measure the lash to make sure it's still in spec.

Con-rod bearings. No scoring I can feel with my fingertips, but don't look fantastic either. I foresee Plastigauge in my future and possibly new bearings.

Cam and lifters look to be in great shape, not pitting or scoring.

Rear crankshaft bearing removal

The crank looks to be in excellent shape, webbing and pins show no scoring or visible wear

Sludge trap, and the reason I did all this work. Don't have time to open it up and clean it out today, so to be continued on whether or not the complete tear down was worth it.

Engine internals, it looks like there's a lot more than there really is

Next up is the eventual sludge trap cleaning, cylinder Nikasil plating, head cleanup and eventual reassembly.

Digging into the Guzzi part III

Thanks to some found money, I opted out of fabricating my own special tools for the V700 and instead purchased some from MG Cycle. The flywheel/ring gear holder will obviously lock everything up to allow removal of the generator drive pulley, timing gears, and then ring gear, clutch, and flywheel removal. The other tool pulls the rear bearing carrier.

In action, using the 3-tooth part to hold the ring gear for the starter. The single tooth on the top is used later on, after the ring gear is removed, to hold the flywheel in place.

This pisses me off to no end. As mentioned previously, this bike had a lot of work done to it in the 70's. Apparently besides new cylinders, pistons, and a top end job, they also put in brand new clutch plates. What I don't get is, why the hell you wouldn't replace the transmission input seal while everything was apart. Because they didn't take that step, these brand new clutch parts are completely ruined by gear oil. Such an expensive waste...

Timing gears. You can just make out the scant timing markings between the cam gear (big) and the crank gear (small). These were wiping off when I put my finder on the gears, so I had to make my own new markings that were more obvious.

Took some white out for the time being, need to clean it up a little on the cam side, but it'd be hard to mess up alignment for timing now.

And this is where my work ended for today. Shockingly, I don't have a 26mm socket or box end wrench anywhere (in fact what I have goes up to 24mm, then skips to 27mm and up, so timing gear removal, and subsequent bottom end disassembly, will have to wait for another day.

Digging into the Guzzi part II

I began disassembling the top end in anticipation for bottom end removal to access the sludge trap. So far everything I've seen confirms that this bike had a lot of work done to it in the 70's and then sat for 40 years, but there wasn't any mention of sludge trap cleaning on the receipt (just oil pan cleaning and oil pressure checking) and the wear on the rear drive makes me doubt this bike is only a 19k bike.

Ready for tear down

Bad shot of the crank and lifters. What you can't see if that everything looks super clean and fresh. When I pulled the lifters out there was absolutely no wear on them (I believe they were replaced when this bike last received service), cam also showed no pitting or marking. There was some side to side play at the connecting rods, but I'll have to see what's acceptable in the Guzzi world, by BMW standards this is way out of spec.

After a half hour, this is as far as I got. It looks like I'll need to fabricate special tools to proceed with the generator drive pulley and clutch/flywheel removal.

Generator bracket. I guess I'll need to weld this back together. I guess the previous owner didn't know when to stop tightening the upper clamp...

All wrapped up until next time.

Digging into the Guzzi

Since I have receipts for work that included new pistons, cylinders, top-end job, connecting rod bushings, oil system check, and pretty much everything except for cleaning out the sludge trap, I figured I'd dig in a little to see if it was true.

Cylinders are the original chrome plated type. No signs of peeling, piston does look fairly new. Thinking I'll likely get the cylinders re-lined with Nikasil and keep the existing pistons to avoid the engine self destructing later.

More carbon on the heads than I expected to see. Exhaust valve looks a little recessed as well, will check compression later and take them into a machine shop if needed.

Engine separated from trans. Trans definitely leaking gear oil, starter appears to be in good shape with fresh grease on the bendix drive.

Rear splines at final drive, not good.

 Rear splines at hub, almost non-existent

This leads me to believe that the bike doesn't really have the 19k that was indicated on the odometer, far more likely 119k. Also, given the amount of work that was done to the top and bottom ends in the 70's, I assume this engine had a seizure at one point which makes me wonder about the condition of the sludge trap. Looks like I'll be diving in deeper. Don't know what I'm going to do about the rear drive just yet, it looks like you can still buy splines for the final drive portion, but not the rear hub.

New Project: 1967 Moto Guzzi V700

Well, I wasn't looking for anything else to work on... The 57 BMW R60 has been cleaning out all the spare change I have in my pocket, and frankly I couldn't (read: can't) afford another project, but every once in awhile a deal turns up that's just way too good to pass up. In a situation that sounds like what a superstitious person would call fate, I was in the middle of doing the dishes when I suddenly had the urge to do a quick search on Craigslist. Doing so yielded a search result of "moto Guzzi for sale 1968," that was just put up hours before me searching. No real description except "nice project" and the following pic:

Usually I'd shy away from a project pictured as such, but looking around at what was there it looked pretty complete, and the price was such that there was minimal risk in taking it on, even if there wasn't a title. I called the guy immediately and told him I wanted to take a look at it as soon as possible, which turned out to be the afternoon of the next day.

This is what it looked like when I got there:

Looking more like a bike, looking more and more complete. I was checking out the Dell'orto SS1 Carburetors (which was the first clue this was really a 1967 model instead of a 68), the the Borrani record rims (free of bends and scarring), the engine that seemed to be free (or at least it moved a little when I put the driveshaft into the transmission and pulled a little), and was trying to hide my excitement at what I was seeing. Apparently the bike has undergone a top-end rebuild back in the 70's and for one reason or another the guy started to disassemble it in 1976 to chrome the frame and repaint and then just let it sit for 40 years!

I checked out the numbers and found the frame to match the title (again a major plus), but the engine was different. I know this isn't as big of a deal with motorcycles as it is with cars, but I wanted to do a little more research on the numbers before pulling the trigger. I told the guy I was really interested, his price was fair, but that I'd call him a little later after I checked out the issue with the numbers and some other things like working out delivery if I was going to buy it. I was warned there were more people interested and I thought I was going to lose the bike. Long story short, the numbers never matched from the factory (common on early V7 Guzzis apparently), based on the numbers it really was a 1967 model (and early 67 at that) and was just titled as a 1968 (likely when it was sold instead of when it was manufactured), and when I called to say I'd buy it, he said he'd deliver it if I paid the tolls and paid cash - no problem. Honestly, getting to that point was a little difficult because he was afraid of turning up and me robbing him, I was afraid of leaving a hefty deposit and him never turning up, in the end we both decided to trust each other and make it happen.

All the bits and pieces upon delivery. 3 seats (1 solo, 1 stock bench seat, 1 3/4 seat off of a Honda or something), fairing, Wixom saddlebags, tool boxes, side covers, all the tins, complete engine and trans, brand new gasket set, a VERY COMPLETE bike.

This was the icing on the cake. Like I said before, I was told the bike had undergone some top-end work in the 70's and was parked shortly thereafter. Well, the registration and inspection tags confirmed the latter, and this stack of receipts from the 70's confirmed the former. Complete top-end job, new con-rods, new pistons, this guy spent a lot of money and I can't believe he never really used it thereafter. Note: there is nothing on the receipts about the chrome-lined cylinders. Those will definitely need to be inspected before any start-up attempts on this bike.

Rockers look nice and clean. I was expecting a rusty mess and was very pleasantly surprised to find not even a speck of surface rust.

This is what the inside of a carburetor that's been sitting for 40 years looks like.

This is what it looks like after an overnight bath in B12 carb cleaner. Still can't get the idle jet off, or the jet carrier (which doesn't look like any others I've seen on an SS1 carb), but I'll get them, and then dip it all over again. The other carb is currently taking its turn in the chem bath. Also, the main jet looks nothing like anything I've ever seen before. you can see it in the middle of the picture at the bottom (to the right of the mixture screw/spring)l it had a spring attached to it leading to another jet with 4 outlet ports that sat up in the jet carrier. I'll have to see what the other side looks like when I disassemble it, but things don't seem quite right here...

I'm going to have to take some measurements and fabricate an engine stand before I finally move the engine and trans out of the milk-crate storage - then the real fun will begin.