Moto Guzzi V7 / V700 bottom end assembly

Now that the engine case/covers are back from powdercoating, it's time to reassemble the bottom end. Still need to send out the cylinders for Nikasil plating, repair the generator bracket, then button up everything else on the engine, but here's the basic procedure for reassembly.

All new seals and gaskets. Case and all parts thoroughly degreased and cleaned.

Cam plug JB Welded (as per Greg Bender's ThisOldTractor site), this is a point of leakage that I'd rather deal with now then once it ruins the clutch.

Getting everything lined up, no I didn't reuse those tab washers, but they were cleaned in conjunction with everything else. I'm trying out a new assembly lube, this one made by Amsoil. It's interesting, the previous lubes I used were silver/grey and this one is red which helps a little in seeing the amount of coverage on the parts.

Front bearing flange installed. In lieu of tab washers, I used 0.88mm thick wave washers as per Moto Guzzi revisions.

Camshaft lubed up and ready for installation

Installed

New rear main seal, lubed around the outside.

This is a BMW rear main seal installation tool intended for use in conjunction with the crankshaft. This won't work on Guzzis since the rear crank face is proud of the bearing flange, and the center 12mm bolt area is proud of the face as well. I was able to use the tool by putting a 12mm bolt through the center of the tool and reinforcing the back of the bearing flange with a bar and then tightening it up and pulling the seal in.

Reinstalling oil tubes with new seals and crush washers prior to reinstalling crank.

Placing the case on wooden blocks in prep for the crankshaft install. The case needs to be raised as the front of the crank protrudes from the case by 3 or so inches.

Dropped in.

New seal held on with grease

Bottom bolts for the rear bearing flange with sealant. I used Permatex Ultra Grey.

Con-rod bearings lubed

Con-rods installed with new tab washers. NOTE: When installing the connecting rods, the oil holes must both be facing the right cylinder (when viewed from the clutch area), meaning the right connecting rod's oil hole should be facing down and to the right and the left connecting rod one should be facing right and up. The numbers stamped on the rods should be lined up with each other as well.

Oil pump finger tightened in place. The 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock bolts are the smaller bolts that secure the pump directly to the case, the 6 and 3 o'clock bolts are the longer ones that secure the oil pickup/filter screen to the oil pump/case. The bolt to the right side of the pump is also the shorter type and is the third bolt utilized in securing the pickup to the case.

Pickup in place, assembling strainer.

 Sump area buttoned up.

Timing gears reinstalled. The camshaft timing gear is very, very close to the front bearing flange bolt heads since I used the wave washers in lieu of the thinner tab washers. I didn't fully torque down the nut on the camshaft yet, but I'll need to measure clearance through an entire rotation of the cam once I do to ensure nothing is rubbing anywhere. If it is, I may have to retain the tab washer on the top two bolts solely for clearance purposes.

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.