78 Moto Guzzi T3

Thanks, I know that the rubber mount locations vs the throttle routing is harder to get exactly right than I expected when I took it apart. I'll mess with it some more. Seems like a pretty trivial thing, but I do want to get it right, and not just force it together.

Roy

I have my throttle cables routed through the groove in the rear rubber tank bumpers. It works great. The cable to the right carb goes down the left frame tube and vice versa, they cross over and then go through the groove in the tank rubber then to the carbs.

Johnny, I'll take a look at it before I decide finally. Thanks for the input.

roy

About four inner tubes ago, I had the front tire mounted, but someone noticed it was reversed. Today I finally got a good tube mount that's holding air, and although I was very careful to make sure the tire was on the wheel the same way so it would rotate properly, it's backward again....turns out I never had to take the tire off, just swap the disks and their bearing retainers. The tire/wheel are symmetrical, but one of the bearings is located by a big circlip, the other is held flush to the surface of the wheel bearing hub by the internal spacer. The circlip needs to be on the left side. If the tire is reversed, just swap the disks with their bearing hubs and everything will be fine. Wish I'd figured that out a few months ago. Simple stuff like that is what I always look to this site for input on. Usually someone has already documented it. In this case I haven't seen it before, so I'm putting it here for when I forget the next time.

roy

Sorry, but I was definitely mistaken in that last post. To center the disks, the wheel bearing with the circlip needs to be to the right side, and the flush one to the left. Right now I'm not sure without taking it apart again whether I was right to say you could just swap the disks and take care of the tire rotation issue. Sorry, I should have double checked myself first before I got all excited and posted.

roy

I bought this seat off ebay, and as usual, it was not quite what I expected. At first I didn't even think it was for this bike, cause it didn't mount on any frame mounting points I have. After a little on line research it appears to be a real T3 solo seat, (supposedly a police model) and requires some radio mounting brackets to mount it. Which I of course don't have, or want. So I spent a while thinking about how to fab up a set of brackets for it....



The pan needed some clean-up, and the foam/cover had obviously been removed and barely reattached, so I took it off. I started on some brackets that would place it in roughly this position...



...and then I realized I better get it recovered first, partially on account of these tabs on both sides of the gas tank...



Best I can figure, they must be there to keep the front of the seat from moving side to side, because other than the rear hinge mounts, the front support is just some concave braces that sit on the frame tubes. I'll rivet some leather strap/cushion on those, but it still seems like the front of the seat would be prone to wiggling side to side without those tabs...which of course will scuff up the paint on the tank pretty well. I'll take these pix to my seat guy and see what he says before I decide.

Oh! the seat color...when I thought the tank was gonna be mostly black with a very slight shade of red/maroon in the sun, I was all set to have the seat done in a light tan. Now I'm not so sure. I may just stick with black hoping that will help make the paint seem a bit darker... And the thickness...why do I want the seat to be that thick if I'm having it redone? I want it comfy, but surely I don't need 4 inches of foam to get that...

Meanwhile, just been tidying up some things. Both my petcocks were really hard to move, so I decided to yank one apart. (I had ordered some new gaskets a long while ago.) They came apart quite easily, so I'll add a pix of the disassembly while they're soaking overnight.



Here's hoping for no leaks after reassembly. Meanwhile seems like I need to search for some of that hydraulic fluid teflon tape before I mount them.

Mostly I've been stalling on bleeding the brakes, just because I worry I'll get some damn Dot 3 on some chrome or the frame or something...later... roy

Hi Roy,

I have some original brackets for mounting a solo seat. Remind me after the Memorial Day holiday and I'll shoot some pics, etc.

Regards,

Gregory Bender

I'm interested in how the original mounting brackets would look. No rush.

roy

I have some Enduro sidebags that I'm planning to use. They're plastic, so I won't carry much that's heavy, and the mounting brackets are all homemade, but I'm fairly happy with them so far...This pix shows all three, one underneath, one at the forward top and one at rear top.



I also took another stab at how to run the throttle cables, cc'g Johnny Cash's input to run them thru the rear rubber mounts, and from the opposite side of the top frame. I think I like this pretty well.



So now I'm waiting for the saddle to come back from the shop, will be at least another week, but meanwhile I thought I'd try taking a pix of it with the sidebags and the painted pieces...It'll never look this pretty again.



Looks like I have the mufflers aimed a little lower than they were, but I may leave them that way, at least during debug. I've not ridden this bike long or far enough to know that they won't damage (melt) the sidebags.

So now I need to make sure the petcocks don't leak and then plumb the gas tank. I have finished bleeding the brakes, managed to get some Dot 3 on the newly painted rear caliper. Just as well that you can't even see it now for the sidebags. I'm almost at the stage where I try starting it and see how much trouble I have...confidence, confidence. Reminds me of a job interview I once went on. The head engineer asked me if what I've designed usually works the first time. I said no, not really. He agreed, and I got the job.

roy

Bike's looking good. I wouldn't worry about the colour. The one word that's never used to describe an Italian bike, is "subtle".

I would like to know a little more about your bench/lift. Is it homemade, does it tilt and can you show a few more pictures of it?
Thanks.

of the workbench?....OK, but it's not very sophisticated. I'm pretty much an eyeball carpenter, made it out of 2x6's and 2x4's. Once I got it put together I realized that the gaps between the top 2x6's were not so cool whenever I dropped something small. So I ripped some thin scrap pieces and used them to stuff in between, now it's pretty close to a solid top. Every once in a while I slap some polyurethane on it so the inevitable oil spill doesn't soak in so much.



Pretty sure it's 8 ft long, cause I wouldn't have cut the top boards, just used some I had around. Nothing portable about it, the only space-savings I have is the ramp, an old 2x12 with a piece of angle iron at the top end to hook over the 2x4's. I keep it clamped to the side most of the time, just drag it out when I'm moving a bike on or off.



To show how much forethought there was, I once rebuilt an old ironhead sportster, got it up on the top and realized I had no place to put the sidestand, all previous bikes had used a center-stand. So I built an add-on porch. Not elegant, but it came in pretty useful from then on.



Primary downsides are that it takes up a fair amount of room, and it's pretty heavy. But then when I'm not working on a bike, it doubles as a sit-down bench using my little roller stools. And gets covered up in as much crap as the rest of my garage. On the positive, it was really cheap. roy

I'm almost at the stage where I try starting it and see how much trouble I have...confidence, confidence. Reminds me of a job interview I once went on. The head engineer asked me if what I've designed usually works the first time. I said no, not really. He agreed, and I got the job.

Roy

Whats that they say, you don't start a Moto guzzi ,you summon it to Life!

You build stuff like I do. If the boards are 10 feet long, then you get 10 foot shelves. That's how I built my deck.
Does it take quite a bit of effort to push it up that ramp? I think I could probably build something like this. I would think a couple of eyelets screwed in at the front to tie the bike down would probably be a good idea too.

Thanks

Not terribly, but then, depending on how heavy the bike, it's not totally trivial either. Guess I could get a longer 2x12 if I needed it. Haven't had a problem yet, but I do try to get a pretty good headstart. Never tried to let the engine pull itself up, I'd probably slip or trip over something trying to keep up and dump it off the side.

Definitely more pleasant to work while sitting down and looking directly at whatever. When I need to tie one end down, I just use ratcheting straps that go under the bench and then tied to the frame, or handlebars or something solid. Plus I have a small chain hoist up in the rafters for yanking a wheel.

roy

I wasn't happy with the way I'd routed the fuel lines, separately for each carb/petcock and I was really disappointed that some of the breather hoses had already cracked, even though all it's done is sit out in the garage as the weather got hotter. Turns out the cracked breather hoses were all neoprene, never should have tried using those, so I replaced them, and ordered one of those 4-way fuel line fittings. Had to ask Greg Bender for some pix of how he routed his, and with his help, here's what I have now.

left side, the carb line faces inwards, can be barely seen at the bottom.


right side


and the 4way


Seems pretty trivial, at least for this thread, but I'm considering this a location I put all the little stuff that I had to think (or ask) about, in case another wants to google it someday. The fuel line that comes with the 4way from MG cycles is so nice I used it rather than the 'transparent' stuff I usually use. My only issue is that with this much plumbing, I do have some spots where the line rubs against some metal, I'll watch over time to see if it causes trouble. The alternative is to use 2 way banjo bolts on each carb and tie the two together, that might turn out to give a little less potential rub points.

roy

Keep up the photos and info. Your build is going well. Ready to see it running.

Bottom line, I started it today. spark plugs out, cranked a bit til the oil light went out, then put spark plugs back in and chokes on. Started immediately, I love the way these Guzzi's sound when they first start up. Reminds me of my old....? (2002) Road King.



On the confessing all side, I had tried to prime the oil pump a few days ago, and it just didn't sound right to me, meaning there wasn't enough mechanical noises to make me think the engine was really turning over, so I assumed that the starter I had rebuilt was not energizing the solenoid and just spinning freely...and I ordered a new starter. duh. Today, new starter in, sounds the same, I yanked off the valve cover and watched as I cranked it. The valves were opening! I kept cranking and the oil light went out, I was still surprised at how quiet the engine was with just the pistons and valves moving up and down. So now I have a spare starter if I ever need one. On to the start of debug...it is leaking oil like a sieve. Looking at it, I'm pretty sure it's coming from the top of the oil pump that feeds the two hoses going to each cylinder head. I shut it off to look. I had previously noticed that those hoses were pretty cracked, so I ordered some new braided SS ones....they were on backorder so I elected to start it up without them. Now I'm gonna wait a bit til they show up and see whether my leak(s) are due to the hoses, or to some error on my part when I installed them. (Most likely.)

And yesterday, I went to get my "new" seat. I guess I'm gonna have to ride some to know how I feel about it, here's a side view.



Not as thick as it originally was, guess we'll see how well it feels. Mounting brackets still need a bit of paint, but here's how they are attached.



If replacing the oil feed lines cures the leaks, I'll ride, retorque the cylinder heads and report back. I'm not totally sure about the ergonomics yet, I may want to lower the foot pegs and move the handlebars back a bit before I'm done, but first I need to get it running reliably with no leaks. I hate leaks. That's how this whole rebuild started.

roy

Congrats on the first start up! :>

That seat is a lot thinner than original. That may be why the foot pegs feel too high.

I like your solution for the rear mounting brackets for the seat. Did you use regular old 1/8" mild steel to fabricate the brackets?

Regards,

Gregory Bender

I just went down to Industrial Metal Supply on 48th St (IIRC) and bought some 1/8" steel that I saw already cut into a reasonable size, don't honestly know what type of steel it was, it wasn't too hard to cut on my bandsaw if that tells you anything.

Yeah, I may end up wanting to change out that seat, we'll see.

Thanks again for all your help.

roy

I went through two of my used oil lines both leaking before I went ahead and bought a new one. Sometimes being a cheapskate turns it to be more trouble than it is worth. I also had a oil leak from the head bolts needing to be retorqued after only a couple of heat cycles. Looks like you're getting close. Starting mine up for the first time filled me with such giddiness, I can't believe it. Have fun. My first 1000 miles have definitely had some unexpected issues (biggest one being my brand new condensers causing the ignition to intermittantly cut out) but the bike is so great to ride, that all the work was totally worthwhile.