2V Norge valve adjustment

[Eric]

I'm curious if anyone has done a video of how to do this. I know there's a trick or two...

[guzzisteve]

I do believe there is 1 or 2 out there but can't remember where they are. Try Googling Guzzi Wrench Garage.

[Eric]

Did some digging and can't find anything under your suggested search, Steve, or variations thereof. Will keep digging

[Bill Hagan]

I did, too, out of curiosity and also came up dry.

There are some step-by-steps how-to's out there but no vids I could find, at least speifically on the Norge.

See if these -- which I, no gifted wrench, dust off whenever I adjust the valves on my Norge and EV -- help:

http://motogoose.com/tech-tips/ev11-valve-adjustment/

http://www.webbikeworld.com/Motorcycle-technical-articles/guzzi/valve-adjustment.htm

Bill

[Eric]

Thanks, Bill. Those will be helpful. I'll need to figure out how much of the plastic has to come off. Some have said none. It will be nice if that's the case. I did Lori's baby breva and that was pretty straight forward. And the Ural is easy on the port side because it sticks straight out into the wind. ON the other it's a bit tight. Maybe I'll make a video.  :)

[Larry_77084]

What do you need a video for?
1.) Put it on the center stand.
2.) Take off the head covers.
3.) Put the bike in 5th gear.
4.) Pull the plugs.
5.) Rotate the motor by rolling the tire ( in it's normal operating direction) until the intake valve opens then closes.
4.) Stick a Chop Stick (Wooden chop sticks are very fibrous and if it should break it will not leave a hunk in the cylinder) in the spark plug hole.
7.) Slowly bump motor with the tire until the piston is at the very top of it's stroke. (no pressure on either rocker, the chop stick will show you when it is at it's very top).
8.) Slide you feeler gauge though the gap between rocker arm and the top of the valve. I set them to .010mm intake and .015mm Exhaust.  However you can     find about 30 threads on here the either agree or disagree with the spec.  I go by the manual but some like wider airgaps. make sure you feel firm resistance while sliding the gauge through the air gap.
9.) Replace the head cover, lately I've been using a Mercedes Benz sealer instead of the gaskets because we have experienced gasket failures, but you don't have to you can use a stock gasket, to each his own, if it don't leak you are good to go.
10.) Torque the head cover screws to 10 nm.
11.) Replace the plugs.
12.) Start it and ride.

[Vasco DG]

The pain in the arse with the early Norges is the fragility and odd assembly of the fairings. You have to pull the belly pan and lowers from memory and then you can lift the tank a bit and get the covers off.

On the gasket issue? Have you tried the Valpolini gaskets? The importer here is now bringing these in in stead of the factory ones due to repeated failures. I can't commen on their efficacy as I've only just got a couple of sets in, haven't even opened the box to look at 'em yet.

Pete

[mickr69]

There is a video for the 2v 1200 Sport on Vimeo if thats any use? Just search for 1200 sport valve adjustment

[Nic in Western NYS]

What do you need a video for?
1.) Put it on the center stand.
2.) Take off the head covers.
3.) Put the bike in 5th gear.
4.) Pull the plugs.
5.) Rotate the motor by rolling the tire ( in it's normal operating direction) until the intake valve opens then closes.
4.) Stick a Chop Stick (Wooden chop sticks are very fibrous and if it should break it will not leave a hunk in the cylinder) in the spark plug hole.
7.) Slowly bump motor with the tire until the piston is at the very top of it's stroke. (no pressure on either rocker, the chop stick will show you when it is at it's very top).
8.) Slide you feeler gauge though the gap between rocker arm and the top of the valve. I set them to .010mm intake and .015mm Exhaust.  However you can     find about 30 threads on here the either agree or disagree with the spec.  I go by the manual but some like wider airgaps. make sure you feel firm resistance while sliding the gauge through the air gap.
9.) Replace the head cover, lately I've been using a Mercedes Benz sealer instead of the gaskets because we have experienced gasket failures, but you don't have to you can use a stock gasket, to each his own, if it don't leak you are good to go.
10.) Torque the head cover screws to 10 nm.
11.) Replace the plugs.
12.) Start it and ride.

Very cool and straightforward.  (The second #4 is meant to be #6, yes?)

[guzzi ride]

One more tip... use a ball head type Allen wrench to remove/install valve cover bolts.
Also try to use your palm of your hand, or soft rubber mallet, to break the cover loose as opposed
to prying them up.

[Larry_77084]

The pain in the arse with the early Norges is the fragility and odd assembly of the fairings. You have to pull the belly pan and lowers from memory and then you can lift the tank a bit and get the covers off.

On the gasket issue? Have you tried the Valpolini gaskets? The importer here is now bringing these in in stead of the factory ones due to repeated failures. I can't common on their efficacy as I've only just got a couple of sets in, haven't even opened the box to look at 'em yet.

Pete

You have a link for those gaskets??

 I didn't think about the body work, most of the time I take out the rearmost screw on the panel, where it attaches to the tank, then the 2 screws on the rearmost part of the dash fairing and with a long 1/4 extension I can get to the rear 2 screws by lifting the panel ever so slightly.

[Scott of the Sahara]

there is no need to remove any of the lower fairing. I bought a long t handle allen wrench with a ball end and it makes the job much easier to remove those high valve cover bolts.

[Eric]

I'll go out today and get a long handle hex wrench. I have a couple of gaskets on the shelf from a long time ago. Do some of you use a gasket sealant? I appreciate all the help. I just haven't done this in a while and it's surprising how intimidating these things can get, especially if you have no skills to trade. I teach philosophy, for goodness sake. I can tell you how Guzzi design has evolved from early Renaissance Humanism if you're interested but, normally, that only makes me boring at parties.

[guzzi ride]

No sealant needed...install dry to valve cover side and finger some grease (waterproof) to the head side.

[Bill Hagan]

I'll go out today and get a long handle hex wrench. I have a couple of gaskets on the shelf from a long time ago. Do some of you use a gasket sealant? I appreciate all the help. I just haven't done this in a while and it's surprising how intimidating these things can get, especially if you have no skills to trade. I teach philosophy, for goodness sake. I can tell you how Guzzi design has evolved from early Renaissance Humanism if you're interested but, normally, that only makes me boring at parties.

Cool.

My boutique academic niche is the development of military law, especially in the Renaissance.  That might explain our mutual uneasiness with periodic moto-maintenance that comes so easily to others.  But, most of those wrenching smartypants would have difficulty with an essay question on the Cinquecento (other than the Fiat  :D)  Granted, not much call for that 16th century arcanity, but it comes in handy now and then, too,. ;D

Moreover, most printed and on-line resources simply don’t reach the level of wrenching ignorance I am capable of displaying.  They launch off by telling you, e.g., how to adjust valves with paint-by-numbers instruction … but you must always remember that these are written by wrenching geeks for wrenching geeks, and thus in going from Step 4 to Step 5, they leave out the essential Step 4.5.  Dave Richardson recognized this problem in his classic work, "Guzziology,” where he writes words to the effect that he assumes you know which end of a screwdriver to use.  Well, that is about the level of my expertise, and after that, like a 15th century Italian sailor, it’s all Terra and Mare Incognito.  Besides, it also depends what you are trying to do with said screwdriver.

Oh, before I forget, after adjusting the valves and deciding to see if the beast will start (or prove you didn’t really find TDC via D or S or whatever when you thought you did), take the BF ½-inch drive and VFH 24mm socket off the the nut on the alternator you used to find (or think you found) TDC and those elusive letters.  It gets very loud and exciting if you don’t.  BTDT.  That’s how I know.

And, more recently, I had a moment of near panic. when, in starting the process of finding TDC, I could not get the1/2 inch driver to move the crankshaft.  At all.  Oh, no!  The engine’s seized. What?

Well, after I calmed down and stared at the beast a bit, I realized what was wrong … and knew this was the sort of thing that never happens to the real wrenches here. 

I have a lift, so, to do much of the work on the Norge, I don’t use the center stand.  Yup.  The Norge was in gear with the rear wheel on the lift.  Doh. 

Back to the merits of valve adjustments.  I have fiddled around with various approaches to those fasteners at the top of the Norge's valve covers that are hard to get to because of the fairing and tank. 

I actually think the best fix -- which I am doing as soon as I get back home from Atlanta -- is to replace those top two "fancy" rounded-top bolts with two "ordinary" socket-head types. Especially with ball-end tools, should be harder to round those out.  And, because of the Norge’s tupperware, they are invisible, anyway.



And, after several other experiments, I also just got in this, which has, in conjunction with a "wobble-end" extension, made it much easier to get to those pesky hidden guys.



Finally, to avoid the near-inevitable results hamfistedness, I have — with the exception of those instances that require a breaker bar to undo and torque-wrench tightness (along with later a breaker bar to undo), e.g., mounting the wheels — gone almost exclusively to short-handled ¼ inch ratchet drivers.  I can “feel” what’s needed much easier without risking the sad face that comes with “just a bit more."

Best,

Bill

[Wayne Orwig]

Bill, you need to do a photos and a writeup.

Something like:
Remove fairing. Research glue to repair pieces that you just broke.
Drink coffee with a bit of grappa.
Pull spark plug caps. Order new wires to replace the ones you just pulled apart.
Drink coffee with a good bit of grappa.
Stick pencil in hole to find TDC. Find a way to extract broken pencil bits.
Drink grappa straight.
Remove rear wheel, just because you can.
Etc, etc.


Come on, you can do it.......
 ~;
 :BEER:

[Bill Hagan]

Bill, you need to do a photos and a writeup.

Something like:
Remove fairing. Research glue to repair pieces that you just broke.
Drink coffee with a bit of grappa.
Pull spark plug caps. Order new wires to replace the ones you just pulled apart.
Drink coffee with a good bit of grappa.
Stick pencil in hole to find TDC. Find a way to extract broken pencil bits.
Drink grappa straight.
Remove rear wheel, just because you can.
Etc, etc.


Come on, you can do it.......
 ~;
 :BEER:

Hmmmmmm.

That has possibilities.

Kathi could be the camera girl.

Well, until I start cursing and she took over the wrenching and I did the filming.   ;D

I do like the grappa part.  It ain't called the Moto Grappa for nothing.  After all, grappa was the original Moto Guzzi kool-aid.   :D

Cin Cin,

Bill

[Vasco DG]

You have a link for those gaskets??

 I didn't think about the body work, most of the time I take out the rearmost screw on the panel, where it attaches to the tank, then the 2 screws on the rearmost part of the dash fairing and with a long 1/4 extension I can get to the rear 2 screws by lifting the panel ever so slightly.

I haven't done an early 2V Norge for yonks so my memory is probably a bit hazy on what you need to remove. :P

Larry, I'll pull out the Valpolini gaskets today and see if they have any form of identification on the packaging.

Pete

[guzzisteve]

This guy is cheating, already has the green VC gaskets on it.

https://vimeo.com/95541267

[Eric]

The video is very helpful, Steve and Mick. I don't imagine one can easily see the viewing port on the Norge with all the plastic in place hence the chopstick solution? I have used plastic straws in the past but, on one occasion, the straw was too short.  :( 

Bill, my time is spent mostly in German romanticism which has very early roots in the gothic. I chuckled a little when you mentioned the cinquecento. I made a series of 20 short videos for an online class I teach while in Europe last summer and one of them was on Albrecht Dürer's ultimate expression of that concept - his self portrait. I'm working on another we shot at the Guzzi factory on the concept of beauty, something the Germans know a great deal about but simply can't do it as well as the Italians. If you want to see why I'm boring at parties, you can watch the video on Dürer here:

https://mediaspace.mnscu.edu/media/Albrecht+D%C3%BCrer+Renaissance+Man/0_aednwjgp

[bratman2]

The WIHA ball end sockets are what I use also. Seems like last time I removed nothing to access the upper machine screws.

[molly]

Another tip is when you have removed the covers and  got the piston at TDC make sure there is already some kind of gap with a smaller feeler gauge i.e. 0.05mm. If there isn't chances are you are on the wrong stroke. Rotate the crank to the next TDC and recheck. Only then undo the locknuts on the tappets.
Use a long flat bladed screwdriver in the spark plug hole to find TDC nothing that can break or fall down the hole which includes chop sticks :)

[Larry_77084]

I can understand your caution Molly but I doubt you've checked as many valves as I have and I've never had a break with a bamboo chopstick.  Break one in half, you won't break through all of the fibers.  That was taught to me by a car mechanic with more years in the business than I care to count.