Is this worth a look? - 1979 V50 II on Craigslist

[lucian]

Well, we have come to terms on the v50, I will pick it up tonight . It seems there is a short in the white wire to ignition. Need to get it home to investigate further. Has good compression,  and drive train seems tight, so wish me luck or call me a fool, your choice. Harpers said they did have ignition parts so I'm hoping they do.  Thank you all     dave

[ItsForrest]

One very important thing to check/fix that hasn't been mentioned here is the rear drive. The bolts holding the ring gear have been known to back out and shear, which can destroy the rear drive.

An '80 V50-II was my 2nd bike and a friend also had the same bike. We both bought them used but with only a few thousand miles. Mine was red, his was metallic blue. These are the only two V50s I have had any real exposure to and both of them blew up the rear drive this way. On mine all six ring gear bolts had loosened. Two of the bolt heads sheared and one of them jammed between the ring and pinion gears, locking up the rear drive while I was riding. Luckily, I was a block from home and riding under 10mph when it locked up.

The problem as I understand it: Guzzi used tab washers, three of them, each spanning two bolts securing the ring gear. On both of our bikes the tabs were not bent up to lock the bolts. The official update from Guzzi at the time was to replace the bolt and tab washer arrangement with flanged bolts that had thread locker applied to them.

[oldbike54]

 Hope this works out well . When you say it has good compression , measured in some fashion , or it goes chuff chuff ?

  Dusty

[NCAmother]

The V50's are awesome.  With that said, I wouldn't let my daughter have a vintage bike unless she was mechanically inclined.  Two of my favorite people at work (ladies by the way) picked up new SV650's about four or so years ago.  They still own the bike.

[ItsForrest]

I rode that V50 all up and down the West coast and put about 30,000 miles on it before I sold it.
By the time I sold it, it was a real rat. I wish I could find pictures of it.

On a spirited ride around Mt. St. Helens I ran wide and stuffed it in a ditch, bending the forks and denting the tank. I found Monza forks as a replacement but never fixed the tank. I ran it with clubman bars, Tarozzi rearsets and a fairing from a Benelli Sei, which looked like a Monza fairing but with a round headlight. The color of the Sei was an exact match.
My bike had the higher reading 140mph(?) speedo while buddy's had the 80mph speedo.
The top speed I saw was an indicated 105. Who knows what the real speed was.
I never had any problems with the ignition.
The original mufflers rotted out and were replaced with ugly and loud Emgos, then Bubs.
The V50-II has smaller diameter head pipes than other variants of the V50. When I ordered the mufflers from Bub, they argued with me on the pipe diameter and insisted on sending me the wrong size pipes so I ended up shimming them to seal to the head pipes.
One of the cylinder studs pulled out of the case. I noticed it while doing a valve adjust. Fixed with a heli coil.
Two of the tappet adjuster screws were found to be bent when I went to adjust the valves for the first time so I had to get replacements.
The stock shocks expelled their oil almost immediately and were replaced with Marzocchi Stradas, which waited a few years before spitting out their oil.
The forks were scary with any spirited riding! I remember with the linked brakes that, when applying only the front brake, you could see the whole front end twist. I picked up a used Honda master cylinder and de-linked them. Then you could see the front end tuck under hard braking.
When I pulled apart the rear drive to fix the bolt issue, I also found that the u-joints had eaten the needle bearings and were just full of metallic muck. The crosses were not available at the time from Guzzi. I don't recall where I found replacements.

I loved that bike while I owned it.

[Guido Valvole]

ItsForrest - whic Tarozzi rearsets did you use?

There was a V50 for sale in the swap meet section of the European & Japanese show at the Santa Clara Co fairgrounds in March. It looked pretty ratty, think the asking price was something like $500. Then I looked closer… I've never seen a rear drive cracked through before. I doubt that there was a useable piece on that thing. Look before buying!
cr

[ItsForrest]

It's been more than 20 years since I had that V50. I don't recall much about those rearsets except that they were not a great fit.

[lucian]

The v50 came home today. Looks like it will be a keeper. Found no shorts, only a dead coil on the right side. Switched the left one over to the right and got spark there too. The key switch is missing but I got manuals with it and was able to jump power to the ignition and starter, cranked right over nice. Now just clean up the fuel system and find a coil and she should fire up.Thank you for the heads up on the rear drive, I will order new seals and inspect it. Also would like to find a crash bar if anyone has a source. I will have some pic's soon. Thank you dave

[Guido Valvole]

I've looked sporadically for V50 crash bars with no luck. You might want to go with head/plug guards instead. The ones on my V50 came from Joe Kenney long ago, don't know if he's still doing them. Ed Milich for the ones on the Monza. Harper's, MG Cycle, and MI might also have some.

Sump extender is good if you live where it gets warm. Oil capacity is pretty minimal stock, 2 qt, and the extender adds one so cooler oil at least theoretically. More gaskets to leak, though…

re: rearsets -- *nothing* is plug-and-play for a V50 and likely wasn't even when they were new. Doesn't hurt to ask  thanks.
cr

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

Maybe these crashbars would work?

http://www.tlm.nl/webshop/en/crashbar-front-v35-50-65-custo-234502600000-moto-guzzi?___SID=U

[lucian]

Maybe these crashbars would work?

http://www.tlm.nl/webshop/en/crashbar-front-v35-50-65-custo-234502600000-moto-guzzi?___SID=U

Thank you Charlie for the link. It has the head sliders on it already but I still worry about my daughter dropping it. I ordered the coil and key switch from Harpers so should have a report on fire up end of next week. If it runs well I'll consider spending more coin on it. All and all it seems pretty clean with 12,900 mile on the clock.