General Category > Bike Builds, Rebuilds And Restorations Only
T3 California Restoration
Dave Swanson:
I just acquired a bike that has been on my wish list for many years, a 1980 T3 California. Patrick Hayes put me in touch with a friend of his in San Francisco that had this bike languishing in garage for 20 years. The timing was right and the owner agreed to sell. My plan is to restore it to full T3 California spec including the love it or hate it skunk seat. :azn:
Even the garden variety T3 which used to be commonly available has become quite scarce. It seems that 850Ts and T3s are being snapped up by the customizing crowd. The T3 FB -foot board was imported by Guzzi, but has always been less common than the plain jane T3, The California model is extremely rare in the USA (although fairly common in Europe), since it was never imported by Guzzi.
The only California models in the USA were brought in by European Guzzi owners when re-locating to the US. True to form this California was imported to the US by a Brit named Simon Spark of San Francisco, who sold it 20 years ago to a fellow SF area Guzzi guy who owned it until I purchased it.
Here is the Brit plate that came with the bike.
Its a solid, mostly unmodified unit from what I can tell so far, but it has plenty of evidence of hard use. This wasn't a garage queen. From telltale evidence it appears the Brit owner rode this a lot. I am sure the speedo has turned over. There is too much overall "patina" to believe this bike has only 12,000 miles.
I will start out this restoration thread by documenting the as found condition.
Groover:
Watching :thumb:
Scout63:
This will be a great build thread. An excellent looking bike Dave.
s1120:
Looks like a solid start! So you doing a full on, nut and bolt resto??
BTW MAN I used to love that tire combo back in the day!! The 99/33 combo worked so well on the standard bikes.
Dave Swanson:
--- Quote from: s1120 on May 23, 2020, 07:15:09 AM ---Looks like a solid start! So you doing a full on, nut and bolt resto??
BTW MAN I used to love that tire combo back in the day!! The 99/33 combo worked so well on the standard bikes.
--- End quote ---
Yes, full on resto, down to the gnats ass. :laugh:
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