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Rick4003's T5 restoration/rebuild

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Rick4003:
Hi Guys, and girls if we have any  :grin:

I have been in the progress of ruining a perfectly almost running T5 and build it into my dream bike, it won't be anything remotely like a T5 as the only parts that are carried over is the engine, gearbox, frame and rear swing arm. All other parts comes from other Guzzis or made for the bike.

I originally bought a caf�d T5 as it looked absolutely amazing. I knew when I bought it that it would be nearly impossible getting registered and road legal as it stood.


This is the bike as I bought it. Chopped frame, removed lower frame rails, converted to mono shock, USD fork, 17" wheels, too modified to have a chance to get it MOT'ed in Denmark.

The plan was to find a new unmolested frame and transfer all the good parts to that and get some good twin shocks to compliment the fork. After searching for a frame a while I found one from a 1978 T3 with German papers. The guy selling it wanted 700$ for the bare frame. Bearing in mind that with the German frame I still had to get the finished bike thru the Danish MOT system and get a value estimate which they use for determining how much you have to pay in "Registreingsafgift" (Registration tax) to legally use it on Danish roads I decided that the 700$ was way more than what I wanted to pay. (The estimates vary wildly and would be expected to be around 1000$ or more.)

So no luck finding a frame at first :undecided:
Sometime later I found a cheap 850T5 that looked pretty unloved but was registered in Denmark. So I made an even cheaper offer and the seller agreed to the deal.


This is the bike I picked up in dire need for some TLC.
While the bike looks okay on the pictures it was running very rough and needed to have new tires and a bunch of other work to get it thru the MOT. First plan was to change the front tire and get the bike running well enough to get the MOT. But after several tries to get it running smoothly I ran out of time and out of patience. The wiring loom was completely botched by the previous owner and would need some serious work to get sorted out. (Every time I fixed something on it something else broke or stopped working�)
I ditched the idea of getting the bike road worthy in the state it was in and put it away as I had run out of time.
I work in the cement business and am working aboard so I can only work on the bike in my spare time. Off to work I was�  :sad:

Fast forward to next vacation:
Started taking both bikes apart.

Stripped both bikes to bare frames and removed some of the unneeded brackets from the green bikes frame, added some new brackets for mounting points for seat and electric box.
Frame just after being picked up from the sandblaster:

End of vacation�
A small mistake I made was that I didn't know that Guzzi changed the Tonti frame to the tall headstock in between 1984 and 1985.

So I have one of each... Which means that the USD fork could not be used as it was not possible to modify it to fit on the frame with the tall headstock.

I found the solution in a guy who sold a brand new 45mm Marzocchi fork for the tall head stock. I don't actually know which exact model it comes from. I'm guessing a Cali aluminium or a Cali Sport.
Of course the spacers and wheel axle didn't fit from the old USD fork, so I had to turn new spacers and modify an old Guzzi rear axle to get everything to fit together.

Front wheel finally on the fork.
On to the build finally:
I haven't been very good at taking pictures of the progress with putting the bike together again but here are rest of the pictures up to the point where I am now.
 

Showing the three new brackets to mount seat and electronic box.


New timing cover gets sodablasted to match the rest of the engine.


First trial fit of tank and seat.




Motogadget M-unit v.2 and finished electrics box.


Vroom Vroom  :bike-037:

End of Christmas holidays. back to work.

This is as far as I got this time. I still have a lot of work on the wiring and I need to get a new regulator/rectifier plus paint and all the finishing touches. Front and rear fenders and so on. I haven't really decided if I want to use the seat or not yet.


I have a ton of questions I will need some of you good folks to give your opinion on and are looking forward to get the bike on the road.
English is not my mother tongue so forgive me if there is some grammatical errors or misspellings, I try my best  :laugh:

I welcome all the suggestions, opinions and ideas you might have that would improve my project. Even if you don't like it  :grin:

Let the lynching begin!  :grin:  :whip2:

cruzziguzzi:
I sure do like your returning some of the period look to it. Getting rid of the awful downward streaking exhaust, the USD forks and getting back to dual shocks are great aesthetic improvements even if the previous might have had some advantages.

What did you end up doing with that wonderful fairing from the 850 donor? Looks like a nice set-up.


Todd.

SteveAZ:
No lynching here. Looks great!

Maybe I'm just a partner in crime though. I blew up my LM III last spring (lost oil while riding, found out later i'd also developed a bad oil pressure sender, no idiot light, freeway in heavy traffic, disaster, honestly just glad to be alive), it's currently getting a new mill, cosmetic makeover and won't be an LM III any more. I'm saving the original motor for a rebuild in the future and not cutting the frame, but it's still heresy to most I'd imagine. Oh well....

Keep up the updates.



 

Don G:
It is very nice to see that you are making something better, keep up the good work. There is nothing wrong with your grammar and spelling, infact it is better than a lot of native english speaking people! DonG

rboe:
Me thinks you still have a worthy project bike with the original bike frame you started with. Just not sure what, but you can sort that out when this project is finished.   :grin:

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