I fixed my Italjet Buccaneer 250i at almost no expense using alcohol, and am so surprised it worked that I'm posting about it here. (I am posting on this site because of the high quality of the participants compared to other sites.)
So my Italjet 250 has an ECU and fuel injection, just like a real bike. (The ECU is a Delphi MT-05.) Over the last few months it has run more and more poorly after it being started from cold, not being able to accept much throttle without sputtering, going up the hill beyond my driveway. I eventually decided to replace the cylinder temperature sensor to see if it was the problem. But then I had "Guzzi moment" when I discovered this would cost $52 and probably a substantial delay in getting the new part. So I decided instead to try cleaning the sensor with 91% isopropyl alcohol, in line with this suggestion in the Delphi manual: "When necessary the samples may be cleaned in isopropyl alcohol for one minute with mating connectors in place and then air-dried."
To my amazement, this worked. My bike no longer stumbles up the hill, and takes moderate to strong throttle smoothly even when I purposely use no warm up time at all. I have checked this over several mornings now, waiting for lower temperatures just in case the initial improvement had been due to the warm nights we had been having. But the improvement persisted even as the temperature declined and is unmistakable.
This is a rare experiment where only a single factor was involved -- the cleaning. Absolutely nothing else was changed. Cold starts in the morning were repeated, and the same hill outside my house was used in the same way each time for the performance test.
So I'm flabbergasted. I don't remember anyone recommending cleaning a temperature sensor on this site. (It could just be my poor memory.) In any event, I'm happy and want to share my success. Remember to consider cleaning your temperature sensors!
The Delphi manual makes the same recommendation for all four temperature sensors that can be used in the MT-05 system, but not for any other sensors. The particular sensor I cleaned has an exposed "sample" -- a glob of something sensitive to temperature that can be seen at its end. Other models of temperature sensors seem to conceal the sensing material within their metal housings, and may prevent this treatment from working. So maybe this will not be any help on Guzzis. Still, it might. (I do remember problems with cylinder head temperature sensors on some Guzzis, and now wonder whether cleaning could have helped. The preferred treatment was to substitute a brass carrier for the original plastic one, I recall.)
Has anyone made a practice of cleaning suspect temperature sensors?
Moto
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the sensor goes into a blind hole in the head, I think, and was not exposed to oil or any other contaminants that I could detect. Also, the bike has only 4,000 miles on it. Strange to find the cleaning was effective.
