Bought back my old 850t!!

[Chad La Fever]

Six years after selling this bike out of desperation before an out of state move, we are reunited! She needs more work than before I sold her sadly. But I am excited to pick up where I left off. She hasn't ran since shortly before I sold her. When sold I had done, used pistons and cylinders and new rings, sump spacer, u-joint, plugs,wires, both tires, brake pads, new carbs, etc. Now, wiring is half pulled apart, tank is rusty inside and all controls are disconnected.
Should I pull the heads and check chrome plating? Or just squirt oil into the cylinders and rotate by hand? The dyna 3 is dead and I want to switch to back to points. Any suggestions for how to proceed are surely welcome. Oh yeah, paid exactlly what I sold for $500.00--and free delivery from Houston to Kansas!!

Chad

P.s. I am looking for:

Ignition switch
Normal shift/brake foot controls
Peg brackets
Points plate
Different bars like clip one etc

I can trade,
Solo seat in nice shape,
Used T carbs
Wixom luggage chrome crash bars

 

[Chad La Fever]

 

[GTM®]

Six years after selling this bike out of desperation before an out of state move, we are reunited! Should I pull the heads and check chrome plating? Or just squirt oil into the cylinders and rotate by hand? The dyna 3 is dead and I want to switch to back to points. Any suggestions for how to proceed are surely welcome

How fun... congrats! Welcome back to Guzzi, and now to the GT Famiglia. For the cost of head gaskets, I would pull the heads and put your eyes on things, absolutely.
The guys at MGCycle.com are your best online resource (or call them) for help with NOS or repro parts... that or risk a shot on eBay, or with some luck, perhaps some of our readers here will have some things to offer.

Look forward to updates as you go. Post often.

 

[Chad La Fever]

Thanks! I will definitely post pics as I go, and lean on the forum members for advice etc. I have been riding and wrenching on this ol' girl since 2002 and am glad to have her back.

 

[Amboman]

No need to pull the head to check if the bores are chrome or not. Simply use a "pencil magnet" poked in through the sparkplug hole and touched against the cylinder wall. No attraction = chrome, slightly attraction = Nikasil, strong attraction = iron liners. If they're chrome, I would strongly recommend replacing them. There is no such thing as "good" chrome cylinders - they will all begin to flake sooner or later and the resulting engine damage will cost three times as much to fix as it would have to replace the cylinders with Gilardoni kits in the first place.

Greg Bender can fix you up with all new wiring at a reasonable cost: http://www.thisoldtractor.com/for_sale_wiring_harness_tonti_850_t.html

There are also suggestion on his site for how to deal with the tank rust:
http://www.thisoldtractor.com/moto_guzzi_loopframe_fuel_tank_cleaning_and_coating.html

 

[Chad La Fever]

Thanks! These are great tips, I will try the milkstone remover for the rust in the tank. I have never heard of the magnet trick but will give it a shot. I had assumed the bores were chrome plated but I suppose they could be any of the three. The cylinders and pistons were given to me years ago and I can't remembe what they were. Anyone know when the chrome bores were discontinued?

 

[john zibell]

I know the 1977 T-3 didn't have chrome bores. So that would be 1976 or 1977 when chrome was stopped. Instead of a points plate, why not upgrade to a Dyna III ignition. It replaces the points plate, and once adjusted stays in tune for a long time.

 

[Amboman]

I did a top-end rebuild on a customer's '78 T3 that he'd bought new. It had chrome bores. European friends report that their T4 had chrome bores as well. As far as I can tell, it wasn't until 1980 that chrome bores were superceded by Nigusil in the 850s.

Chad already has a Dyna 3 judging from his first post:

"The dyna 3 is dead and I want to switch to back to points."

Reliability of Dynas has become even more suspect than it was before. I know of at least three Dynas purchased within the last year that have failed within the first weeks of use. Dyna has reportedly began recently sourcing components from China.

There are other, better e.i. systems available, here's one: http://www.c5ignitions.com/motorcycle-ignitions.html

 

[Wisconsin v7 Racer]

I've heard great things about the c5 ignition. And there made in the USA

 

[Chad La Fever]

The engine on this bike is put of an 83sp1000. The bores I was given are 1000cc variety but unknown age so who knows, but I'll try the magnet to investigate. Who makes the " c5" ignition? When I bought the bike it came with a bag of used dyna parts so I suspect there is an underlying electrical problem frying the ignition.

 

[Wisconsin v7 Racer]

check out c5 ignition website or contact them direct. they are very helpful it's a small hands on company in wisconsin.

 

[Chad La Fever]

Nevermind, just reread the post. C5 looks pretty cool.

 

[C5Paul]

The C5 electronics are made in Iowa but we manufacture the rest of the kit in Wisconsin.

 

[Amboman]

The engine on this bike is put of an 83sp1000. The bores I was given are 1000cc variety but unknown age so who knows, but I'll try the magnet to investigate. Who makes the " c5" ignition? When I bought the bike it came with a bag of used dyna parts so I suspect there is an underlying electrical problem frying the ignition.

'83 SP should have Nigusil/Nikasil, so you should be good to go.

 

[T Bill]

My '74 850T has chrome bores and they are still just fine. If yours turn out to be chrome, leave them alone unless they actually go bad. This isn't the sort of thing that fails catastrophically and tosses you on the pavement. The main thing is not to let it sit around long enough to build condensation in the bores. That seems to be what does the chrome in, or maybe it was bad surface prep on some at the factory and it's just destiny after that.
I pulled out my Dyna III ignition after it stranded me in Alma WI on the way back from an annual rally. It turned out that the ignition itself was functional, but it relies on a ground connection between a foil path around the sensor plate and the aluminum breaker housing which corroded after a few rain rides and went intermittent. IMHO, poor design. The other strike against the Dyna is that you can't adjust or limit the dwell. They sell this as a cool feature but it wastes power heating up the coils on bikes that have a marginal charging system to start with. After I put back the points, I noticed I wasn't having to charge the battery between rides anymore.
C5 looks interesting though. I like the idea of an electronic ignition, but not so much Dyna III anymore. I still might go to one of the Dyna ignition "boosters" that uses the points, but switches the heavy current with transistors.

 

[C5Paul]

My '74 850T has chrome bores and they are still just fine. If yours turn out to be chrome, leave them alone unless they actually go bad. This isn't the sort of thing that fails catastrophically and tosses you on the pavement. The main thing is not to let it sit around long enough to build condensation in the bores. That seems to be what does the chrome in, or maybe it was bad surface prep on some at the factory and it's just destiny after that.
I pulled out my Dyna III ignition after it stranded me in Alma WI on the way back from an annual rally. It turned out that the ignition itself was functional, but it relies on a ground connection between a foil path around the sensor plate and the aluminum breaker housing which corroded after a few rain rides and went intermittent. IMHO, poor design. The other strike against the Dyna is that you can't adjust or limit the dwell. They sell this as a cool feature but it wastes power heating up the coils on bikes that have a marginal charging system to start with. After I put back the points, I noticed I wasn't having to charge the battery between rides anymore.
C5 looks interesting though. I like the idea of an electronic ignition, but not so much Dyna III anymore. I still might go to one of the Dyna ignition "boosters" that uses the points, but switches the heavy current with transistors.

Variable coil saturation is an important feature for any electronic ignition. Most classic motorcycles produced "just enough" wattage to get the job done, and electronic ignitions can make the problem worse. The use of Section Bobbin coils greatly reduces power usage as well, but ignitions with a single trigger/rotor cannot accurately control them and unfortunately they over heat. I am aware of only one other coil besides PowerArc that uses a section bobbin design, and they are known to be unreliable. That is unfortunate since the design is rock solid.
I can share the saturation map we use on the C5, if anyone is interested. Effective amp draw is about 20% less that stock, even less during city driving. As you might know, the rpm you operate your cycle at determines the total draw on the battery when using variable saturation control because it is rpm based. Sorry about the long winded reply!

 

[T Bill]

Started a C5 Questions thread, maybe we should continue discussion there....