• Ciao Guest - You’ve landed at the ultimate Guzzi site. NEW FORUM REGISTRATIONS REQUIRE EMAIL ACTIVATION - CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER - Use the CONTACT above if you need help. New to the forum? For all new members, we require ONE post in the Introductions section at the bottom, in order to post in most of the other sections. ALWAYS TRY A SEARCH BEFORE STARTING A NEW TOPIC - Most questions you may have, have likely been already answered. DON'T BE A DRIVE-BY POSTER: As a common courtesy, check back in and reply within 24 hours, or your post will be deleted. Note there's decades of heavily experienced Guzzi professionals on this site, all whom happily give endless amounts of their VALUABLE time for free; BE COURTEOUS AND RESPECTFUL!
  • There is ZERO tolerance on personal attacks and ANY HYPERLINKS to PRODUCT(S) or other competing website(s), including personal pages, social media or other Forums. This ALSO INCLUDES ECU DIAGnostic software, questions and mapping. We work very hard to offer commercially supported products and to keep info relevant here. First offense is a note, second is a warning, third time will get you banned from the site. We don't have the time to chase repeat (and ignorant) offenders. This is NOT a social media platform; It's an ad-free, privately funded website, in small help with user donations. Be sure to see the GTM STORE link above; ALL product purchases help support the site, or you can upgrade your Forum profile or DONATE via the link above.
  • Be sure to see the GTM STORE link also above for our 700+ product inventory, including OEM parts and many of our 100% Made-in-SoCal-USA GTM products and engine kits. In SoCal? Click the SERVICE tab above for the best in service, tires, tuning and installation of our products or custom work, and don't miss our GT MotoCycles® (not) art on the BUILDS tab above. WE'RE HERE ONLINE ONLY - NO PHONE CALLS MADE OR RECEIVED - DO NOT EMAIL AND ASK QUESTIONS OR ASK TO CALL YOU.
  • Like the new V100, GuzziTech is full throttle into the future! We're now running on an all-new server and we've updated our Forum software. The visual differences are obvious, but hopefully you'll notice the super-fast speed. If you notice any glitches or have any issues, please post on the Site Support section at the bottom. If you haven't yet, please upgrade your account which is covered in the Site Support section or via the DONATE tab above, which gives you full site access including the DOWNLOADS section. We really appreciate every $ and your support to keep this site ad-free. Create an account, sign in, upgrade your account, and enjoy. See you on the road in 2024.

Airone advice

clive

Just got it firing!
Joined
May 9, 2011
Messages
13
Hi.

I'll be picking up a 1949 Airone sport shortly and i'd like a little advice. I've never owned a vintage bike before so I've a few questions. Hopefully some one with experience of these bikes will be able to help.

1. How do you drain the oil? I've looked at the italian workshop manual and all I can ascertain - my italian is almost non existant, is that it is drained via the lowest bolt in the oil tank. Is this all there is to it or is there some kind of drain plug in the block?

2. Does the oil lubricate the gearbox as well or is there a drain and refill for that as well?

3. I've managed to glean enough info from the manuals re the ignition timing but there appears to be some kind of preliminary operation which relates to the marks on the flywheel and the valves. What is that all about?

4. Any other use maintenance tips would be most welcome.

Thanks.
 
What a beautiful machine! I was just looking at pictures of them and it's a true work of art. Congrats!
Sorry but I can't help with your questions.
 
Ahhhhh, congratulations, and welcome to the world of mechanical antiquities.
Yes, you can drain the oil from the tank by removing the banjo bolt on the lower right side of the tank. The Airone, along with most of the singles, are known as dry sump engines, i.e. the engines were never designed to be oil tight, they have no rubber seals, only felts to keep the oil from coming out, sort of, when it's running. You'll find most current owners have installed a shutoff in the line coming out of the oil tank, since it's the oil pumps job to keep the oil from draining into the engine and most of the pumps, with age, are still pumping, but not doing their job as a shut off. If the bike has not run and has been sitting for a long time and does not have an inline shut off, old Guzzi's have a habit of "wet sumping", meaning the crankcase may also be full of oil, so you might want to pull the large banjo bolt, which may still have it's screen, from the bottom of the crankcase, also on the right hand side and see what drains out.

Regarding the gearbox, engine oil splash lubricates the gearbox too. However, if the bike has been sitting, you might find the clutch plates are saturated with oil and sticking together, if so, there's an easy method to sort that.

By the way, what do you know about the current state of the bike, does it currently run? Regardless, if it's all in one piece, prior to fooling with the timing, I'd confirm spark, and fuel delivery and see if it runs. You are correct, the timing is done via measurements in millimeters around the outside of the flywheel for both mag and valve timing, another subject for another time.

Speaking of spark, that's provided by a magneto, so the battery is only for lights and horn, not required for spark.

By the way, you can get all the manuals, "Use, Workshop and Parts" at www.rpw.it, then click on "Documentazione tecnica" and scroll down to Guzzi.

Anyway, I'm thinking you'll have a good time with it, the Airone is a blast to ride, I have friends who also have them and as we say, dicing at speeds approaching speeds of 50mph can be exhilarating.

This is my 49' Sport.
1949 Airone
 
Clive, just realized you'd mentioned "just got it firing" in your first post. Great, you're on your way!
 
Clive, just realized you'd mentioned "just got it firing" in your first post. Great, you're on your way!
Hi Mike.

It does run but it's a pain to start. Also the more I research it the more I come to recognise it's a bit of a `bitsa'.
I think the frame is a 49 but the tank looks like it's from a later model, being a bit more `bulbous' than the one on you're lovely bike.

Getting back to the hard to start line I've also ascertained it's using a auto advance magneto, although it was set for the points to open at the full advance mark -80mm of the manual advance type mag, hence the kicking back and hard to start routine.

After more research and thinking about it the conclusion I've come to is that the P.O has got the mag gear in the wrong place, I think it should be one tooth retarded from where it presently is. I'm going to pull the engine case off to have an investigation and measure when I get chance.

Overall though I'm happy with the bike. I'm not under any illusions that it is all original - whatever that is, but I love it.
Once I've got the timing sussed there are a couple of other little things I need to sort then it's on the road and riding because that's the only true way to find out how good any bike is
 
Hi everyone.
Problem solved. Got the casing off with no drama. Set the timing gear up with the marks on the crank and cam drive gears, although I could find no discernible markings on the mag gear, at TDC on comp.

Removed the mag drive gear - bit of a pain, then the mag. Mag had good magnetic `pull` when rotated by hand so that was a bonus. I remade the connection between the condenser and points and cleaned up the HT contacts. I then re-fitted the points and rotated the mag by hand, setting the points to .35mm fully open, marking the key way position on the mag with a marker pen when they just started to open (using the good old fashioned fag paper technique).

I then set the flywheel to the firing point for the auto advance mag, fitted the mag, lined up the marks I had made and fitted the drive gear turning the mag as little as possible to allow this.

A bit more tinkering with the points to get them opening at the firing point, giving me a gap of about .38.

Fitted a new non resistor plug cap and spark plug.
Tickled carb and she fired up first kick - result.
Few more little things to sort out then it's out on the road - when the weather picks up.
 
Does the 1949 Airone have a chrome tank only? I am considering buying one but the tank on that is all red.
 
Back
Top