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V9 Roamer Fork Mess

Larry Malinoski

Cruisin' Guzzisti
Joined
May 21, 2021
Messages
104
Location
Wimauma, Florida
New to the forum but not new to Moto Guzzi. Still have a V50 I bought 41 years ago. Before that owned maybe 3 others and some since. Well, just bought a 2017 V9 Roamer with low miles. Been building the comfort seat up to haul the wife and yesterday it turned into a burning mess. 40 miles from home and that fork seal flat out let go. Smoke and near fire with oil not only here, all over the bike and us. I mean ALL OVER. Obviously the fork seal must have come loose under the dust cap and lunched all the oil. Surprised we made it home with front tire, engine, exhaust (smoke awful), and all of us literally covered. We are mid-70's in age with a few "down times" riding motorcycle and not eager for many more. Failure like this is a surprise.

Stopped at a new Moto Guzzi dealer near Tampa. No seals and no seals at the warehouse in Georgia. Called dealer I got the bike from in Fort Meyers. Little cooperation, as usual. Tried Harpers and others ... no seals. Multiple calls to friends and the lead on MG Cycle. Got 'em coming in. Now the rub.

How much oil goes in the front fork?

The two large and near worthless manuals I have give a rig-a-marole measurement system for fork oil. No mention of the end amount. When I pull the mess apart and dump them dry, any clue of how much to put back in?

My guess is 400cc or around that. How close am I?

Imports   2 of 5 2 Imports   5 of 5 2
 
DAYUM !
Glad you both are ok - at least it wasn't Hot oil.

I have a V7 III - I have NO idea is the forks are the same or close but indeed they took nearly 400ml of Oil - putting the height of the Oil at full compression from the top of the tube at 150mm
I measured a bamboo stick and poured until it Just touched the tip !

THESE MEASURE WERE FOR MY BIKE ... Im not sure about the V9 - I am NOT a mechanic !
 
Appreciate the wishes and advice. Pam, my wife, and I were both injured last Summer when the front brakes on my R Model Sportster decided to lock up. No stopee' for me as she leaned left. She ended up across the other lane on the shoulder and I was under the bike in the middle of the road.

Pam got lots of internal injuries. Mine was just a lot of blood. Both of us were "fully dressed" with helmets. Old and flopped on the ground do not go well together. I recently quit flat tracking because of that issue.

As for the V9, just might be the same fork. 150mm down at full compression is hard to do by yourself unless you have some kind of help. I just expect to pull the lowers off. Then probably find that a nasty compression while we were riding dislodged that seal from the seat. Only thing I can figure for such a fast and horrendous pouring of oil. After changing the seals, gonna do both sides, I am just going to hope and guess at the amount.

Appreciate the idea of 400mm, which was my original guess. Strange those "Goose" manuals do not have that information. They also do not have anything on valve adjustments either. I just did one on this bike using "common sense" setting them at .005" intake and .007" exhaust. Guessed at TDC with a stick in the plug hole. Been doing that for decades.

A0394549 B77F 4B52 808D 12D0C7F5EB20

41 years old and new meet. The V9 now sports a flatscreen, modified comfort seat, and "goose" bags.

6C17848C 6381 4457 ACC1 AA30B6C5A03E
 
About the same 40mm forks, may have longer tube & spring but I'd put in 400cc and measure AFTER it's worked in. In other words, run tube up & down a few times before measure.
Lucky to make it back w/o issue. What a mess.

Hemi heads get .004" in & '006" ex, You'll be fine where you are.

Nice V50, I had a Red 83 model
 
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I had removed the forks one at time when i did the Oil change as part of a Kit install.
So was in the workshop able to control the fork on the work bench.
On the bike would be more challenging, to have them straight and get an accurate measurement.
 
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On the V50 I have a set of Moto Guzzi hard bags and a rack. Took them off a V65 I had "way back when". That was one "goose" I did not like but sure liked their bags and rack.

Going to the VA. Moto Guzzi Rally on June 25th. The little V50 is NOT a bike for longer two-up rides. Fast ... yes. Comfortable... silly boy-NO.

Now it looks like I will be riding my Harley Davidson FatBoy instead of the V9. We will use toy hauler to get there as we expect to hang around the Carolina Mountains and Tennessee of maybe 6 weeks doing our thing. If the V9 is not 100% , no doubt, go. It will stay. Kind of a shame.

Thinking 10W fork oil will work. Sound right?
 
Taken from downloaded manual "Engine V9 IE MIU G3.pdf"

Intake valve clearance
0.10 mm (0.0039 in)
Exhaust valve clearance
0.15 mm (0.0059 in)

Thanks.

I have two books here. Both are large format. One says..."V9 Roamer-V9 Bobber" the other is titled "Service Station Manual" #2Q000193.
Both are close to the same but some parts are different. Neither covers anything about valve adjustments, fork oil and who know what else?

Both, I thought, were a form of shop manual as there are some parts dissemble and service information. Neither is a real shop manual or an owners' manual.

Think they can best be classified as expensive "junk times 2".
 
My little factory seat has a diagram of hose routing.

That is a teeny seat that comes with the bike. Surely Moto Guzzi jests that this is something you can ride two-up. Plus, like so many bikes today, it is for midgets. You near cannot bend your knees enough to get them up on the footpegs the seat is so low. I'm only 6 ft tall and near always, from the days of my old Triumphs and BSA's, need to raise the seats on bikes made today.
 
As the saying goes...Moto Guzzi, making mechanics out of riders since 1921.

Gee I thought that was Harley Davidson years earlier.

All the European motorcycles are like that. My BMW's come with tool kits for good reason. Now I don't speak to the new ones as when they went to all that computer, water-cooled, plastic stuff in the 2,000's I dropped them fast. My stuff is what I rode in the 60's - 90's.

Same can be said for near all the other European bikes and today, add on the American ones. I like one or two air-cooled cylinders. The only Harley I own or ever owned that was trouble was the one I have now with that darn fuel injection. Miss the carb control and miss points and condenser. I could fix stuff like that all over the world. Today, you kick the things over a hill and stick out your thumb for a ride.
 
That's logical if I can capture all of what comes out.

Merit to that thought though I wonder. If the seal popped out of it's seat then maybe there was too much oil on that side. If so, the other side may also have too much, even though it did not pop out

I like your thinking and will consider a way to do that.
 
First, to the best of my knowledge you are the only one this happened to. So most likely no big thing. Making a big assumption that they are the same as a V7 I'd do 130MM from the top after working them a bit. 15# as Todd said, especially as 2 up. If on the bike use a 3' yard stick and use the center as a mid point.
 
130mm is just under 5" Is it possible to just stick something down from the top after exercising the fork and then unscrewing off the cap?

Just guessing as until the fork seals get here I am not tearing into anything.
 
Hi,

Like I mentioned , I did them one at a time in the shop.
To drain them I had a dowel in my vice that fit into the axel hole, and hung them upside down over a dollar store measuring cup.
With the springs and Shims ( cheap cut tube ) out,
I’d pour in 200ml compress / extend the fork a couple time ( gently ) not to get bubbles .
Check the test stick, add another 50/75 check again...
When it was right, reassembled and back on the bike.
I did em one at a time so the headlamp bucket etc... would stay in place.
 
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I did it the lazy way as I didn't want to fiddle with the ABS sensor so I sucked the old oil out with a pump and both sides were quite different. I used a yardstick and took the center measurement.

FYI, this is a good time to drop your fork tubes 15 MM. Search for it here.
 
I did it the lazy way as I didn't want to fiddle with the ABS sensor so I sucked the old oil out with a pump and both sides were quite different. I used a yardstick and took the center measurement.

FYI, this is a good time to drop your fork tubes 15 MM. Search for it here.

Found nothing on the topic.

Looking at all the tips on what I thought would be a simple seal and fill job. Well it seems this design is far more involved than any fork tube front end I ever dealt with. Starting to have doubts that I can even do this job due to the intricate and difficult drain and fill issues that will be encountered.

Sure going to try but keeping the prospect of failure alive in my mind. The options would be to deal with what I get the impression are inept dealers, try a non-guzzi shop, or junk the whole bike over something I thought would be so simple.

Reminds me of many other modern contraptions we have to deal with. Scientific engineering has often made the simple quite difficult.
 
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