I had a rather disheartening trip to the Guzzi dealer last week. What I thought was going to be a simple valve adjustment, turns out my compression is litterly blown. My 2007 Griso was bought last year with just under 12000 miles, from the second owner. I happily went through it- doing all the regular maintence, as the only thing the 2nd owner had done during his short 2000 mile ownership was an oil change and a TB adjustment. I did all the fluids, sparkplugs (which looked a little worn but color was good) and had a good season riding it with no problems. Last week at 14500 miles I dropped it off with the local Triumph/Guzzi dealer for a delinquent valve adjustment, something that's a bit beyond my experience. During the service they normally pull the plugs and found mine to be badly oil soaked. They immediately did a compression check on both cylinders to find that my Italian redhead was not as young as I thought she was. 80psi compression on one, 70psi on the other. A leak test showed the valves were not bad but rings and maybe cylinder wear was the culprit. The odd thing is it runs, idles and pulls just fine. No smoke and no oil loss at all. My first thought was I'm not the only one on the planet riding a motorcycle with low compression, both sides are close so just ride it till I notice a problem and than scrape up some money to get new ring job. That and get a second opinion though I've been going to this dealer for years with an old Triumph and trust them.
On my first ride after the service (valve adjustment- off a little but nothing out of ordinary). The bike rode and sounded fine but in the back of my mind I could just imagine the pistons slapping back and forth like drunken sailors-slowly destroying my bores. Meanwhile my 1100 cc Griso was actually only a 550cc Grisa!
Yes, I know in a perfect world I'd have done a compression check on the lady before buying but I'll just have to live with the fact that the first owner mistreated her and I'll have to pay the price. I didn't get a firm quote on just a ring job but the service guy said about $400 labor, and with a grin-mentioned-" now would be the time for a bore out !" So what do you all think- raid the cookie jar and get it torn into or just ride it and try not to think too hard?
On my first ride after the service (valve adjustment- off a little but nothing out of ordinary). The bike rode and sounded fine but in the back of my mind I could just imagine the pistons slapping back and forth like drunken sailors-slowly destroying my bores. Meanwhile my 1100 cc Griso was actually only a 550cc Grisa!
Yes, I know in a perfect world I'd have done a compression check on the lady before buying but I'll just have to live with the fact that the first owner mistreated her and I'll have to pay the price. I didn't get a firm quote on just a ring job but the service guy said about $400 labor, and with a grin-mentioned-" now would be the time for a bore out !" So what do you all think- raid the cookie jar and get it torn into or just ride it and try not to think too hard?