azccj
Cruisin' Guzzisti
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2008
- Messages
- 201
Well, after finding evidence over the last few months that the front seal on my Norge’s engine has been leaking, I finally decided to replace the seal myself even though the bike is still under warranty. The fifty or so dollars for the parts and a few hours of my life aren’t worth the trouble of taking it to the dealer, 100 miles round trip, having them look at it, driving it home, hope they order the right parts, bringing it back to the dealer, then letting them fix it, then go back to the dealer to pick it up and then hoping the dealer fixed it right. I have replaced the same seal on my 72 Eldorado, which by the way is long out of warranty, and in that case it wasn’t all that hard to do but it did require the removal of the timing cover as the seal can not be pulled out the front of the engine but must instead be removed and installed from the interior side of the cover. So this is what I expected to have to do with the Norge as well. In the end I discovered that Guzzi changed the design and on the Norge and most likely all the big block CARC bikes, it should be possible to remove the old seal and install the new one while the timing chain cover remains bolted to the front of the engine.
I decided to remove the timing chain cover because:
1. I wanted to polish the surface of the crank where the new seal will be riding.
2. I had already bought the expensive metal gasket that seals the timing chain cover on the front of the engine.
3. I didn’t want to take a chance of dinging up the front of the crank while trying to pry out the old seal.
4. I wanted to see what the timing sprockets and chain looked like.
All in all the seal replacement wasn’t all that bad a job. From start to finish it took 4-5 hours to do and that included making a needed tool. If I had to redo the whole job again, minus the tool making, I bet it would take less than 90 minutes. Far less if the timing chain cover was left bolted in place.
First off let me say that if you use my guide to replace the front seal, you do so at your own risk. I’m not a Guzzi mechanic by any means, just your average home mechanic who likes to work on his own stuff. If for some reason you break your bike, or it falls on you, or you set yourself on fire, don’t you or your widow come crying to me expecting some financial handout. OK?
If you decide to do this yourself instead of having your dealer take care of it, you will need a few things before you start. The first two parts I ordered from Moto International and those part numbers below are the ones listed on the invoice. The third part, the oring ,seals the breather pipe union that bolts to the left side of the timing cover. I did not order this part before I did the job and had to reuse the old one. Do yourself a favor and get a new oring. I’ll tell you why later. If you just plan on yanking the old seal out and sticking the new one in, all you’ll need is the seal. You might also want to replace the alternator belt if your bike has some miles on it, while you’re in there anyway.
The front seal part # MAGU90412237 cost $22.49
Timing Cover Gasket Part #MAGU05001231 cost $22.31
Oring for breather union Part # 90706347 which may now be listed as MAGU90706347 cost, I don’t know.
You may need to make some type of puller to remove the crank pulley that drives the alternator belt. This pulley has two tapped holes in it approximately 2.125 inches apart, center to center, and they are tapped for a 8mm-1.25 bolt. I made a simple puller out of a scrap piece of metal I had in the garage. In this piece of metal I drilled three holes, the center hole I made approximately 11mm the other two holes I drilled approximately 1.0625 from the center of the center hole and made these two holes approximately 10mm. I then welded a 10mm nut over the center hole and then screwed a 10X35mm bolt through the nut. The puller I made has some slop built into it so the two outer holes don’t have to align absolutely perfectly with the two holes that are in the pulley. Through the two outer holes go two 8mm-1.25 X35mm long bolts which screw into the two holes in the pulley. When the center 10mm bolt is screwed in it presses against the center of the crank and pulls the pulley right off the crank.
If you follow the extremely poorly written service manual, which by the way explains things as if you have the engine out of the bike sitting on a table, you’ll notice they list a couple of other so called required tools, such as a "front cover insertion cone", a "timing system cover sealing ring punch" and the "belt tension tool". None of which I had. I can understand the possible need for the belt tension tool and the sealing ring punch but the insertion cone tool I can’t figure that one out. Just for info the part of the crank where the front seal slips onto it has a nice rounded edge so it wont tear up the seal when you slide it onto the crank. Another odd thing is there is no tool listed to remove the crank pulley. In the book it just says "remove pulley", go figure, Guzzi logic.
Now that you have the stuff you’ll need to do the job it’s time to start removing stuff from the bike. I took off the following items:
Front Fender, not required but gets it out of the way.
Lower fairing. I only have the Breva chin spoiler on mine. So four bolts and it’s off.
Oil Cooler. I removed the cooler and it’s hoses from the bike. It should be possible to just loosen the hoses to rotate them and the cooler out of the way.
Belt cover.
Unbolt both coils and move them out of the way.
In the above picture you can see the breather union, it has the big hose attached to it with a now reusable hose clamp. Unbolt the breather union from the left upper side of the timing cover. I also cut off the stock non-reusable hose clamp and removed the breather union from the hose. With the union off the motor you’ll notice that there is a thin oring that goes into a slot around the outside edge of the breather union. Now try to stick the original oring back into the slot. On my bike the oring would not go back into this slot and appeared as if the oring had stretched while in service. What I ended up doing was cutting the oring and then removing about an 3/16th of an inch from it. I then installed it in the slot and put some Permatex sealant where the two oring ends met. It sealed just fine but had I known about the oring, (and Pete Roper did warn me in a post to look at the parts diagram for any orings that might be needed), I would have had a new one on hand before I started the job.
Note: Anytime I use the terms left or right I’m talking as if you were sitting on the bike riding.
Now with all that stuff removed we can take off the alternator and belt. I was glad to discover that the alternator can be unbolted from the top of the timing cover without removing the tank and air box. The alternator is held onto the top of the timing cover by two bolts. A pivot bolt on the left side and an set screw on the right side. First slacken adjuster bolt on the right side by loosening the locknut then backing out the adjuster bolt as far as you can. Then loosen the set screw on the right side of the alternator and remove the screw which has a thick bushing on it. Now just loosen the pivot bolt on the left side of the alternator which is recessed in a hole, see the picture. This will allow the alternator to pivot down putting enough slack into the belt for it to pull over the crank pulley and then remove the belt from the engine. (If you are going to try and just yank the seal out of the timing cover skip to the part about removing the crank pulley. Otherwise read on). On the back side of the alternator there will be a free spinning nut that the pivot bolt screws into. Be careful, as you don’t want this nut to fall off the pivot bolt and possibly fall into the valley between the cylinders. (I used a tool which is just a thin aluminum shaft with a thin magnet at the end. I placed the magnet on the nut then unscrewed the pivot bolt from the nut then pulled the nut out, still stuck to the magnet). Now pull the pivot bolt out of the timing cover. The alternator is now just sitting behind the timing cover with nothing holding it in place.
Now lets draw our attention to the crank pulley. How are we going to get that big 24mm nut off the crank? The book says to use a “compressed air gun”, which I’ll assume means what we here in the US call an air impact wrench. I have one but when I tried using it on the same nut on my Eldorado it was useless. The nut turns just enough on each impact that it wont loosen the nut. On the Eldorado I pulled the starter and used a pry bar to lock the flywheel in place. It was some work to do it and I needed my son’s help to hold the pry bar in place while I turned the big nut on the front of the engine. The day I did the Norge I only had me and I didn’t much feel like pulling the starter. So I thought maybe I could use those holes in the crank pulley to stop the pulley from turning. And that’s just what I did, using a ¾ inch long 8mm-1.25 bolt and a ½ inch combination box and open end wrench. I bolted the close end of the wrench to the pulley with the bolt and placed the open end of the wrench over one of the large allen head screws that hold on the timing cover. Worked like a charm and off the nut came. Just so you know the nut unscrews as normal counter-clockwise. It also appeared to have some type of thread lock on the nut. Behind the large nut you’ll find a spacer. Mine seemed to be glued in place but started turning with a little help from a pair of channel lock pliers. When I tried to remove the crank pulley, it was not budging at all, hence the reason I had to make the puller to have any hope of getting the pulley off without damaging either the pulley or the timing cover. You may get lucky and your pulley may not be a stubborn as mine was. If not, it’s time to install the puller that you have/made and remove the crank pulley.
Once the pulley is off you’ll see the offending seal, (sorry I don’t have any pictures of this), and you can try to yank it out, if you can figure a way to do it. I’m sure it can be done, I just don’t have any experience pulling a seal out like that. If someone wants to give advise about this then please do. The service manual says to remove the seal by knocking it out from the interior side of the timing cover, which is what I did. But this requires the timing cover be removed from the engine. If you got the seal out without removing the cover, great. Now use an appropriate sized piece of pipe to tap the new seal in. Now reassemble everything in reverse and you are done.
For the rest of you it’s time to remove the timing cover which is held on by 10 smaller bolts and 4 larger bolts. What I did is remove the smaller bolts first, there are 8 on the bottom portion of the cover and 2 towards the top just under where the alternator sits. I then removed the 4 larger bolts which are in the center of the timing cover. Once all the bolts are out, the cover can then be lifted off along with the old gasket. Take notice of the now metal gasket that Guzzi uses to seal the cover to the front of the engine. Please disregard that some of the below pictures show the belt and pulley installed. I went back to take a few extra pictures to show where the bolts on the cover are located.
With the timing cover off it is a simple matter of getting the correct size socket and knocking out the old seal from timing cover,(Once again I‘m sorry that I didn‘t take any pictures of this). Then installing the new seal using another socket which is a little bigger than the socket used to knock the old seal out. Take care not to get the new seal tweaked as you tap it into the cover.
With the new seal installed in the cover you just need to go in reverse and put everything back on.
From the man himself, Dave Richardson out of Guzziology, "I rarely see a bad seal that isn't accompanied by a bad seal surface." There was definitely a mark on the crank where the seal touches it, nothing bad just a mark. I spent 5 minutes using 1500 grit sand paper to polish the front of the crank where the seal makes contact, it now shines like a mirror. If this additional effort will help the new seal last longer, only time and miles will tell.
When I installed the timing cover back on the engine, I torque the small bolts to 10Nm and the large bolts to 25Nm. If someone has the absolute correct torque value for the bolts let me know.
Last Sunday I went for a little ride to Utah and back 670+ miles doing up to 106 MPH in some areas while passing cars. I'm happy to report that the front of my Norge's engine is still bone dry.
I decided to remove the timing chain cover because:
1. I wanted to polish the surface of the crank where the new seal will be riding.
2. I had already bought the expensive metal gasket that seals the timing chain cover on the front of the engine.
3. I didn’t want to take a chance of dinging up the front of the crank while trying to pry out the old seal.
4. I wanted to see what the timing sprockets and chain looked like.
All in all the seal replacement wasn’t all that bad a job. From start to finish it took 4-5 hours to do and that included making a needed tool. If I had to redo the whole job again, minus the tool making, I bet it would take less than 90 minutes. Far less if the timing chain cover was left bolted in place.
First off let me say that if you use my guide to replace the front seal, you do so at your own risk. I’m not a Guzzi mechanic by any means, just your average home mechanic who likes to work on his own stuff. If for some reason you break your bike, or it falls on you, or you set yourself on fire, don’t you or your widow come crying to me expecting some financial handout. OK?
If you decide to do this yourself instead of having your dealer take care of it, you will need a few things before you start. The first two parts I ordered from Moto International and those part numbers below are the ones listed on the invoice. The third part, the oring ,seals the breather pipe union that bolts to the left side of the timing cover. I did not order this part before I did the job and had to reuse the old one. Do yourself a favor and get a new oring. I’ll tell you why later. If you just plan on yanking the old seal out and sticking the new one in, all you’ll need is the seal. You might also want to replace the alternator belt if your bike has some miles on it, while you’re in there anyway.
The front seal part # MAGU90412237 cost $22.49
Timing Cover Gasket Part #MAGU05001231 cost $22.31
Oring for breather union Part # 90706347 which may now be listed as MAGU90706347 cost, I don’t know.
You may need to make some type of puller to remove the crank pulley that drives the alternator belt. This pulley has two tapped holes in it approximately 2.125 inches apart, center to center, and they are tapped for a 8mm-1.25 bolt. I made a simple puller out of a scrap piece of metal I had in the garage. In this piece of metal I drilled three holes, the center hole I made approximately 11mm the other two holes I drilled approximately 1.0625 from the center of the center hole and made these two holes approximately 10mm. I then welded a 10mm nut over the center hole and then screwed a 10X35mm bolt through the nut. The puller I made has some slop built into it so the two outer holes don’t have to align absolutely perfectly with the two holes that are in the pulley. Through the two outer holes go two 8mm-1.25 X35mm long bolts which screw into the two holes in the pulley. When the center 10mm bolt is screwed in it presses against the center of the crank and pulls the pulley right off the crank.
If you follow the extremely poorly written service manual, which by the way explains things as if you have the engine out of the bike sitting on a table, you’ll notice they list a couple of other so called required tools, such as a "front cover insertion cone", a "timing system cover sealing ring punch" and the "belt tension tool". None of which I had. I can understand the possible need for the belt tension tool and the sealing ring punch but the insertion cone tool I can’t figure that one out. Just for info the part of the crank where the front seal slips onto it has a nice rounded edge so it wont tear up the seal when you slide it onto the crank. Another odd thing is there is no tool listed to remove the crank pulley. In the book it just says "remove pulley", go figure, Guzzi logic.
Now that you have the stuff you’ll need to do the job it’s time to start removing stuff from the bike. I took off the following items:
Front Fender, not required but gets it out of the way.
Lower fairing. I only have the Breva chin spoiler on mine. So four bolts and it’s off.
Oil Cooler. I removed the cooler and it’s hoses from the bike. It should be possible to just loosen the hoses to rotate them and the cooler out of the way.
Belt cover.
Unbolt both coils and move them out of the way.
In the above picture you can see the breather union, it has the big hose attached to it with a now reusable hose clamp. Unbolt the breather union from the left upper side of the timing cover. I also cut off the stock non-reusable hose clamp and removed the breather union from the hose. With the union off the motor you’ll notice that there is a thin oring that goes into a slot around the outside edge of the breather union. Now try to stick the original oring back into the slot. On my bike the oring would not go back into this slot and appeared as if the oring had stretched while in service. What I ended up doing was cutting the oring and then removing about an 3/16th of an inch from it. I then installed it in the slot and put some Permatex sealant where the two oring ends met. It sealed just fine but had I known about the oring, (and Pete Roper did warn me in a post to look at the parts diagram for any orings that might be needed), I would have had a new one on hand before I started the job.
Note: Anytime I use the terms left or right I’m talking as if you were sitting on the bike riding.
Now with all that stuff removed we can take off the alternator and belt. I was glad to discover that the alternator can be unbolted from the top of the timing cover without removing the tank and air box. The alternator is held onto the top of the timing cover by two bolts. A pivot bolt on the left side and an set screw on the right side. First slacken adjuster bolt on the right side by loosening the locknut then backing out the adjuster bolt as far as you can. Then loosen the set screw on the right side of the alternator and remove the screw which has a thick bushing on it. Now just loosen the pivot bolt on the left side of the alternator which is recessed in a hole, see the picture. This will allow the alternator to pivot down putting enough slack into the belt for it to pull over the crank pulley and then remove the belt from the engine. (If you are going to try and just yank the seal out of the timing cover skip to the part about removing the crank pulley. Otherwise read on). On the back side of the alternator there will be a free spinning nut that the pivot bolt screws into. Be careful, as you don’t want this nut to fall off the pivot bolt and possibly fall into the valley between the cylinders. (I used a tool which is just a thin aluminum shaft with a thin magnet at the end. I placed the magnet on the nut then unscrewed the pivot bolt from the nut then pulled the nut out, still stuck to the magnet). Now pull the pivot bolt out of the timing cover. The alternator is now just sitting behind the timing cover with nothing holding it in place.
Now lets draw our attention to the crank pulley. How are we going to get that big 24mm nut off the crank? The book says to use a “compressed air gun”, which I’ll assume means what we here in the US call an air impact wrench. I have one but when I tried using it on the same nut on my Eldorado it was useless. The nut turns just enough on each impact that it wont loosen the nut. On the Eldorado I pulled the starter and used a pry bar to lock the flywheel in place. It was some work to do it and I needed my son’s help to hold the pry bar in place while I turned the big nut on the front of the engine. The day I did the Norge I only had me and I didn’t much feel like pulling the starter. So I thought maybe I could use those holes in the crank pulley to stop the pulley from turning. And that’s just what I did, using a ¾ inch long 8mm-1.25 bolt and a ½ inch combination box and open end wrench. I bolted the close end of the wrench to the pulley with the bolt and placed the open end of the wrench over one of the large allen head screws that hold on the timing cover. Worked like a charm and off the nut came. Just so you know the nut unscrews as normal counter-clockwise. It also appeared to have some type of thread lock on the nut. Behind the large nut you’ll find a spacer. Mine seemed to be glued in place but started turning with a little help from a pair of channel lock pliers. When I tried to remove the crank pulley, it was not budging at all, hence the reason I had to make the puller to have any hope of getting the pulley off without damaging either the pulley or the timing cover. You may get lucky and your pulley may not be a stubborn as mine was. If not, it’s time to install the puller that you have/made and remove the crank pulley.
Once the pulley is off you’ll see the offending seal, (sorry I don’t have any pictures of this), and you can try to yank it out, if you can figure a way to do it. I’m sure it can be done, I just don’t have any experience pulling a seal out like that. If someone wants to give advise about this then please do. The service manual says to remove the seal by knocking it out from the interior side of the timing cover, which is what I did. But this requires the timing cover be removed from the engine. If you got the seal out without removing the cover, great. Now use an appropriate sized piece of pipe to tap the new seal in. Now reassemble everything in reverse and you are done.
For the rest of you it’s time to remove the timing cover which is held on by 10 smaller bolts and 4 larger bolts. What I did is remove the smaller bolts first, there are 8 on the bottom portion of the cover and 2 towards the top just under where the alternator sits. I then removed the 4 larger bolts which are in the center of the timing cover. Once all the bolts are out, the cover can then be lifted off along with the old gasket. Take notice of the now metal gasket that Guzzi uses to seal the cover to the front of the engine. Please disregard that some of the below pictures show the belt and pulley installed. I went back to take a few extra pictures to show where the bolts on the cover are located.
With the timing cover off it is a simple matter of getting the correct size socket and knocking out the old seal from timing cover,(Once again I‘m sorry that I didn‘t take any pictures of this). Then installing the new seal using another socket which is a little bigger than the socket used to knock the old seal out. Take care not to get the new seal tweaked as you tap it into the cover.
With the new seal installed in the cover you just need to go in reverse and put everything back on.
From the man himself, Dave Richardson out of Guzziology, "I rarely see a bad seal that isn't accompanied by a bad seal surface." There was definitely a mark on the crank where the seal touches it, nothing bad just a mark. I spent 5 minutes using 1500 grit sand paper to polish the front of the crank where the seal makes contact, it now shines like a mirror. If this additional effort will help the new seal last longer, only time and miles will tell.
When I installed the timing cover back on the engine, I torque the small bolts to 10Nm and the large bolts to 25Nm. If someone has the absolute correct torque value for the bolts let me know.
Last Sunday I went for a little ride to Utah and back 670+ miles doing up to 106 MPH in some areas while passing cars. I'm happy to report that the front of my Norge's engine is still bone dry.
