My 1st gearbox and transmission oil change.

[Mal]

Mmmm so I’ve changed my gearbox and transmission oil. Interesting experience. Got to learn these things eventually but perhaps an expensive new 1200 Sport is not the best to practice on.

1st mistake. I’ve learnt why real mechanics won’t use crappy tools. After stuffing around for ages with the wrong size socket that I couldn’t really get to fit correctly in the gearbox drain plug, I went with my old shifting spanner. 2nd mistake if you can’t really see what you are doing just go and get a torch.

Result a lot of scratches and I’m pretty sure I’ve threaded the gearbox drain plug It won’t tighten. To give myself some peace of mind I’m trying to convince myself it’s because I can only move it a tiny bit at a time through the gap and have to keep turning the spanner over….. but honestly it feels striped :evil:

Fortunately it’s not leaking …. yet but I’m worried with a big trip coming up this weekend. I guess the only way you would know if the plug failed while riding would be to hope for a corner so you can fall off from the oily rear tire before the gearbox has a catastrophic failure. Not sure if I should try and fix it or just hope she holds together…… hopefully if it doesn’t leak for a few days it will be o.k………

The transmission went better, but it seems to be seeping oil from it’s drain plug. I though I would just snug it up a bit but it’s TIGHT.

Most worrying. While both magnetic plugs had a bit of crap on them (nothing that felt big or gritty rubbed between fingers) the oil that came out of the transmission looked bad, real metallic look, like a molybond grease or something. I’ve got it siting in a take away dish to see what it looks like when it settles. Will take a pic tonight if needed.

p.s. the only good thing was I used a 50ML catheter tipped syringe as a funnel and just measured the oil into a small container and filled through the syringe. Worked really well, didn’t spill anything.

 

[Penis Rotor]

How much did your bike cost?

Pete

 

[Mal]

A lot (well it was a demonstrator and I got a really good deal but basically a lot)

I’m guessing the logic is, if you can’t do it properly yourself pay someone else to do it.
Or
If you really want peace of mind just fix it.

Issues. I probably can’t fix it myself and I can’t get anyone else to look at it before I go away.

 

[Mal]

Made it home with no leaks Looks like the rear was just some excess oil from around the rear brake line/clip from when it was drained out. Now that is't settled the fluid from the transmissions look much better too.

So that's 50km, unless the gearbox plug gets loose when she gets REALLY hot I should be o.k. for this oil change and I'll just get someone to re-tap / change the plug when I do the next change.

You learn via experience so I guess I'll chalk this up as experience.

 

[bobra]

How much did your bike cost?

Pete

Hmmm.... very cryptic Pete. Now I know you encourage folk to do basic maintenance on their own bike so I assume you are suggesting Mal should part with a few bucks for some decent tools?

Cheers

 

[Penis Rotor]

Yes. I encourage people to learn about their bikes. One of the best ways to do this is to undertake basic maintenance tasks. The thing is this assumes a certain level of common sense. What I'm trying to do is get my head around why someone, anyone, would think that it was a good idea to attempt even the simplest proceedure, and changing the oils in the gear and bevelboxes is about as simple as it gets, without the tools to do the job.

These tasks require the grand total of THREE tools. A 17mm ring/open ended spanner for the drain plugs and a 6mm and an 8mm allen key. On a 1200 Sport the drain plug for the gearbox is EASILY accessible with a flat or15 degree angle ring 17mm spanner. It is NOT going to be either easy or practical to get at with an AFS spanner and it is painfully obvious to most people that such a crude and inaccurate tool used in such a way and in such conditions is almost inevitably going to cause damage.

Then. Having removed the drain plug on the box, in the process scratching and damaging things, replacement is attempted but the plug gets cross threaded. In this situation commom practice is to STOP trying to screw a fastener or plug in and remove it and try again. If that doesn't work you remove it and clean the threads with a tap and try again. What you DON'T do is keep trying to do it up until it jams or worse still tears the thrads out! It's also a steel plug with a coarse thread going into alloy with a dowty type sealing washer so it DOESN'T need to be done up 'Till you fart' tight.

Now that the drain is damaged though the ONLY sensible and safe course of action is to helicoil or time-sert the drain hole. Failing to ensure that the plug is correctly and SAFELY installed can easily have disastrous and life threatening consequences. In this case though the owner seems to think that because it isn't leaking it's OK.

To get access to the gearbox drain so that you can get a straight run at it with a drill is a right frontbottom. On some models you have to remove the frame plates and on the Breva/Sport/Norges the centrestand mounts via these meaning you have to support the bike under the sump, tie down the front, jack it up and take a LOAD of shit off before you can drill and mend the damage. I'm sorry but something like that is obviously FAR beyond the skills, experience and dare I say competence of someone like Mal.

Ignoring the fact that a simple appraisal of what was going to be needed before embarking on the task wasn't undertaken let us look at what the costs could and should of been and what they are now.

A trip to any 'Wottalottacrap Auto' type place would of produced a perfectly adequate, (For this task.) 17mm ring spanner for less than ten bux. Stopping when the plug cross-threaded would of avoided further damage and the whole task could of been quickly and easily undertaken with no damage occuring.

The cost of taking it to a shop for this work would of been what? A litre of synthetic gear oil? $30 tops and a couple of dowty washers? $6 tops, (Even at Guzzi prices!) and say the shop has a minimum labour time of an hour? $80. So the bill would at most be $116 + 10% GST= $127.60.

Instead of taking either of those options though We now have someone riding around on a machine that is not only a danger to himself if his inadequately installed plug comes out and dumps his gearbox oil on the road but others as wel as the oil slick would be a potentially life threatening hazard to others, PARTICULARLY other motorcyclists.

Not only that but In Oz a 1200 Sport is a $20,000 motorbike. Apart from the cost of doing a proper repair which could easily run to hundreds of dollars but the scratching and other damage will of reduced the machines value substantially, not to mention the fact that if the gearbox DOES have a problem the damage to the drain and box casing would probably get any warranty claim red-flagged immediately. I know I would be extremely dubious of pursuing warranty on an almost new machine that came into my workshop with such ham-fisted, busted knuckle damage.

Knowing ones own limitations is very important. I wouldn't dream of trying to re-wire my house. It would be a dangerous disaster, it actually needs doing, so you know what? I'll be paying a qualified tradesman to do it. I'm sorry Mal but can I suggest that if you want to learn bout working on bikes you start off by buying something like a 25 year old 250 single and make your mistakes and do your learning on that rather than on your brand new $20,000 Guzzi. And BUY SOME REALTOOLS before you touch any vehicle again. You simply CAN'T do a decent job on anything with a shifter as your tool of choice, sorry.

Pete

 

[Mal]

Pete’s right I f@rked it. Unfortunately never seems to happen on my ’93GS500 :lol:

She’s at my mechanics now. I told him about it and he said.
“It happens mate, you know your job and I know mine”

Bottom line it’s a safety issue so it needs to be fixed, will let you know the outcome. The house re-wiring example was a good one as my Dad’s an electrician, pretty simple stuff but if you get that wrong you can kill people.

 

[Mal]

All fixed $60 inc oil. Just tapped it out, luckily it was a straight line into the gearbox so no need to remove anything. Now I need a 16mm spanner.

experience +1

Live and learn

Scratches etc not an issue (Can’t see them unless you know they are there) but sort of intrigued about the condition of the transmission oil. Should I drop the oil out at 5,000km or earlier to see what it’s looking like? I'm guessing it should look pretty clean / similar to the gearbox oil.

 

[Series4]

Mal, you've had a tough time of it. Unless you're Catholic and need to offer up a sacrifice I'd suggest maybe you leave the bevel box until its next scheduled service interval?

Peter (non-Roper)

 

[azccj]

We live and we learn. Fortunately I learned all about stripping out bolts when I was 16 and got my first vehicle, a 1973 Datsun 1600 pickup. I must have stripped out every aluminum threaded hole on the engine block, I was a slow learner I guess. I also learned on that same motor that if you line up the timing marks wrong, the valves go through the pistons when you try turning the motor over with the starter :roll: . And I've broke some stuff on other vehicles in my younger days but I've learned from every mistake and rarely make the same mistake twice. Mal I'm rooting for you, it takes some guts to post what you did. Buy a decent set of tools before the next oil change and then see what you can do.

 

[Cat City Rider]

Fathers Day is around the corner. A trip to Sears is in your future.

 

[Mal]

:lol: The worst part is ever since I got the Sport I've been looking at that gearbox drain wondering how hard the bolt was to access. I also almost called that Snap on tools van to see if they had a good tool :roll: Should have got a spanner when I brought some new Alan keys for the job too.

And I wanted to do my partners 750 first, but I thought practicing on her bike was a bit unfair :roll: At least At least that oil change went smoothly yesterday. Although I had a scary moment after removing the drain plugs when the filler hole was taking a lot of force and still not unscrewing.

Oh well. I’m not sure I’ve ever understood why people dislike shifting spanners so much, but now that I’ve stuffed something with one I am getting an idea why.

p.s. it took more guts to take it to my mechanic and show him what happened, since I've been going there for 10 years - nobody knows you on the net and I needed to know if it was "she'll be right" or "Big fing problem"... If it wasn't for the advice I'd probably be siting in the middle of knowhere with no gearbox oil (and that would have been the best result)

 

[guzzlergreg]

A late post, but....

IMO it's a prick of a job changing the gearbox oil on the Breva, especially when I think how easy it was on the T3 & SP1000.
Once I've loosened it, I use a tight-fitting plastic tube pushed over the head to screw it out, & to screw it in again once it's started.

Some clever 'frontbottom' in the design department must have spent days perfecting it's inaccessibility.

I wondered whether a drainplug which would take a large allen key would make it easier.

While on the subject: Beware the fragile threaded breather on top of the drive box. Takes very little effort to snap it off level with the casing if you're too assertive with the 14mm spanner.

Go for it Mal ... but quietly.

 

[guzzibob]

While on the subject: Beware the fragile threaded breather on top of the drive box. Takes very little effort to snap it off level with the casing if you're too assertive with the 14mm spanner.

Actually, as others have noted, the best way to prevent a problem here is-to leave the breather alone. No reason to pull it when draining/filling the rear end.

 

[guzzlergreg]

If the bike is ridden on rough &/or dusty roads the breather can become clagged up.
Given that it seems the rear wheel oil seal has a tendency to weep (not to mention the bearing having a tendency to disintegrate); and there being some disparity between the oil volume as stated in the owner's manual (360cc) and the workshop manual (380cc) and the amount used when the drive box fills to the bottom threads of the level plug (about 310cc from my experience), I like to know that the breather breathes.
Obviously I'm not the first to have snapped one off.

 

[Penis Rotor]

OK, so remove it and put a small right-angle fitting in it's place and run a hose off that back up the swingarm and up under the seat somewhere and put an eeny-weeny filter on the end. End of problem. If I was a Stelvio owner who was into serious polar-bear smuggling, creek crossings and the like its definitely what I'd do.

Pete

 

[guzzibob]

Actually, there is no such tendency for the rear wheel bearing to disintegrate per se. Rather, early on Guzzi used crappy FEIT brand bearings which tended to disintegrate, were warranteed/replaced/repaired with bearings labeled SKG or FAG-of which to date there have been a grand total of zero reported failures, as far as I know, & I asked around plenty-& still do ask MPH (since they probably see more of these then anyone else in the US) from time to time. Different story over at BMW-they continue to disintegrate from time to time despite at least a couple of design changes (unless corrected since last I heard...).

 

[guzzlergreg]

Glad to learn that rear wheel bearing failures are a thing of the past. I guess I must have been plain unlucky to have a bike on which the bearing was replaced pre-delivery; then collapsed at 14,500 km & was replaced under warranty only after a long & tedious wrangle with the Austalian importer; then the seal had to be replaced at 26,700. Hence my concern with that end of the bike. Pleased to report the last 33,000 kms have been uneventful.
But I note that a friend who's riding a "new" 2006 Breva in the US at the moment has just gone thru the replacement hassle - so there's still a few of those crappy bearings out there slowly clocking up the miles till judgement day.

 

[Penis Rotor]

Errrr. OK. Perhaps it has something to do with attitude. The terribly awful Oz Guzzi importer just replaced a CARC for one of my customers on a bike that was out of warranty but I was able to show it was a manufacturing fault without shouting or carrying on like a pork chop. Odd that eh??

Pete

 

[SKurj]

Might be several new dealers up here in canada looking for experienced Guzzi techs Pete...