Wish Us Luck!

[Raven]

Even the name sounds wonderful. Bianca Perla.

 

[jeremiekenney]

I'm home and rekindling with my old love. Thank you Scott for caring, diagnosing, educating, and rehabilitating. You went above and beyond! Anytime you are around the North/South Carolinas you have a place to stay and we will have some riding to do.
Thank you Guzzi community for guidance and brotherhood.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

Jeremie,

You are so welcome my friend!


NOTE:

(If you are in this gentleman’s neighborhood, and you get a chance to meet him, it will be a fortuitous experience. He’s a great guy and his Dad too.)

We sure have some really great people here that I have been so honored to meet. Truly.

 

[tobinh]

My workshop is filled to the teeth, with motorcycles, scooters, and quads that no other place will look at.

The most ridiculous example of this dealer madness, is this one.

It is a 2009, Yamaha Vino 125 scooter. (Yes, it's older than 10 years so no dealer will even consider looking at it!) Did I mention that it has a massive 765 miles on it? The dealer refuses to provide ROUTINE SERVICE on it, and THEY SOLD IT TO MY CUSTOMER BRAND NEW IN 2009! It's absolutely ridiculous.

I have tons of stuff like this!

In fact, in that same photo, you will notice the pristine very vintage Honda 175. It's MINT. Only I will work on it. Also, the white 1999 Harley Police motorcycle in the background. Same pathetic story. Nobody will touch it because it is "too old".

All of them are mint condition examples that no dealers will even get within arms length of. In truth, the only reason they won't work on something like this, is because the $10/hr morons they have "working" in the shop, don't know a damn thing about motorcycles. Truly.

I'm sorry, but my generation is the last of the real mechanics. We are a dying beed indeed.

I remember when I worked at a shop, we came to be quite reluctant to touch old machines. too many times we would find problems obviously caused by previous mechanics and/or owners butchery, and upon informing the customer, they would blow up at us - 'it's just an old bike! I can't pay that much! that's more than I paid for it!!!'

like yea... you paid $500 for the bike, that doesn't mean our labour rate becomes $25/hr...

so then they would take it away, refusing to pay for the investigation we'd already done. anyway just an aside, lovely thread and a fine result

 

[scottmastrocinque]

Oh, believe me, I understand what you are saying.

That's why at my shop, if the repair is not obvious or requested specifically, then the customer must pay for diagnosis. It's a minimum of 1-2 hours based upon what it is we are looking for. At that time, I give an estimate including what I believe to be initial parts costs, and the customer must pay for the diagnosis and the the parts deposit up front and the sale is final and non refundable. Once I order the parts, the customer owns them. Only after all of this is completed, is their motorcycle allowed into the workshop where it gets in line to get worked on.

Like your experience, I also routinely find ham-fisted damage or butchery along the way, and I spell out in my contract, that the estimate is subject to any number of revisions based upon what is discovered as the process proceeds. What is different from back in the day for both of us, is that I can take an infinite number of high resolution digital photos and send them via my ShopMonkey Software, immediately over to my customer to see precisely what is going on or has been discovered. This has eliminated most of the issues with estimate revisions.

However, if at any time in the process, the customer wants to stop, they can stop upon notification to me, and all work stops.

They can then pay the outstanding bill and pick up their motorcycle in the exact condition it is on the lift at that moment, as they are no longer paying for work. This type of abrupt exit is a one way trip also. (This has only happened twice to me in my lifetime. It's pretty rare for me.)

Anybody who balks at this policy, isn't somebody who I want as a customer anyway. Customers pay the bill. They are the reason I open the doors and turn on the lights every day and I am committed to them.

Chiselers will groan, complain, or argue about the charges from the get go. Or they bitch about how long it takes to get the job started and completed. I just send those people on down the road to be unhappy someplace else.

It's all good.

Thank you for the very kind words.

 

[Raven]

My daughter owns a 1983 Honda Nighthawk 550 with 14,000 km on it. Mint condition. She knows the owner of the local motorcycle/snowmobile shop. She convinced him to work on her bike even at that age. It needed many hours of carb work etc. from many years of being stored on static display. The resulting bill was more than double what she had paid for the bike (I got a smokin' deal from a friend). With a detailed invoice she more than happily paid. She now has a mint looking bike that runs like new. If she had not known the owner he said there was no way they would touch it.

 

[Vagrant]

OMG!!! You actually let a customer into your workshop.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

OMG!!! You actually let a customer into your workshop.

I’m very welcoming to my customers. Always.

Niceness counts.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

My daughter owns a 1983 Honda Nighthawk 550 with 14,000 km on it. Mint condition. She knows the owner of the local motorcycle/snowmobile shop. She convinced him to work on her bike even at that age. It needed many hours of carb work etc. from many years of being stored on static display. The resulting bill was more than double what she had paid for the bike (I got a smokin' deal from a friend). With a detailed invoice she more than happily paid. She now has a mint looking bike that runs like new. If she had not known the owner he said there was no way they would touch it.

That’s a great story! Good for her.

I have many customers with many beautiful and well cared for, older motorcycles.

It’s the “beaters” and “rat” bikes that I avoid.

Those are nothing but what I affectionately call “Heartaches By The Numbers, Troubles By The Score”.

The trouble always starts when I cave in against my better judgment and try and help people with those type motorcycles anyway.

It always comes back to bite me in the ass.

In fact, the next line of lyrics of that same famous song, describes my OCD completely when faced with those types of motorcycles,

“Every Day You Love Me Less, Each Day I Love You More…”

 

[Guzzooks]

Thanks very much for sharing this job here Scott. It brought several good and bad things into the light for sure.
(yeah, I dig a Perla Bianca Norge’s too)

 

[GTM®]

It is distressing that others, (Raven) experienced the same poor construction of the O2 bung hole. I thought this had to be a 1 time fluke, but guess not. Makes you wonder how many other motorcycles went out with this problem and how many went undiagnosed because there was no fault code that got thrown. The only way to have discovered this issue, was to logically think it through and check out everything based upon my mental diagnosis of the root cause of the problem. Thanks everybody for your input and comments! I really love this famigllia that we have here at GuzziTech. It's something very special indeed and we need to preserve, protect, and care for it. It is irreplaceable.

It is also so very unfortunate, that Sandro at TechnoResearch in Michigan, stopped making tools for our motorcycles...

Todd's Flash Tool is also in this same category. It is an excellent, high-quality, professional tool and worth every penny you pay for it.

Thanks for posting on this. We have not yet seen this in my workshop, but always great to see things like this documented here to learn from! The basic catalyst of this website!

Yes, very unfortunate that TR turned away from all Italian brands as an Italian company. Crazy but makes financial sense. Just sucks.

Thanks for the nudge on the flash tool. The device and my work I get to share this way is invaluable. It isn't always perfect (we've had some device hiccups that caused delays in reading and writing, but never catastrophic), but 99% of the time has been stellar.

I'm sorry, but my generation is the last of the real mechanics. We are a dying breed indeed.

I agree with a rare few exceptions... To shed a touch of light Scott, I've had a few Millennials and Gen-Z'ers help me recently, and some of them were impressively sharp and go-getters. My first longer term tech now works at Space-X. So there is HOPE.

 

[tris]

Scott, it would frustrate the heck out of me if I could see a problem, and after leaving the bike overnight it disappeared
Has pondering things for a futher day lead you to a conclusion as to what was happening?
Could it be that changing the O2 sensor fixed it, but the ECU needed 12 hours to forget the lies it was being told and reset itself?
Cheers
Tris

 

[scottmastrocinque]

I believe it was a couple things.

The engine was very hot after running it on the lift as long as we had to, even though we had a high velocity fan on her the whole time. I think having everything return to a “ground state” overnight helped reset everything.

Second, I utilized some very powerful organic solvent in the fuel tank and it had a chance to sit in the pump and injectors and intake tract overnight. I’m sure this was able to remove engine deposits and possible clogging of the injector spray pattern. I’m the morning, the injectors were significantly cleaner and they performed at expected efficiency.

I attribute the massive improvement in rideabiliry, to the valve adjustment, throttle body sync, new o2 sensors (2), adaptive learning parameter reset, TPS reset, new fuel and the Polyetheramine.

I still think that getting the R side O2 sensor to switch to Closed mode, will only further enhance the rideability.

 

[tris]

Thanks, always useful to know these things

 

[tris]

I wonder if the R side O2 sensor is an emissions fiddle
ie, if both operated it would either
A) not idle - too lean
B) idle too rich - fail emissions

If either of the above though is true it's a pretty lazy way of doing business

 

[jeremiekenney]

Update: Monday I rode 300mi with my Dad in the North Carolina twisties. She ran perfect and idles much better. When we went to lunch and my Dad said 'looks like your not going to try to sell the Guzzi now"....you're damn right!

Fine work and thank you again Scott.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

This is outstanding information Jeremie! I am so happy that I was able to help you out. I'm look forward to getting to your neck of the woods next year for some riding with you and your Dad!

Best wishes and Merry Christmas!

 

[Sempervee1]

Love happy ending !!

 

[scottmastrocinque]

Guess I'm not as dumb as they all say I is...