Guzzi Cali Cafe - Build Thread

Speedfreak said:
Hi KOKID,

Don't have any pics of the electricity parts under the tank, try to make some this weekend and post them here, pics of my Guzzi CR you can find here in Topic; The collection- café racers- pics of members ride before and after- page 91. the alloy with red Guzzi is mine.
The tank is hold down with two rubbers at the front just like Honda tanks only a bit bigger, at the rear is a rubber strap with a little notch in the seat.( 3/8 of an inch) to get it on and off.
Battery is hanging under the transmission.
Until this moment no probs with the electrics under the gastank, the Guzzi has a nice space between the cylinders and lots of air coming thru there.
Grtz Frank,


Speedfreak,
I like your conversion to cafe racer, nice job,however why in the world would you so fundamentaly change a LeMans? I always thought they were pretty quintessential. (not the first to utter this!). Some changes are inevitable, nuances, improvements, cold weather, hot weather adjustments etc. I guess if that is all you have to start with the urge is there to change it.

i really ike the final fullbodied fairing (endurance racer style...where did you get it/ or who makes it ? or your own creation?.
Personally, I would be fearful of battery on bottom, a definite knock off would scare me (here we have really deep swales as rain dips at many intersections so at speed you could easily rip that battery right off when you could occaisionally bottom out, NO BUENO, but I had it happen to me twice. Once was very slowly in a rural driveway with tree roots sticking up from ground and my lower A arm on my XKE lost the outer bolt that held together the 2 piece lower arm and having lost this bolt the rear section dropped its outer tip as it rotated around inner pivot shaft and wouldn't you know it that root grabbed and bent the lower arm back on itself. Fortunately, it was forging so I torched it, rebent it to shape and bored the inner pivot hole and made a bush for it and bolted the whole back together again.

The 1st time I was slow riding a 2 lane black top in rural Connecticut but was going too fast on the back road on an off camber ever tightening radius turn. I wound up crossing over the road crown onto the off camber side and off the road but luckily there was a rather high dirt berm @ 4' high that I was able to stuff bike into dirt crosser style until the foot peg grabbed a very large exposed tree root which bent the Triumph footpeg forging back on itself and stopped the bike dead cold while I went over handlebars. I was wearing Dr.Scholls wooden sandals and I was able to stick a perfect 2 point absolute vertical stand up landing on the tarmac in the center of the far lane, unfortunately the soles of my feet ached for 6 months. In short that is 2 of my 7 close calls while riding. So I am acutely aware of sh....t that hangs down. Look forward to pics sounds like good solution. Scored my Le Mans seat off ebay, good for patterns and modification. I need that winter fairing though! Does anybody know where to get a deep sump for the Guzzi? I have yet to see one?
What did you do with your old Le Mans parts? Keeping them? Not hijacking "bevelhead's" thread just keeping it warm 'til he gets back . OHHH DEAR, I Got REAL LUCKY by resaving his old pics to my files as I see many of his PHOTO BUCKET PICS ARE GONE AGAIN!
Ross
 
The photobucket pics will return on the 19th when the monthly allowance resets. I'll post those missing pics directly on here when I get time so it wont keep happening.

Don't understand your query about the bike lift, what's the issue?

The cut out at the front of the seat unit doesn't really need to be there (I may fibreglass it over), I assume its there because the original Rickman seats where made like that.
 
Bevelheadmhr said:
Don't understand your query about the bike lift, what's the issue?

Bevelhead,
i dont understand how it works, as it is unfamilar . How does it hold the bike from falling over ? most lifts, platform style has clamp on front wheel and or tie down straps to handle bars for service. some times there is drop out plate to service rear wheel. many times there is small jack under frame to support bike(as in no center stand) with or without front wheel, rear wheel or front forks. What I don't recognise is the tall tubular loop with angled tubes with central arm that comes close to frame, forks obscure view. (Also,bottom of pic cuts off how tubes attach to platform)Hope this is better description. What holds the bike?
Ross
 
@KOKid,

The version with the full faring is how I did buy the bike, it did belong to a colleague of mine, she got the bike in Italy (1981 just 1 year after factory build) the bike was build that way by Stucchi and was a LeMans mk2 when it came from the factory, never came on the road like an mk2.
When I got it, the bike looked good from a distance, but needed lots of TLC, that's why I took her apart.
Because of my length I didn't fit one the bike the way it was so I decided to build it back to factory standard, witch was never finished because the parts where hard to get and very expensive.
So that's the reason it became a Café Racer.
The battery is hanging under the gearbox witch is no problem because the engine and gearbox are much closer to the ground then the battery box.
All left over original parts I did sell or swap for parts I wanted, only have a small amount of little things and a front wheel left.

Grtz Frank,
 
K0Kid said:
Bevelhead,
i dont understand how it works, as it is unfamilar . How does it hold the bike from falling over ? most lifts, platform style has clamp on front wheel and or tie down straps to handle bars for service. some times there is drop out plate to service rear wheel. many times there is small jack under frame to support bike(as in no center stand) with or without front wheel, rear wheel or front forks. What I don't recognise is the tall tubular loop with angled tubes with central arm that comes close to frame, forks obscure view. (Also,bottom of pic cuts off how tubes attach to platform)Hope this is better description. What holds the bike?
Ross

ah,ok,you had me confused.. the red bike lift on the first page isn't mine, the photo is from the day I bought the bike, its taken in the sellers workshop. That type of bike lift is common here, not too expensive. It just raises the bike to a more comfortable level to work on. There are no additional clamps as standard, though I think you can buy at for extra cost. You can see he'd put a milk crate under the motor to steady it. The front tubular loop is a front paddock stand, it locates in the bottom of the steering stem. Not sure if that one is generic or not, but I have one just like it that fits my Ducati 888. They work for quick changes of front wheels, but I wouldn't trust it for much more, they aren't that secure.
 
My Guzzi project hasn't died, its just been waiting while I got on with a couple of other bikes. But over the next few months I'm going to take it apart and start again. There will be a lot of work to revisit and changes to make. One of which is to change the bodywork, particularly the tank. Fortunately, I knew what I wanted as a replacement, a handmade alloy endurance racing tank from the same workshop that made my Slimline Norley tank. Yesterday I went to a big classic show here in England, where the tank maker had a small stand with lots of alloy loviness to drool over. They even had the Guzzi tank I want, though 'mine' will have a different filler cap. I'll order as soon as I've saved up the pennies to pay for it..
 

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It will be four years next month since I bought the Guzzi Cali 3,and its still not done, about time I got on with it..

The first job was to do something about the seat unit, how to mount it to the frame and make a seat base to be upholstered.
When I cut off the old frame brackets and tabs I went a bit far and now I wish I'd left the seat mounts in place, as they would've made life much easier. In addition, with the seat unit resting on the frame rails the seat is too low, I now realise why all the Guzzi specials I see online have a slightly awkward looking seat which sits an inch or two above the frame rails.

The best option would be to strip the bike down again, get the frame welded as needed, which would then require it to be powder coated again, then finally put it all back together. All that's a lot of hassle and more importantly more expense, so I had to look at alternatives.

But first the lump moulded into the Rickman seat unit had to go, it didn't take long to cut it out, I'll fibreglass over the resulting hole later. To lift the seat a bit without welding brackets on the frame, I cut up an old foam floor tile and sandwiched and inch or so of the foam between the underside of the seat unit and the stainless plate I'd made ages ago to strengthen the seat. This lifted the seat unit just enough..

Then on to the seat itself, as usual I made a template in card and had it replicated in steel by Geoff the welder for £25, after which I decided to add an extra piece to run up the back of the box like tank, similar to an early Lemans. I'd like to use an alloy endurance tank, but that will have to wait..
 

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I want to use a lithium battery on the Guzzi, hiding inside the seat hump which would need to be mounted to the frame somehow. While the seat unit itself would need supporting too, all without welding any extra brackets to the frame... :p

soooo I had an idea ...make two threaded bungs, slightly tapered for a very tight interference fit into the back of the frame rails (which had been cut and shortened when I had hacked up the frame back when I first started this project many years ago..)

They don't quite fit as is, but they're in the freezer overnight and hopefully with a big hammer they'll fit securely into the frame rails tomorrow. If that works then the battery mount can be made to bolt to these two threaded bungs..
 

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The hole in the seat unit has been fibreglassed over, it doesn't look too good, but I tell myself no one but me will see it, as the seat will hide it from view. Then I rattle can sprayed and lacquered it, looks ok and the metallic black is a good match for the tank. It still needs more work cutting back and polishing, which I'll do in a few days when the lacquer has hardened.

Next the replacement Lucas coils needed a home, so I mounted them on a simple alloy bracket bolted to the underside of the electrics box.

I cant finish mounting the seat unit until the seat comes back from being upholstered, no idea how long that will be, probably have to wait until early Jan. In the meantime I need to find a rear light which will look the part, some kind of square-ish LED lamp would be ideal.
 

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caferay said:
When did this good idea go out of fashion?

oh, thank god. Pea soup green never caught on as a racing color.
Actually that color, pea soup green, is very close to BRG British Racing Green, and it caught on like wild fire BITD
 
I always considered BRG to be a lot darker...

Anyway, back to the Guzzi... I collected the seat today, still need to bolt everything down to the frame, but it looks ok and feels comfy enough at first sitting, cost £60 which is good value I think. I could've opted for coloured stitching or fancy panelling, but decided to keep it simple.
 

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The cheap frame powder coating I had done a couple of years ago, was a mistake, should've used Triple S. Despite the bike not seeing the road yet, corrosion is breaking through all over the frame...

There's nothing that can be done, except strip the bike down and have the frame powder coated correctly. Surprisingly I'm not to unhappy about this, as it gives me the excuse to revisit areas I wasn't too happy about and to make improvements here and there.
 

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I made a start today stripping the bike down, got most of the work done, just need some help to lift the frame away from the engine. Its not heavy, but the engine / gearbox isn't too stable on the lift, so better safe than sorry.
 

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That's a cool bike. I'd like to see a 90 degrees side profile picture. Those angle pics make the rear cowl look huge.
 
That done, and after a well earned tea break, I made a start on one of the improvements I wanted to make. The first step was to make a simple plate to protect the bevel box when its bead blasted to clean its surface. I'll need to go and buy a nice cake as a bribe/payment when I go to the local machine shop where they'll hopefully let me use their blasting cabinet.
 

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I took the bevel box over to my mate Jeff's workshop, where we just managed to secure its underside to a small rotary table (very useful bit of kit) then we got artistic with the pillar drill...
 

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Weasel said:
That's a cool bike. I'd like to see a 90 degrees side profile picture. Those angle pics make the rear cowl look huge.

Like this.. though the current tank and seat may not make the rebuild..
 

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I find the look a bit plain and boring to be honest, the Mark 5 Lemans tank wasn't one of Guzzis finest efforts. I'd be happy with an earlier MK1 or 2 tank, but they're rare and expensive now, so I'll probably end up having an Endurance racing alloy tank made, which in turn will mean a different seat, new paint and much expense..

In the meantime, I bead blasted the bevel box and caliper mount at a local machine shop, they look much better but they'll need to be painted to stop corrosion, so the next task is to buy some suitable paint.. etch primer, primer and silver alloy paint. Don't know what brand to go for, need to do some research before ordering..
 

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Looking forward to seeing this finished.
I did one a 15 years ago and everyone poo-poo'd the idea because "they should be stock" mentality. BS
Out of all the bikes going around, Guzzi is almost certainly the most welcome recipient of a cafe makeover.
Not only do they lend themselves aesthetically, but also rideability improves.
Just a couple of suggestions, but lighten the flywheel as much as possible, you won't believe the improvement, get a good electronic ignition and lighten the bike as much as possible.
I ended up with a bike that weighed 185kg with a full tank of fuel and it handled superbly. The flywheel mod removed all vibration and made the shaft movement insignificant.
I remember the first time taking the bike back to a couple of the nay sayers and they were lost for words and though times have changed and cafe builds are the norm, Guzzis to me remain one of the bikes supremely worthy of modification since the factory bikes were so ... hard to find the word.. sedate.
The hardest thing about modifying any bike is the commitment, so I wish you all the best and I know from personal experience, it is worth it.
 
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