On the mend
Who’s repairing who? Well, when it comes to Mark and his Guzzi, it’s a two-way thing...
THERE’S BEEN A lot of talk about mental health recently. The Covid-19 crisis has put everyone’s state of mind under pressure – and people have found their own different ways of getting through it all while maintaining their sanity. Well, I’ve been improving my wellbeing by getting on my bike and riding as often as possible.
As soon as the lockdown restrictions on anything but essential travel were lifted, I was out and about on the Guzzi. And, as everyone who owns a motorbike knows, it’s good for the soul as well as the mind. At the start of the year, I’d hoped to be out on my bike long before midsummer – in fact, when the enormity of the pandemic was yet to dawn, moves were being made to turn it into a reliable ride once more by rectifying an electrical problem that had reared its ugly head the previous year...
After a sterling performance last spring, on an 1100-mile round trip to Scotland, I’d treated the Guzzi to a new seat cover. For which it repaid me by breaking down on the way home after work. This led to a three-hour wait for a recovery van, an experience which went from bad to worse when the van driver claimed he didn’t have enough room in his van for my bike! After helping him shuffle over the BMW GS he had onboard, though, I finally managed to convince him there was space in the back for my bike.
I’m usually pretty sanguine about breaking down – it’s all part of the experience of owning a classic bike as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve met some great, friendly and helpful people after being stranded at the roadside – but this time it had turned into a long-winded and stressful business. The driver did make amends by stopping off
at a Co-op along the way, so I could at least get some beers and bung-in-the-oven curries for sustenance on my return home (well after 10pm), but I’d lost faith in the bike and it was slung into the garage to languish in disgrace.
The usual ingredients – a lack of time, motivation and money – meant the Guzzi went into its own lockdown a year before everyone else did. It wasn’t until March this year that the enthusiasm to solve the problem arose. Electrics were the issue, it seemed, having spoken to people who know about this kind of stuff. It’s all witchcraft to me, but the knowledgeable ones informed me that the charging system wasn’t doing what it should do.
I looked at a few Guzzi forums and the alternator rotor seemed to crop up regularly as a culprit for insufficient battery charging – which was confirmed when my mate Alan came round and prodded various parts of the electrical system with the probe of his multimeter.
The battered old Haynes manual that came with the bike had informed me that a special tool was useful for removing the rotor, so I’d already bought one for a tenner in anticipation before Alan had carried out his inspection. Time to get the Guzzi up on the bench...
Removing the rotor was a cinch – take off the cover at
‘A LACK OF TIME, MOTIVATION AND MONEY MEANT THE GUZZI WENT INTO LOCKDOWN A YEAR EARLY’
the front of the engine, wind in the tool (basically a big bolt) and the rotor popped easily off its taper. On Alan’s recommendation I also checked out the brushes housed in the stator – they were pretty worn, so I ordered a new set along with a new rotor from Gutsibits (the same place I’d got the extraction tool from) for just under £82. I was looking at the possibility of sorting an electrical problem for less than a ton – a major result in my eyes. (Alan, of course, would have to be recompensed for his labours with beer – but that would be more pleasurable than painful, as it would give me a valid reason for a night in the pub.)
Alan’s further assistance was required to disconnect and re-solder the brush connections on the stator, but after that I reassembled the whole thing before he returned to test if the new bits were properly juicing-up the battery. More multimeter prodding confirmed that full charging had been restored and that Friday was designated as payback night. It was to be our last Friday night down the pub for quite some time – the next Friday Boris Johnson announced the nationwide shutdown of public houses.
I hadn’t even had the chance to test out the Guzzi on the road... and it continued its garage-based languishing till well into July. As it turned out, it was a windy day when we made our first venture out on the road this year – but although we were getting blown around on some exposed stretches, a route taking in a couple of my favourite local B-roads – the 664 and 6047 – was pure joy. Being deprived of one of your favourite pleasures for a long time just makes it all the sweeter on reacquaintance. The Guzzi’s battery wasn’t the only thing getting a proper charging – my brain was getting its biggest boost for months, too.
When it comes to intoxication, the lazy, grunty V-twin with the snarly top-end rush that pops your eyes wide – and especially the hair-raising racket it kicks out – has the potential to beat a boozy night out hands down. It’s just a different kind of release into a mind-altering state, cradled by the super-stable handling as you swoop through the corners on the way to wellness.
Since then, I’ve been out with Alan again, taken my daughter out on her first ever pillion ride round local country roads (as expected, she found it fun, exciting and scary all at the same time) and enjoyed a solo meander down to Stanford Hall that was as relaxing as a hot bath, even though the gates of the venue for the VMCC’S cancelled annual Founders Day event were padlocked – a sad reflection of the restrictions we continue to live under.