Testing Magneti Marelli solenoid

"Restoring Ms Elly" a slideshow of the before and after

This is long overdue. This 30 seconds slideshow covers virtually six months of progress working weekends and some time at night. She is now fully operational and I put few hundreds miles on her. She is a lovely ride for as long as you remember, you are riding a vintage motorcycle so take it easy :-)

Front brake switch on vitage Guzzi, an alterantive

This is my take on solving the front brake switch problem on front drum brake Loops. I purchased a universal car brake switch, built a simple bracket using anodized aluminum scrap and connected the spring to the lever via the spring that came with the switch. Instead of trying to hide it, I choose to just lay it bare, a functional/industrial look. The bracket was bent 90 degree to receive the switch and then bolted on the mirror clamp. I reckon you could also reverse it and attach the bracket to the lever itself, effectively hiding the switch behind the handlebar while you ride; but again, I did not mind the look so I did not even bothered.
Cost? about $20 total.

Walk around with Mikuni VM28 Carbs plus comparison with Dell'Orto VHB30s

Replaced the Mikuni with Dell'Orto VHB 30 Cold idle.

Vintage fuel tank, installing a Wix 33001 Complete In-Line Fuel Filter

Update: I have changed the carbs to Dell Orto VHB30 with build in replaceable filters however I kept this configuration and it is working like a charm.

No matter how hard and carefully you clean a vintage fuel tank, some crud will still continue to come out. Some is coming from the fuel itself, some, like in my case initially, was just 20 years worth of deposits from sitting in a barn for too long.
Long story short, I have decided to put a massive, non fuel pump, fuel filter before the carbs, especially since my vintage Mikuni do not have filters. Wow, I cannot believe I just write that, who makes carburetors without filters, arg!

So I purchased a very fine filter (see Wix 33001 ) and a couple of T couplings and put it in the middle of the flow coming from either the main line or the reserve.
The trick is to make sure it stays above the float bowl of the carburetors or, Archimedes will tell you, you are not going to get any fuel. I achieved this by making it rest atop the air filters and carefully routing the fuel lines. Done. It works like a charm and my carbs no longer require cleaning every 5 minutes ;-)
 Oh and yes, the dark stuff you see it is crud, the paper filter is actually white. Sold yet?

The maiden vojage

Very first ride after the rebuild. This is prior to timing tuning and carb fine tuning, in other words, she runs a lot better now.

Take two on the tank and powder coating parts

Well the original tank did not hold, it got worse and worse and it is a Swiss cheese waiting to happen, holes everywhere. Thanks to the good people of Norcal Guzzi Owner Group, I have found a fellow Guzzista who had a etxra one in excellent condition considering it is a 40 year old tank!
Here are some shots of the tank and a bunch of other parts I sand blasted and powder coated. Enjoy!

Details:
- powder coats from powderbythepounds.com
- facilities: The tech shop 
- two component epoxy coat by 3K

before, good shape, most of the dings are actually a bad paint job

blasted, ready for coating

before pin striping

all done with epoxy clear to save the decals, done!

after chrome powder coating