Its Italian, but not Ducati... Guzzi content!

Not sure if its 'allowed' to post a build thread on my Guzzi cafe racer project? If not, let me know ...

I started with this non runner, a 89 Cali 1000..

 

Ok, well here we go then.. I got the bike as an unfinished project, actually it had hardly got started, back in January, and I've been plodding on with the build ever since. I dont need to work anymore, so I dont, which gives me plenty of time, but not so much money to spend these days. Therefore wherever I can, I try to make best use of what I already have in the shed, swap stuff with mates and get work done at 'mates rates', though that does tend to slow things up.


The bike is an 89 Guzzi California, which beneath its pseudo Harley bodywork has the same frame as the LeMans of the same era. The only difference is that the Lemans has lower frame rails, from which to hang its rearsets, luckily my Cali already had these fitted, along with a Lemans MK4 tank and German seat unit (which didnt luck right). Another good point with the Cali is that it has spoked wheels, with alloy rims and stainless spokes as standard. It was also the last Cali to retain carbs (keeps things simple) and surprisingly, points ignition.


The bad points, were that I couldnt hear it running, though I was assured it ran ok prior to the work starting, and a blind man had sprayed the bike in black paint.. engine, spokes, hubs, all got covered. yuck!

The plan was to build a simple clean cafe racer out of it, spending as little as possible, and doing as much work as I could to keep costs done. I'm a terrible mechanic, but I've built a few bikes, so know whats possible and I have a few mates who know what thy're doing, who can help me out when I get stuck.

 

I ordered few bits and bobs .. the Tarrozi rearsets and velocity stacks from Dellorto, which fitted ok, they are fairly short as I wasnt sure how much clearance I had..




I stripped the electrics and lifted the frame off the engine, which meant I could get on and remove all the brackets and tabs that wont be needed. That wasnt too difficult but it still took a full afternoon to do. I also cut out the rear tank mount and moved it forward a couple of inches to allow the LM tank to fit. The biggest problem I had was with the top shock mounts, as I knew they had been damaged and needed to be replaced. This job turned into hours of work as I had to cut brackets out of the frame make up new ones and weld them in place. Then new shock mounts had to be machined and welded to the new brackets. Good job I was owed a few favours, as I couldnt do all that by myself.





I removed the rear bevel box and cleaned it up, then used that as a test to see how the engine/box would look if painted. First I used a tin of Smooth hammerite for non-ferrous metals as an'undercoat' (as normal Hammerite doesnt tend to work on alloys). That didnt look too bad, but having to use a brush meant the finish wasnt as good as I wanted. So then I sprayed on a few light coats of 'normal' smooth Hammerite which ended up looking not too different from bare alloy. Hopefully I can use the same process on the rest of the motor and gearbox

 

A few weeks passed without much progress, as it was way too cold in my workshop, however the frame was sent off for powder coating. For a change I'm using not Triple S, but a place a bit closer to home, they were recommended by Z-power, fingers crossed they do a good job.. (turned out to be a false economy... )

I spent countless hours stripping the old paint from the motor, wheels etc.. I used Nitromors, but now it's some new formula which is green, and doesnt give you third degree chemical burns .. all well and good, but its rubbish, nowhere near as potent as the old stuff, and it seems the shops dont stock the original anymore.
Here's the motor, almost ready for new paint.. I was intending to paint the crankcases the same way I'd done the rear bevel box, but changed my mind, and now I'll leave them 'raw'. The barrels will be painted wih High temp satin black paint from Halfords.

I was thinking of painting the frame myself, using trusty smooth hammerite, but having started on the swingarm (because I didnt want to risk damaging the bearings as they really need to be removed before powdercoating)... well, the swingarm was pretty rusty, and by the time it was done, I'd spent nearly thirty quid on paint, so I decided there was no way I was going to do the whole frame..



One thing I like about the Guzzi, is the way its been built in a very simple way, it all comes apart easily, with no fiddly assemblies or crosshead screws which refuse to come out. There's also some interesting touches, like the brass filler caps, which polished up nicely.
For example, here are the front wheel disc mounts, which hold the discs to the wheel hub, they were badly corroded, but were easy enough to clean up. I could've kept going and polished them to a bright finish, but thats not what I'm aiming for, I dont want to 'over finish' it, and end up with a bike that I'll never use, for fear of getting it dirty.


I did hit a problem with the carbs, both had their choke plunger seized solid in the carb body, which turned out to be a right pain to fix, but got there in the end. By this time, I have to admit I was getting fed up of the endless hours of cleaning and hndling icy cold oily worn out parts, but soon with the frame back, it would be time to start the reassembly.

 

While I waited for the frame, I carried on with cleaning up all the little parts to had seen better days, everything seems to take a lot longer than I expect, but thats ok, theres no rush. For example these fork caps needed work, god knows how they got to be so battered, but they looked awful, especially with clip ons, as they wouldnt be hidden beneath the bars anymore..

So with no money for replacements, I cleaned up the tops by taking a bit off in a lathe...

Then cleaned up the faces by hand, took ages lol, just needs a few minutes with a polishing mop and they'll be done..

The wheels and brake discs have been cleaned up too, with new Bridgestone tyres (BTW the tyres have been the most expensive part of the whole build to date...)

 

When I collected the frame from Vanden nr Bolton, I was happy with the quality and the price (£80), though it wasnt as good as Triple S. They also gave me three extra problems to sort out.. .
First they forgot to mask off the swingarm thread, so now I've got to find a suitable tap to clean it up. Second they haddnt protected the original chasis number plate on the headstock, ( I should've ground off the rivets and removed it before powdercoating). You live and learn, the frame number is still just legible, but the plate had curled in the heat of the oven. I ended up removing it, leaving a patch of headstock bare. The third problem was that they hadnt bothered to protect the headstock bearing seats from the bead blaster, so they would need to be replaced.

 

I needed a 20 x 1mm tap to clean out the swingarm threads, which I dont have, but I was lucky, as I popped around to a local engineering company who I use sometimes, and by chance they had the correct sized M20x1mm tap. Only took a few minutes to clean out the swing arm threads, and I got a nice cuppa too

 

I painted the barrels with hi temp satin black from Halfords, which went on ok, but it needed a few coats so far. I then decided to polish a few of the cast parts (displacement activity lol).. such as the manifolds, before starting on the valve covers. These were a pain to remove as a couple of the socket headed bolts were rounded off, and I had to drill them out, but luckily got them out without damaging the threads in the head. The manifolds look ok, but still need to be finished on a polishing mop, but that will be done when all the alloy parts have been cleaned up, I bolted them back onto the heads, just so I dont lose them in the meantime.



This is how the motor looked, still lots to do, including cleaning up the distributer, its alloy, so may polish that too. Oh and I found someone who sells replacement oil lines in stainless, so got to have them, as the originals are very tired.

Well so far, all I've done is take it apart and clean and paint and polish, nothing too interesting, but once I get the frame back on the motor, I can start on a few ideas that'll make it a bit different from a typical Guzzi.

 

The next job is to polish the valve covers, which I've been putting off for days, as its going to take ages and be very tedius. So to get me started, I set to polishing me dip stick...
Like a lot of the special sized nuts and caps on the guzzi, its made from brass, which makes it much easier to polish up, but also means they get marked easily . Here is what it looked like when I started, then a 'during' pic and finally the finished article. Took about an hour, as it was all done by hand, starting with 80 grade wet and dry, and slowly working my way up to 1000 grade, followed by polishing with autosol. It's not perfect, but it'll do.. .

 

Finally I got to the stage where the engine could go back in the frame, or rather the frame could go back on to the engine. I managed to bolt the frame back to the engine on my own, without scratching the powdercoat, it was much much easier than trying to lift an engine into a frame..

 

I then finally got around to removing the old studs on top of the gearbox, that took awhile as they didnt want to come out, till I used a blowtorch on them.


Then I did a test fit of the 'battery tray', which is an aftermarket alloy piece that came with the bike. I was warned it may need a bit of work to make it fit, but that was ok, as I had plans to mill in a few interesting grooves etc, and bevel the holes so the new bolts would fit flush. Unfortunately the mounting holes to the frame were way out. It made me double check that I'd got the frame / gearbox spacers right, but no, the motor / box was straight.

 

The next task was to fit the swingarm and bevel box, which went ok, until I stepped back to admire my work and realised that the bevel box that I'd painted in Hammerite smooth silver looked out of place, now that I'd decided to leave the motor unpainted.. Despite the extra work it would create, I couldnt live with it, so I stripped back the paint on the bevel box, and will clean up the alloy as best I can.


That done, I cleaned up the carbs, though may use an untrasonic cleaner if I can get the use of one as a favour. Just to see how it looked, I fitted the velocity stacks and mounted the carbs to the motor.. Quite pleased with the result..

I still need to replace some of the old fasteners on the bike with new stainless, including the swingarm lock nuts, as they dont look very 'cafe racer' ish and the chrome is peeling on them. I found a place called Shaw stainless.. here Chris Shaw Engineering - BMW stainless steel fasteners,

 

That day was sunny and calm, a perfect day for spraying some of the parts I've been prepping the last few days.. who needs a paint booth when you've got a stepladder, bungie cords and some sunshine


Inbetween coats, I finished rebuilding the rear master cylinder and bolted into place, another job done, still many more to go..


I was pondering what to do about the gearbox tray, and annoyed it had been so badly made that the mounting holes were way out. Then I had one of those 'duh' moments, when I turned it upside down and tried again.. it fitted much better, still not perfect, but usable. So I popped over to see my mate Jeff with yet another 'can you just...' and between drinking tea, scoffing biscuits and sorting out his laptop for him, Jeff machining out a slot in one end of the tray, so it would sit nicely against the frame cross brace and countersunk the holes for me. Now all I needed to do was to widen a couple of holes in the frame mounts slightly and it fit fine.

 

After finally sorting out the alloy battery tray and fitting the starter, I decided to test fit the Tarrozi rearsets that I bought months ago. I laid out the parts, seemed like there should be more, but we''ll see..


It soon became clear that I was short of a couple of key parts, I compared what I had with Ian's racebike (where I got the bike from) as he had Tarozzi rearset too. First a link rod on the brake side, and a splined link arm on the gearbox side... red arrows..



I guess that's what happens when you mix and match parts from different models.. The link rod wont be a big problem, I can make one, but the splined link arm will need to be found from somewhere..