The 1981 Morini Maestro turned up in '89 in quite a wretched condition. Neglect and decay ruled but somehow there was a new MOT certificate and the bike could be ridden home. The mileage was a meaningless 9800; either the speedo or cable had broken a long time ago. There were no less than seven owners.
This 72 degree vee twin first made an appearance in 350 form, almost gaining instant classic status. The 500, I found, was less of a heady revver than the smaller vee, not wanting to go much over 8000 revs. It was perhaps foolish to try riding a bike so hard within minutes of taking ownership, but I had 50 miles to do and preferred for the thing to fall apart in town than in the middle of nowhere.
The front headlamp was a hefty item that looked like it'd been stolen from an old BMW. It cut a brilliant swathe through the darkened landscape.....for the first thirty miles then the battery started to go flat; the generator wasn't putting out sufficient power to keep up with the demands of the lights and ignition. The rest of the journey was done on the pilot light.
Upon examination the front bulb had an 80W main beam, more power than was put out by the generator. A largish battery was hidden in the degutted space behind the sidepanels - it was necessary to charge the battery up overnight if any distance in the dark was going to be done the next day. The wiring was a spaghetti junction feeding into non-standard regulator and rectifier. The original ignition switch was long gone, a car style switch hidden under the bottom of the sidepanel, sited perfectly to pick up any stray water.
Italian electrics of this era were always rotten, problematic and abstruse. After the first year or so, the rider became so fed up with their lack of faithfulness that they were pulled out, replaced with Japanese stuff from breakers. Sometimes, mismatches between electrical components could lead to rapid electrical failure, the whole system burning out.
Judging by the excess of ancient wires running all around the corroded chassis, my Morini was about to expire in a big way. But as long as I kept the battery topped up with an extra charge every other day, didn't ride far in the dark and ignored the indicators and horn, there were no immediate electrical horrors. That was a treat stored up for the future.
No, what caused me much more concern was the front brake caliper. The pistons kept seizing on and off, leaving me with little idea of how much braking force I was going to have available. The disc was so thin it flapped in the wind, forming a coating of rust with the slightest bit of moisture in the air. The forks had gaiters that hid almost perfect chrome; a revelation that suggested to my, by then, paranoid mind that the bike had recently been involved in such a vicious front end crash that the forks had been replaced.
That led me to tearing the artfully shaped and dreadfully rusted tank off. It fell apart in my hands, corroded all the way through. The stink of petrol lingered for weeks in my clothes and on my skin. The frame had a lot of surface rust but looked fundamentally straight. I ended up going all over the bike, cleaning up, proofing against further corrosion and painting or polishing as appropriate.
Morini parts were predictably rare in breakers, but looking through the parts bins turned up a reasonable caliper and disc that fitted straight in (off, I think, a Ducati). Early 350s had much nicer drum brakes than the later discs which tended to be more trouble than they were worth. The 500 only weighed 350lbs and wasn't good for more than the ton, so the disc, when I fixed it, was more than adequate but never very friendly; there was too much remoteness for that.
There was hardly any brake dive because the forks were fearsomely stiff, not giving any ground to road bumps unless there was an excess of speed and an especially large jolt. The rear shocks were not much better. How you react to this depends on how you've been bought up! I found the directness of sensation from the tyres inspiring to an heroic extent. I could take the battering to my body in exchange for knowing exactly how the Pirelli tyres were reacting to the road. The Morini was similar to old Ducati singles in how it interacted with the highway.
Outrageous angles of lean were the norm with this light, narrow and compact machine. It could comfortably be flung around on the edges of its tyres. Fun, fun, fun.....well it would've been had not the motor given out enough vibes to deaden feet and hands within 20 miles of hard charging. The frenzied, nerve-racking feel of the engine, even when it wasn't revved hard, came as a surprise. I expected a more sublime feel, as per Harley Davidson, but the little vee rumbled and growled to a unique tune of its own.
Unique, too, was its reaction to failing wheel bearings. Most bikes throw diabolical speed wobbles when the bearings start to go, but the Morini went into a gentle weave for 30 miles. True, by the time I reached home, the grumbling noises had reached a crescendo that disturbed pedestrians; as did my apparent lack of control, the bike veering from one side of the road to the other as if I was drunk out of my head on rice whisky. It was much easier to hammer in the new bearings than extract the old, as they had corroded solidly into the cast wheels.
It was whilst mucking around with the rear wheel that I found the swinging arm bearings allowed a bit of sideways movement. It was pretty obvious that some large washers would do the trick. By the time I'd finally extracted the spindle it was banana shaped and the bushes were all cracked up. The swinging arm had some deep corrosion scars, but I reassured myself that I had got to them in time.
The seat had showed signs of cracking up, so additional metal was riveted to what was left of the base. The foam, somewhere along the line, had already been reinforced, the riding position as comfortable as most bikes with a sensible handlebar. The engine was only really good for 75mph cruising; a speed at which the vibes faded to a tolerable level (65 and 85mph being very rancorous).
The engine had a gearbox that was so refined it suggested it was new and a clutch so malign it suggested a 100,000 miles. The drive chain completed the transmission by trying to leap off the hooked sprockets. There were, on close inspection, an excess of tight spots and when the oil was thrown off there was lots of corrosion on the sideplates. It was an accident looking for somewhere to happen. Rather than sell off the chain to the local Skinheads, I spent an interesting afternoon removing both the tight spots and rust, then letting it soak in Linklyfe for an hour or two. I used a hotplate in the garage which blew the fuse a couple of times until I found a nail of the correct size.
The chain lasted all of 1200 miles before it snapped, simultaneously with the 'new' speedo cable. A new sprocket and chain set cost almost fifty quid and turned out to last less than 10,000 miles. I felt really ripped off but what can you do, that's the way of the modern world. Even with the new stuff, chain adjustments were frequent and awkward.
Rain, ice and salted roads caused immediate havoc to the chassis and engine running. Even emptying a can of WD40 over the motor failed to stop the stammering. It was hell on wet roads as the power would suddenly pick up, kicking the back tyre out sideways. The ride to work became a suicide mission. New coils worked wonders but in real downpours, the pathetic front guard would throw so much water at the engine that great clouds of steam engulfed my shaking body. A weird if not very wonderful form of water-cooling.
The corrosion needed a daily dose of TLC to keep it within the bounds of reason; I always knew how far I could let it decay as the local plod would pull me over when its resemblance to a drowned rat became too close. So frequent had these occurrences become at one stage that I had perfected a suitably servile attitude. How could you argue with cops who spent more time polishing their shoes than I did the Morini?
It was a hard bike to catch in traffic but I didn't give the cops a difficult time as they already had all my details in their computer. If they couldn't catch me they'd send the summons, with an added list of offences, through the post. The Maestro (stop smirking) would wend its way through tiny gaps, take on bikes twice its size during races in congested traffic as well as giving 60mpg on an engine that had done too many miles.
Apart from one cam belt, 1000 mile maintenance sessions and one of the carbs cracking up, the engine proved reliable for one year and 15000 miles before I sold the Morini off. I had the feeling that the motor was going to explode and the frame rust right through not long afterwards but the new owner never came back to beat the shit out of me, so it must've been alright for a few more miles than I suspected.
The dealer managed to give me a belt for an early 350 and refused to exchange it until I turned nasty. Figure about 8000 miles for the belt life on the 500, not nearly so long lasting as on the 350. Again, I felt a bit cheated as it was an OHV design with old fashioned pushrods, so the cams should really have been gear driven (even Triumph managed that in the fifties). Morini developed a flat cylinder head design with the combustion chamber inverted in the top of the piston. It seemed to aid fuel economy but didn't do much for the dull power characteristics of the 500. The 350 had an altogether more interesting blend of torque and power from its high revving little engine. Not surprisingly, the 350 sells for much more dosh than the 500 (though, at a pinch, the engines could be swapped).
Having the carb crack up was a first for me. It was obviously the galvanizing vibration that got to it in the end. I thought that it was just the motor stammering at first but when some flames shot out at my legs I knew it was a bit more serious. I quickly pulled over, causing a cager to jump out of his seat and scream lots of abuse. Throwing the bike against a wall, I turned the tap off and leapt back. Luckily, my Levi jeans were only singed rather than in flames. (Lucky? The bloody things cost almost as much as a set of tyres - needed, incidentally, every 11000 miles). After five minutes the flames spluttered out. That left me with a bike with one cracked carb bowl and melted fuel lines, some 15 miles from home.
After an hour on the phone, someone with a roofrack agreed to turn up. Four hours later he finally found me, having investigated every pub en route. He was one of those twenty stone louts who supped up the beer like it was water. He hurled the Morini on top of the rust heap that passed for an automobile only in the vaguest sense. A few bits of string were deemed suitable for tying down the Maestro. Halfway home petrol started dripping through the roof, which was ignored as we were rushing for last orders at our local. Skidding into the car park there was a loud explosion as the car's silencer was torn off by the bump at the entrance whilst the Morini shot down on the bonnet and slithered on to the tarmac, a few feet ahead of the car.
Apart from a wrecked petrol tank and some minor dents the Morini survived much better than the car's silencer which had disintegrated. I was forced to push the Morini home as the car driver was too pissed off to chance taking the bike on his roof again. I had to buy a new carb as used ones proved elusive.
What I hadn't realised was that the flames had melted the insulation on some of the wiring. After putting the bike back on the road I was happily doing the daily commute. Coming home one dark night, enjoying the fierce blaze from the front light, everything suddenly went completely dead. Clutch in, I coasted off the road, a strong smell of burning coming from behind the sidepanels. After the first inflammatory escapade I kept a fire extinguisher aerosol in the top box. I employed this before the fire went completely out of control. The cost was high, the shorting out had blown all the black boxes and burnt out the generator. Used bits helped keep the cost under £100.
Any bike that becomes that accident prone is trying to tell you something. Both the engine and frame are quite impressive, lots of ancillary bits are plain nasty, and outright performance's no better than a CB400N. The Maestro's quite cheap and rather cheerful but I bought one of the early 350's.
James Craven