The shiny new Moto Guzzi V50 Monza was ready for me to ride away. I grabbed the keys, warmed the red beastie up and wobbled gently away to get on with the tedious chore of running it in for 1500 or so miles - the pistons and gearbox take a long time to loosen up on Guzzis.
At least the low initial speeds gave me a chance to become used to the weirdness of the Monza's handling. The bike was so low and small that it was a different ballgame to most middleweights. Once used to this strange impression and the feeling of being part of a machine rather than just perched precariously atop some monster, I soon became used to the handling and found it could be thrown around with such ease that I rarely had to exert much effort - often just thinking of what I wanted to do was sufficient to get the machine through the curves. I never fell off once in the three years I had the bike.
The running in was dispensed with within a month. I set off up the local dual carriageway for a top speed trial. I was slightly miffed to find it would do no more than 110mph on the clock. Wop clocks being what they are this was probably in reality much less. I immediately blamed the exhausts and air filters, so bought some K & Ns and Norton straight through pipes. I rejetted the carbs to suit.
The transformation was amazing. The bike had seemed constipated before and this was the vindaloo that gave it a pull through! The jetting was, fortunately, spot on and the exhausts gave it a wicked bark (at least that's what I thought) and it went like greased weazel shit down a slippery drain pipe. Gone was the asthmatic sucking from the awful airbox and the barely amplified wheezing from the silencers. Now it accelerated well from anywhere in the rev range and would rev out in top gear. The latter ability was later enhanced by fitment of a full fairing from Sprint Manufacturing.
Shortly after buying the bike I took the servicing away from the dealer. They had tightened one exhaust valve clearance down to ziltch and it burnt out on the way home. I took the head off and when I went back to the shop with the offending item they refused to accept liability because I had taken it apart myself, claiming that I must have thus caused the fault to appear! I never let them touch it again after that!
The Monza went on many long runs with lots of camping gear on the back and coped well with my vicious riding and throttle happiness. To say that I give machines a hard time is an understatement. Even the relatively lightly sprung and poorly damped shocks didn't cause too much of a frightener.
One problem that kept occurring was with the points. To call them quick wear would be a piece of completely unwarranted praise - I was convinced that they were not really made of metal at all such was the frequency of adjustment required to keep the motor in tune. Fitting Lucas, Prince of Darkness, ignition seemed a good idea. Easy to install and cheap enough, the only problem was that most of the performance disappeared. The top speed of 125mph was reduced to a pathetic 116mph at a stroke. Had I the spare dosh I would've tried Piranha ignition which is rumoured to work better.
Even so, this was fast enough to lose PC Porker in a 1.6 Ford Slugmaster after he picked me up doing an indicated 110mph. Admittedly a blast around the local housing estate was needed to fully confuse my pursuer. I was able to hide the bike behind a Volvo in the pub car park and spent the next ten minutes watching the police car speeding around in circles with the blue light flashing crazily.
Apart from the points, the aircooled vee twin motor was easy enough to service, the valves easily accessible and the OHV nature of the motor meant tedious camchain adjustments were not required, although fitment of an auto tensioner for the short length of chain between crank and engine mounted cams is possible.
Clutches will last for a long time if treated with a modicum of care or go very quickly if seriously abused. Clutch and gearbox problems required engine removal but this is by no means difficult - just remember to grease the engine bolts before replacing them or you'll end up with the engine seized into the frame. The engine likes frequent oil changes and prefers Mobil oils. The UJ is the most frequent problem; despite claims that it's maintenance free, a careful owner will either soak it in oil frequently or pack with grease and, er, pray. Alternators and stators are a bit suspect but rewinds are cheapish, which is just as well as new bits are very expensive.
I had many, many epic rides on the V50 Monza, but that's not to say that life was a bowl of oriental cherries. There were problems...the shaft drive bevel box shed an internal bolt which shot through the outer casing. EP140 oil shot all over the rear tyre. I was a mere 100 miles from home! The slithering and rectum disturbing ride to 3X was bloody interesting, especially the corner bits...
Another time, the front fork damping disappeared on a long sweeper at 100mph whilst I was racing a mate on another Monza. What a couple of donkeys. We both went out of control at the same speed and I nearly hit a box-jockey at a closing speed of 160mph. Gulp!
If there was ever a testament to the forgiving nature of a light bike, it was the front wheel blowout at an indicated 120mph that proved it. Bike wobbling like a pissed rhino on five tons of speed, tank slapper all over the dual carriageway, with cars actually overtaking me. After about a mile of epileptic wobbling and weaving, much to my amazement, I came to a halt without dropping the bike.
Wet weather riding and handling is one area where the bike will show up much bigger motorcycles. Combining its surefooted nature with a lack of wheel sliding power meant it could out distance much more powerful bikes. The shaft's universal joint caused the final demise of this otherwise fine and frantic machine. Its graceful exit through the gearbox whilst taking out 3rd and 4th gear was more than my wallet could handle.
So it was bye-bye V50, not to mention much financial distress and the sadness of losing a bike which could give so much.....boot grinding, peg scraping, manic middleweight fun. I now have a 850 Le Mans which is much faster but demands the removal of curly wigs and red noses before riding.
Fuel consumption for the Monza worked out at between 50 to 60mpg no matter how barking mad or slowly it was ridden. There's no doubt that its lack of weight contributed to good tyre wear, rear covers lasting for at least 8000 miles on a sticky tyre and fronts going for 12000 miles.
The linked front and rear brakes were good, and allowed empty headed riding tactics to be employed to the full. Brake pad wear of the triple discs depends entirely on riding technique, so can be good or bad. Finish is not crap, the owner's care often is. Mine nearly won a concours prize with 27000 miles of abuse on the clock. One thing that can cause a knackered appearance is the sidestand which waits until you've turned your back to allow the machine to fall over!
Useful accessories for the less penniless are a rack and full endurance type, twin headlamp fairing - the two cibies are very useful for reminding selfish oncoming mobile greenhouse steerers that they have not dipped their lights. It's also worth joining the Guzzi Club for reasonable spares discounts, technical tips, etc.
A well cared for example - it's very important to let the motor warm up for five minutes before going crazy - is well worth hunting down. I'm tempted to sell the Le Mans and buy another Monza just for the fun of it. Pass me the stick on grin, please, someone.
Tim Hicks
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£300 doesn't buy much, these days. In this case it was sufficient to purchase a rat, 47000 mile, Moto Guzzi 500 Monza. Anyone who doesn't believe that Italian iron corrodes should've clocked this 1983 machine, then a mere six years old. The only reason I was willing to buy it was that the engine ran and there was a new MOT.
The Monza had been used as a despatch hack for six months in London. The linked brakes still worked well, if they hadn't neither machine nor rider would've lasted long. The foot pedal operated one of the front and the rear disc, the handlebar lever using the other disc. For most of the time a gentle dab on the foot pedal was all that was needed for very secure and rapid braking. The Monza weighs well under 400lbs, which helps its controllability and gives the brakes an easy time (they were derived from the big Guzzis).
With a working engine and brakes I was able to run around London but not without a lot of strange looks from the populace and the police. The worn engine was gutless right through the rev range, needing much use of the equally fatigued gearbox. Not really recommended, I needed all my wits about me to survive the cut and thrust traffic; didn't really want to play Russian roulette with the gearbox.
After about a month of such self-abuse, the front wheel started wobbling, the whole bike doing a passable imitation of a Charring Cross tramp far gone on a couple of bottles of meths. I thought the bare of tread Arrowmax was to blame, but kicking the forks revealed that the steering head bearings were shot.
I thought I might as well put in some new fork seals, which led to massive cursing as I tried to remove the old ones. While the forks were off I decided to whip the tank, panels and seat off. I used a wire-brush to take off the frame's rust then put on a coat of Hammerite. The corrosion was so predominant that by the time I'd finished the whole frame was repainted. The tank turned out to be all but rusted through on the underside, so a better one was obtained from a breaker. The other cycle parts were patched up as necessary.
Cosmetically, that just left the wheels and motor both covered in layers of white crud that took my son about a week to clean off. His enthusiasm for playing with motorcycles had waned markedly by the time the engine was ready for a Solvol job, so I did that myself. A couple of tyres completed the Guzzi's renovation.
The sun was shining bright, so as a reward I took my son for a ride out in the countryside. The engine was still gutless (despite having a full service), but the bike would do about 80mph before running out of steam. It was on one such sortie that the back end started waggling around, a formidable thudding noise rumbling through the chassis. My son was almost pissing himself in panic at this untoward behaviour. The dreaded universal joint had gone, a common Guzzi malaise.
I'd joined the AA, so it was just a question of phoning them up and waiting around. I could see my son's thoughts turning irrevocably towards a nice little car. I was a bit doubtful about spending money renovating the Guzzi but the two breakers I phoned only offered £100 to £150.
A week or two later we were back on the road. The Guzzi developed a British twin tendency towards undoing bolts. The non-standard left-hand switch cluster fell apart, a mirror fell off and I lost a sidepanel. Vibration mostly hit the footrests, although with a 90 degree vee-twin there should not have been much of it - it was a sign of worn internals more than anything else.
Looking over the electrics after I'd bought a CD175 switch cluster revealed that it had been rewired and all the electrical components replaced with Japanese stuff. This would've been reassuring was not the battery low on acid with signs of white crud on the plates. It still fired the engine up on the starter, but only after the kind of churning and coughing that suggested I had a massive diesel motor below my knees. The light was useless for out of town riding, but the potential lack of reliability meant that it wasn't much of a problem until the bulbs started blowing. Again, down to the vibes.
A sign of the Monza's intransigence was 30 to 35mpg in town riding that was hardly frantic. The tendency of second gear to slip into neutral didn't help, sending the motor soaring. Still, it was quite useful in city traffic, agility coming from low weight and relative narrowness. I could've done without the clip-ons under these circumstances but the pressure on my wrists was bearable for an hour or two at a time.
Performance became interesting when one of the cylinders started cutting out. Trying to extract the spark plug proved cataclysmic, leaving half the body embedded in the cylinder head. Undoing the cylinder head nuts was equally fraught as everything appeared to have corroded in solidly. A couple of broken studs later revealed a cylinder head with a crack running through the combustion chamber.
It didn't really matter, the edges of the valves had disappeared and it looked unlikely that the spark plug would ever be extracted. The piston was scored, the bore marginal but the crankshaft bearings showed no signs of slack. A secondhand head and some cleaning up had the bike back on the road.
Vibration had diminished a little but performance was no better. The bike had a little surprise up its sleeve after I caned it in the lower gears. The throttle cable stuck in the fully open position. Charging through Central London at maximum revs nearly stopped my ticker working. I instinctively grabbed the clutch which sent the engine berserk. Before it exploded into a trillion pieces I wrenched the ignition key to the off position.
During that manoeuvre the little vee had meandered way off the required course, suddenly finding itself without motive power as huge cars braked harshly behind. A few cages back-ended each other but the lead car managed to avoid me. I churned the Guzzi over on the starter frantically, hoping to make my escape before I was strung up from the nearest lamp-post by enraged psycopaths.....no chance, but the police arrived before any serious damage was done to my person. Cables on Guzzis are another sore point, they often last less than a 1000 miles.
As if testing my credibility, the little Guzzi then ran relentlessly for the next three months and 1600 miles. It couldn't be called fast as it was reluctant to pull the taller gears and would only do 75mph when screamed through the first three gears before being punched into fourth. The change often made large gunshot-like noises which made me jump in the seat, thinking something was going to lock up solid. And fuel stayed firmly around 30mpg.
Other consumables were modestly worn. The Arrowmaxes didn't seem to wear at all, the brake pads lost about half their depth in 4000 miles and the shaft drive didn't need any attention. Oil, however, was drunk in great gulps, to the tune of a litre every 100 miles - so heavy that I never bothered to do an oil change.
The one time I ran the Guzzi up the M1 I nearly died of boredom as it whirred away noisily, refusing to do more than 75mph even with a bit of a wind behind us. I came back down the A-roads, rather more fun as the chassis allowed a lot of weaves and some head shaking on bumpy bend exits. I've tried newer V50's that handled really well (with uprated rear shocks), so my bike was probably in need of some new bearings and suspension. Still, it wasn't actually dangerous, using the engine as part of the frame ensured its strength.
Back in London the engine began to protest at my continual abuse by refusing to start. This could happen whether it was hot or cold. After flattening the battery, putting it on the charger for a couple of hours it would then churn into life first press of the button. That wasn't too bad if it happened at home but a pain if it occurred in the middle of town. I never tracked down the cause of this but it made the Guzzi so totally unpredictable that it became useless as a reliable means of transport.
When someone offered me £275 I didn't need much persuading. V50s aren't bad bikes when mileage is low, but poor build quality meant that the high mileage stuff isn't really worth the effort.
Steve Ludlow