- Trans-Rear End Breather: A breather was installed in the middle of the drive shaft housing. This was done by the origional owner and apparently handles any excess pressure from the rear end or the transmission. It's a fitting attatched to the outer drive shaft housing with a hose that travels up under the seat and back down a bit.
- Rear Shocks: Though you can't see it behind the leather saddle bags, there are two very sweet looking chrome custom rear shocks. They were fabricated by American Suspension who makes racing and cruiser shocks. Preload and rebound is adjustable and it's the type of shock that is nitrigen charged. If I wanted to get real fancy I could have added on remote nitrogen reservours, but that would be "just" a bit too high tech for a 25 year old bike. ;-)
- Front Brakes: If there's anything that will slow your riding down, it's brakes. Poor brakes will make you ride slower because you'll be afraid you'll hit something if your traveling too fast. Well here's my best modification. The bike came stock with a 15 mm inner bore master cylinder with single front disc brake. It took a whole lot of hand pressure to stop the bike, so I replaced it with a 11mm brembo master cylinder and now it's no problem to lock up the front brakes. I've also added steel braided brake lines.
It only takes three fingers to lock up the brakes. On modern sport bikes it's not unusual to slide the front wheel with a one finger pull. Still, more than adequate for this bike! And allows me to push the bike to it's limits and feel secure that I have the brakes to slow the bike down when necessary.
- Headlight: I replaced the dim stock unit for an auto high wattage one and it works great! I just went to an auto store with the stock unit and the bike takes a standard car headlight.
That's it for now. The more I ride this bike, the more it grows on me. It is by far my favorite bike.
Doc Wong's Guzzi Page
Cruiser Cornering Techniques