Moto Guzzi

The Italian company of Moto Guzzi was founded by Carlo Guzzi, Giorgio Parodi and Giovanni Ravelli who were Air Corps friends. After Ravelli was killed in an flying accident the company adopted the air corps eagle symbol in his honour. They first produced motorcycles towards the end of the First World War and went on to become Italy’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles

The California was first produced in 1971 as a special version of the Moto Guzzi V70, and Californias are still being made today.

JJU 71V was first registered in April 1980 and has the 844cc T3 V Twin engine and is a mark 1 California known as a Calli 1.

I purchased the machine at the end of August 2003 after it had been standing in the previous owners garage since the last road tax ran out in September 1999.

On the good side, a month before being laid up Cali had received a major service and with only a few miles added the oil would be reasonably clean. On the bad side, the headlight was not working and several of the idiot lights only worked when they felt like it - and although the engine would start it would only turn over when it was in a good mood. The rubber brake hoses were also beyond safe use. The original panniers had been removed from the machine a long time before the last owner had purchased it and he had made the metal panniers which came with Cali when I got her.

The first job was to get the electrics working properly. Italian electrics are supposed to be really bad, but with mainly Bosch components which are very reliable, there should be no problem. The faulty headlight was traced to a bad connection and after replacing all the connectors and a couple of bulbs and after hours of frustrating fiddling, the electrics were sorted, which sounds a lot easier than it really was.

The next job was the brakes. Cali has a linked braking system where the foot brake operates the front left disc and also the rear brake and the handlebar lever operates the right front disc only. The original rubber hoses were beyond safe use and so I purchased a set of Goodridge Stainless Steel hoses which once fitted would give a much better feel and braking than the original rubber ones did. At the same time the brake fluid was also changed for the brown muck that was in the system.

I ordered a sump gasket and oil filter from the Moto Guzzi dealers, with my next task being to change the oil and filter. When Cali had been serviced the oil they used was a semi-synthetic so it would degrade to the same amount as normal mineral oil would have done. There is a car type cartridge filter which for some unknown reason is fitted inside the sump. So after draining the oil and removing a dozen or so Allen head screws the sump was remove to show nothing bad and no nasty congealed oil and after a clean and the new filter added the sump was replace and then filled with fresh semi-synthetic oil.

After a good check all around and the insurance sorted, I booked Cali into a motorcycle garage for an MOT at the end of February 2004, which I am glad to say she passed with no problems at all.

Since then I have done over 500 trouble free miles. I have also improved the cosmetics by replacing the steel exhaust pipes which were very rusted and pitted with stainless steel ones and I have made lids for the pannier boxes which include locks and re-painted them and added some white stripes to make look more like they belong to the machine. I was also lucky to find a brand new original pair of Voxbel horns which I have also fitted.

The pictures above show the finished machine ready to cruise.

Bernard Robinson
9/5/04