Moto Guzzi V50 III
Moto Guzzi V50 | |
Manufacturer | |
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Also called | V50 mk 2, V50C, V 50 C, V50 Monza, V50 III, V50II, V 50 Monza, V 50 III, V 50 II, V 50 |
Production | 1981 - |
Engine | Four stroke, 90° V twin, longitudinally mounted, OHV, 2 valve per cylinder. |
Compression ratio | 10.4:1 |
Ignition | Battery powered inductive |
Transmission | 5 Speed |
Frame | Duplex spine type |
Suspension | Front: Telehydraulic gas forks Rear: Swinging arm fork with hydraulic gas shock absorbers |
Brakes | Front: 2x 260mm discs Rear: Single 235mm disc |
Front Tire | 3.60-18 |
Rear Tire | 4.10-18 |
Weight | 158 kg / 348 lbs (dry), |
Fuel Capacity | 16 Liters / 4.3 US gal |
Manuals | Service Manual |
Engine[edit | edit source]
The engine was a Air cooled cooled Four stroke, 90° V twin, longitudinally mounted, OHV, 2 valve per cylinder.. The engine featured a 10.4:1 compression ratio.
Drive[edit | edit source]
Power was moderated via the Dry single plate.
Chassis[edit | edit source]
It came with a 3.60-18 front tire and a 4.10-18 rear tire. Stopping was achieved via 2x 260mm discs in the front and a Single 235mm disc in the rear. The front suspension was a Telehydraulic gas forks while the rear was equipped with a Swinging arm fork with hydraulic gas shock absorbers. The V50 III was fitted with a 16 Liters / 4.3 US gal fuel tank. The bike weighed just 158 kg / 348 lbs.
Photos[edit | edit source]
Overview[edit | edit source]
Moto Guzzi V 50III
LIVING WITH A BIKE AS SMALL AND pretty as Moto Guzzi's new V50 Monza should have been dead easy, especially as it tended to attract torrents of attention whenever and wherever I stopped to rest its mere 360-odd pounds on the prop stand. Strangers; men who'd given up riding many years ago, would limp across to admire the Monza's lack of rocket thrusters (for lifting excessively heavy bikes from rest) or hydro-assisted servo retarders (for stopping same), or to comment on its sheer Italian elegance. Unfortunately, there was also always some scruffy smart-arse who'd look pityingly at the little 500 and say: 'Bit slow innit?' It was a refrain I'd heard before the first time from a guy trying to sell me a really exotic V-twin 500 (Spell it Pantah) but if /was blind to the £700 price differential (£900 on a Duke not pre-registered to beat the last budget), my bank manager wasn't. And anyway, how slow is slow? Around 1 lOmph isn't an unrespectable top end for an ordinary-priced 500. The Monza certainly isn't terrifyingly quick but Guzzi have never pretended their V50s should be labelled: 'Heroes and half-wits only.' But when a bike gets a reputation for being slow, it sticks like a leech. Back in 1978, the solitary V50 Mkl tin warthog which made it into the UK struggled up to 100 point nought nought miles an hour and called it a day. Seeing as the price was said to be £1,750, and seeing as the V50 was a brand-new line from Guzzi and it was Italian, it was therefore supposed to Exotic (ie not Brit or Jap), Expensive (half-wits and heroes could have a GS1000 for the same money) and everything with goes with the first two. Which is fast. Which it wasn't. Guzzi got round the problem of trying to convince people that everything which was red and Italian wasn't necessarily a Ferrari by bringing in the Mkll V50, which tended to be blue, wasn't any faster but only cost around thirteen hundred notes. As far as appearances went, they still looked like warthogs to me but lots of the world's smaller inhabitants found the diminutive 500s an acceptable alternative to large, heavy, competitors like Honda's CX500. And then came the Mklll. Newer, faster, and (in the case of the Monza) much prettier. Its powerplant is built by famous Italian robots and the whole V50 has benefited from more of the constant up-dating De Tomaso and his gang are carrying out on the 10-year-old design. Altogether, there are more than 160 new numbers in the Mklll V50 parts list but major changes to the motor concentrate on the ignition and breathing in order to bring the Monza's output up to 48bhp four more horses than its immediate ancestor, the Mkll The Dell'Orto carbs are now of 28mm choke in place of the former 24mm jobs; inlet valves have also grown 2mm to match. As well as helping the 490cc 90-degree twin to suck through more gas at high rpm, these changes, coupled with a lowered compression ratio 10.8:1 to 10.4:1, are said to improve the Guzzi's tractability at lower engine speeds. The most surprising change is the switch from electronic ignition to contact breakers seemingly a retrograde step at a time when point ignition is being abandoned wholesale by everyone else. But according to Coburn and Hughes' service manager, Dave Martin, the factory found that fitting contact breakers scrounged from the Benelli line improved the mid-range flat spot suffered by earlier models. Only differences between the Monza and its 'touring' sister MklII, apart from the styling, are in the pipes the Monza's less restrictive zorsts give it an extra hp or thereabouts and in the gearing. A taller primary drive gear on the sporty one give extra mph, or so they say. Talking of drive, Guzzi claim to have eradicated the problem of shaft drive oilseal failures by bringing in new assembly procedures. All the tech-talk gets forgetten, though, when you get round to approaching a fire-engine red Monza and swinging a leg over the narrow Le Mans lookalike seat. Smallness is the overwhelming impression. It's just a touch over two feet wide, 31 inches from bum to ground and weighs-in at a mere 3641b complete with half a tank of fuel and a full load of lubricants. Starting would appear to be an art requiring long practice. A cold-start lever lives under the left-hand intake stub and you can have it on or off, nowhere in between. According to the book, you pull on the cold start tab, pull in the clutch lever, give the throttle a couple of squirts and thumb the awkWardly placed starter button. If you are rewarded with a burst of life from either pot, good luck. There is then a juggling act to perform with throttle and start lever to keep the thing turning until both pots are truly alight. Woe betide anyone who gets it going on a cold(ish) night and then lets it die. It then takes a lot of persuading back to life. Luckily the battery stood up well to prolonged starter motor treatment just as well because there's no kickstarter. Once running, the pipes emit a melodic burble until you boot it into first gear and give it a handful of throttle, whereupon it gives out a soulful growl, rising to a near-wail. Ears used to the flat splutter of oriental twins may find the Monza loud but when we noise-tested it at MIRA, it clocked up less than half the noise output of a GPZ1100 or an XS1100 big bikes, 'tis true, but neither renowned for rorty exhaust notes.
What quickly impressed me both at home and during a brief ride
on the Monza in Italy was the relaxed way it gathered speed. Running the tacho
needle up to around six grand before changing up made for unhurried-feeling
acceleration, but glance at the speedo expecting to see about 45mph and like as
not you'll discover the needle climbing purposefully past sixty. The Monza
didn't mind being ridden down to about 2,000rpm solo, and though it felt
sluggish pulling away, the speedo needle would wind round the dial pretty
quickly. Two-up riding generally called for downshifting before 3,000rpm.
So relaxed was the Monza's style of progress that I became
convinced the speedo was telling me blatant lies. Strolling down the motorway,
two up, the bike was rock steady and felt as though it was hardly moving, yet
the Veglia clock was reading 85mph. Couldn't be.
But a check on the speedo at MIRA proved that the bike had
been doing at least 82. A combination of factors help fool you about cruising
speeds. The handlebar fairing does its job really well so well that we only
recorded a 3mph difference between top speeds sitting up and prone. Deflected
air strikes the rider's face but there's little turbulence and none of the wind
pressure on chest and shoulders which can make prolonged high speed riding real
Hell.
Engine and exhaust noise dies away at constant speed and
there's hardly any vibration, so the bike feels happy to lope along at all but
its highest speeds in a reassuringly unburstable fashion. Last, but by no means
least, is the stability factor. The Monza never reaches a point where you start
worrying it'll do something silly if you have to make a sudden move at more than
70mph.
After several fairly long motorway hauls, it was clear it'd
roll along at a rapid pace without feeling nearly as busy as you'd have expected
in such a small bike.
But there's no question that it's heads-down no-nonsense solo
ear'oling that the Monza's best at. Its power-to-weight ratio makes it a real
joy in back road twistery. You can shoot into bends as fast as you dare, only to
find the Monza could have gone faster and by the time anything on the V50
touches down, you've already fallen off. Maybe one day I'll adjust to the
helpless horrors frequently encountered when trying to push a heavy multi
through even reasonable twistery, but until then give me a bike like the Monza
every time.
It lets you know that you are in control you can even
change your mind about your course when you're cranked right over in the middle
of a bend.
Guzzi's excellent linked braking system which apportions
pressure 75/25 per cent to left front and rear discs each time you tramp on the
foot lever helps a lot. It is almost impossible to lock the back.wheel, while in
situations calling for very heavy braking, the handlebar lever feeds the other
front disc into the equation. The Brembo discs lagged in the wet, though, and of
course they go rusty at the drop of a hat in the rain but who cares, the system
is just so good.
In traffic, a bike as small as the Monza is perfect for
nipping in and out of gaps, slipping up between all but the most closely spaced
lines of queue-bound four wheelers. Unfortunately, the test bike exhibited a
tendency to stall too easily throughout the test, and it sometimes followed up
this act by obstinately refusing to start while holding up the line of vehicles
I'd j ust nipped past. Most embarrassing.
Never mind. The Monza's so light that I simply picked it up an
placed it on the pavement with one hand while laughingly explaining to irate
motorists that I just wanted to show them the new Moto Guzzi. You don't believe
me?
Six and a half feet tall readers and 18 stone food lovers will
probably need no reminding of the problems arising from teaming big bikers and
small bikes, and riders much bigger than l'il ol' average (5' 10") me should try
out their porportions on a Monza before rushing into ownership.
The dropped bars and high-set footpegs make for a comfortable
rising position but one which leaves not a lot of daylight twixt elbow and knee.
With this last point in mind, I entertained a few misgivings
about taking the Monza on a two-up trip to Wales to celebrate my birthday in the
town they named before me. Would there be enough carrying space? Would there be
room for two? Would it make the trip in one piece? The answers were no, no and
no but things weren't as bad as that sounds.
Our average-sized throwover panniers proved too big to cope
with the narrow seat and its close relationship to the upswept silencers,
resulting in our taking merely what we needed in a tankbag, rather than what we
thought we needed.
Janet, that's my girlfriend, pronounced the seat firm but
comfortable but the pillion footrests were a bit too high (not that there's room
for them anywhere else) and she was glad of a break to stretch her legs every
50-60 miles. Only the brave should attempt long, non-stop, two-up dashes on a
Monza.
On the motorway, the bike quickly wound up to a happy 80 or so
but on the single carriageway roads past Oxford it was necessary to make full
use of the gears to keep the motor spinning around six grand to maintain steady
progress against hills and headwinds. In traffic moving at 50-60mph, the bike
felt happier and more responsive in fourth gear, top gear being better for
steady cruising at 65mph or more.
Overtaking lorries and coaches safely two up was definitely
not a fifth gear job. At best it was a fourth cog do, often a third, but once
past six and a half grand, the tacho needle dived for the 8,000rpm redline,
making for entirely acceptable, if not exactly shattering, acceleration. It
rained on and off all the way to the Wye Valley, our first stop, but the
Michelin M38 tires coped with wet and damp roads as well as they did dry ones.
It was only after I'd been out for a highly illegal attempt to find out how fast
the bike could go that a friendly Monmouth dealer pointed out that the M38s were
only 'R' rated; i.e. up to 95mph.
The rating actually refers to sustained high speed suitability
but it may be a hint as to what kind of sustained high speed Guzzi think their
V50s should be held at.
Over the next three days, the Monza was subjected to a pretty
gruelling tour of the Forest of Dean and the Brecon Beacons on all the most
hilly, tortuous back lanes we could find. Pulling up long, steep, winding hills
and dropping down badly surfaced tracks, littered with gravel, loose stones and
sheep shit, into damp misty valley bottoms, it never missed a beat or put a foot
wrong. The linked braking was a godsend in wet, loose-surfaced corners, though
when unfamiliarity led me to grab the handlever alone in one emergency involving
a fluffed getaway and a pushy bus driver, the weak response was nigh disastrous.
The first problem we suffered on the trip was with the air
suspension. When I first came across the Guzzi suspension, it was with a surge
of approval that I eyed the note on the sealed-air-chamber teles and rear shocks
to the effect that recommended pressure was around 40psi front and rear.
This seemed such a good thing compared with the fiddly
Japanese systems running at about lOpsi, which drop dead if you wave a garage
air line under their nose, that I thought air suspension had come of age.
Unfortunately there was no way the Schrader valves on the
Guzzi forks would accept the connectors on either the bicycle pump or air lines
we tried on them. Unless you can find some way of getting an extra O ring seal
into the airline connector, it won't make a proper seal on the shock valve and
you can't get enough air in. Ordinary common-or-garden pressure gauges present a
similar problem.
This became clear when I attempted to establish the suspension
pressures and merely succeeded in leaving myself with none. Losing the air
reduced the springing, giving a flat, soggy feel to the handling two-up and
transmitting jolts through the frame to rider and passenger, while it wobbled
and weaved though not seriously under acceleration and braking when ridden
solo.
Landlines between South Wales and Luton buzzed with reverse
charge telephone calls and it was eventually suggested that the forks and shocks
should be pumped up to about 120psi and then the connector should be whipped off
double quick in the hope that some air pressure would remain in the sealed
chambers at the top of the forks and the bottom of the shocks. 120psi!?! Apply a
dose of that to your Kawa's teles and the rest of the bike would shoot up into
the air and fall over on its side, dead.
Anyway, the deed was done and the ride and handling improved
to the point where I got quite daring when we got back and I took the Monza out
for some serious ear'oling. When I took it back to Coburn and Hughes, Dave
Martin checked the suspension with a Suzuki air shock gauge (price: £6.05) and
found the offside fork leg and nearside rear shock were up at around 50psi and
the others were all but empty. You know, if that's all the difference air
springing makes, I can't see why they bother. Has anyone ever complained about
Italian suspension before?
On the M4 coming home at the regulation 85 per, I notice a thin coating of
oil spray appearing on my left boot. Investigation traced this to a slight leak
round the tacho drive take-off. Funnily enough, the oil didn't consistently find
its way on to my boot. Some days it would appear, others not.
Perhaps due to the intrigue going on down on the left hand
side, I failed to notice until it was too late that my other Derri boot was
touching the right hand pipe. There are no heat shields on the exhausts but I
think I can fix the hole in my boot with Araldite.
Finally, just when I was preparing to be totally impressed
with the Monza's resilience over nearly 600 of the sort of miles it didn't look
like it was designed for, the thing broke down.
Well, nearly. What happened was the nipple broke off the
twistgrip end of one of the throttle cables. Fortunately there is a separate
cable for each carb and the effect was merely to convert the Monza into a 245cc
single, three miles from home. I have to admit that a bike which gets you that
close to home before playing up shows real class made quite an acceptable
single, too.
The only other bit which malfunctioned during the test was the
barometer sorry, rev counter. The tacho needle developed a habit of getting
stuck around the 2,500rpm mark as the engine slowed and I had to give the dial
glass a sharp tap to get it to read properly or settle on its rest.
Speaking of reading properly, the Veglia tacho is marked up in
rpm x 100 i.e. it looks like a speedo dial. Should you get a pull for doing 60
in a 40mph limit, you could always point at the tacho and feign dyslexia.
Probably won't help you much but it's the thought that counts.
The rubber hood on the end of the propstand fell off but it
wasn't missed. The propstand is of the self-retracting type which is hard to get
down when you're astride the bike, and it's positioned so far forward you have
to be really careful where you use it or the bike pivots on it and falls over.
The Monza is so easy to get on to its centrestand that there's no excuse for not
using it. By the time I received the bike (it had done about 950 miles) the
rubber on the centrestand tang was half melted away by contact with a hot
silencer.
A neat touch is a lever hidden away in the fairing which
allows you to tip the rectangular H4 headlight downwards to counteract the
effect of carrying a pillion. The light gave a good cut-off on dip, combined
with a wide spread, and excellent penetration on main beam.
Headlamp adjustment was by two long screws at the rear of the
unit; one for vertical adjustment and the other for horizontal. There wasn't a
small enough spanner in the toolkit to fit the screw head, but it was possible
to turn them with the pliers. Necessary, too, because a real blindo madam in her
four wheeled shopperette ran over the front of the bike before I collected it,
wreaking havoc with the fairing. The damage had been largely patched-up by the
time I got the bike but the first time I turned the lights on, it was pointing
to the green, green leaves in the treetops.
Owing to a typical case of Post Office paralysis, we found
ourselves hastily bolting new throttle cables by the trackside at MIRA and the
Monza went out on its top speed runs without benefit of a carburetor check. The
speedo needle would just creep up to 110, giving a true figure recorded in the
checkout panel of just over 107mph. In Wales, I once saw just under 115mph on
the clock, probably a true 110 or so so Guzzi's claim of a 109mph top end
looks like it'll stand.
So is it slow? Well, yes if all your mates have bikes
capable of cruising all day at a ton-ten, and licences to match. It's no
blitzkreig-quick buzzbomb capable of meeting the cravings of
terminally-crazed adrenalin addicts, either. The only excitement you'll maybe
get is from little wobbles at high speeds stemming from insufficiently-braced
forks.
But if you want a bike which is a hell of a lot of fun to
ride, fairly economical Guzzi claim 60mpg, I got between 52 and 57 from the 3
Viz gallon tank, two-up and which will set you back no more than the price of
yer average Jap 650 and a lot less than any other European 500, the Monza's
worth a try. It's not a boy racer's bullet and slick-shifting up through the
gears just won't work with the single-plate clutch and a gearchange which often
needs force eight welly application to effect a cogswap. Me? I'd like a Pantah
same as anyone else, but all things taken into consideration (monetarism,
interest charges, staff writer incomes etc), I'd be more than happy to take this
quiet Italian if that's where my price ceiling lay.
Source bike 1983
Make Model | Moto Guzzi V 50III |
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Year | 1981 - |
Engine Type | Four stroke, 90° V twin, longitudinally mounted, OHV, 2 valve per cylinder. |
Displacement | 490 cc / 29.9 cu-in |
Bore X Stroke | 74 x 57 mm |
Cooling System | Air cooled |
Compression | 10.4:1 |
Induction | 2x 24mm Dell'Orto carburetors |
Ignition | Battery powered inductive |
Starting | Electric |
Max Power | 48 hp / 35.7 kW @ 7500 rpm |
Max Torque | NA |
Clutch | Dry single plate |
Transmission | 5 Speed |
Final Drive | Shaft |
Frame | Duplex spine type |
Front Suspension | Telehydraulic gas forks |
Rear Suspension | Swinging arm fork with hydraulic gas shock absorbers |
Front Brakes | 2x 260mm discs |
Rear Brakes | Single 235mm disc |
Front Tire | 3.60-18 |
Rear Tire | 4.10-18 |
Dry Weight | 158 kg / 348 lbs |
Fuel Capacity | 16 Liters / 4.3 US gal |