Have just had the heads off my Convert to check on cause of rattle and hesitation when the bike is warm. Have found all four rocker spindles have appreciable wear, although the bushes seem fine. I know the spindles are case hardened and some early ones tended to wear through the hardening quickly, My 78 T3 needed new spindles after 30K miles. Even made some up from silver steel for fellow club members in the early 80s, one guy is still running his 80K later. The oil feed seems fine, the only fly in the ointment is that the 4 “O” rings on the long bolts are missing, the engine was rebuilt by Moto Strada before I bought it. There have been no leaks. Just wondering whether the missing “O” rings would allow oil to travel elsewhere and starve the rockers? Any thoughts.
Have you taken the spindles and rockers out? If yes and they’re oily, then no.
There is oil present but not much, having stripped down umpteen Guzzis, the rocker spindles usually have a lot more oil in and on them. All passages in the head and spindles are clear and the bolts are the right size so not blocking the flow.
OK, so now we know what the O-rings are for.
I.e. looks like you were right.
Have just been reading through all my Guzzi books, Guzziology, Haynes and Mick Walker accentuate the need to replace the 4 upper O rings, Guzzi factory manual seems to omit this important info, hmmm.
Surely there are 5 ‘o’ rings.
There are 6, Ian, 2 go on the lower end of the shorter studs, 4 go on the longer studs under the rocker carrier.
Well I was almost there.
Aaaaargh! Rocker spindles replaced, rockers adjusted, all re-assembled, fires up first time, then the R/H rocker oil feed starts to leak from the upper crimped coupling. The pipes were replaced with new about 15 months ago. Might go the Guzziology route and replace the crimped hoses with good quality rubber hose and jubilee clips, damn sight cheaper and it might last a bit longer.