Rear Suspension

Cleaning years of accuumulated grease and road goop from inside the rear suspension spring box takes a lot scrubbing and soaking.

The four large outer springs should have:
Length unloaded = 263mm +- 2mm (dia of steel springs=7.5mm)

Length loaded with 90kg+-10kg = 235mm
Length tolerance loaded is 4%
The four smaller internal springs should have:
Length unloaded = 152mm +- 1.5mm (dia of steel springs=5.5mm)

Length loaded with 135kg+-4kg = 135mm
Length tolerance loaded is 6%

The narrower springs go inside the larger ones. The two connecting rods that go though the springs and out of the rear of the spring box should be straight and the threads in good condition. There are two center bushes surrounding these rods at the rear exit of the spring box are retained by cotter pins (see screwdriver pointing to one in the photo). There are two other half bushes that are retained with set screws to the side plates of the frame that go through the two outer spring.

I remount the swing arm. The clearance between the swingarm pivot and the bronze bearings should not be greater than 0.10mm. Tightening the square pivot bolts and centering it on either side gets the clearance to less than 0.10mm. The two connecting rods are inserted from the rear of the swingarm through the two holes, through the male and female jam nuts and into the half bushes at the spring box.

I install the outer and inner springs. I tighten the front spring loaded face plate so that the flat face of the plate is 235mm from the inside rear of the spring box and the face plate is parallel to the spring box leading edge.

The flexible link (part #16 on Table 14) that fits inside the lower tube at the front of the swingarm is filled with red grease - it pivots inside the tube as the swingarm pulls the connecting rods compressing the spring.

With the bike on the center stand, turn the round knob fully to the right for two-up riding and fully to the left for solo jaunts. On this bike it is firmly set to monoposto -no one dares take a biposto ride on this bike!

The Rear Sub-Frame

A cursory look at the frame and it is obvious that someone has hacked off the rear subframe onto which the rear suspension dampers, mudguard and rear seat mount. So, step one is to fabricate one Super Alce rear subframe!

I measure the sub frame from photos in Mario Colombo's book. I send an SOS to Patrick for a photo of the damper "mouse ear" plates that are welded onto the frame. It turns out that there are threaded bosses which I could not make out from the photos and braces against the mouse ears.

I draw out the parts and go to my local machine shop where we fabricate the mounts, and thread and the bosses. Here are the finished parts before welding.






The sub-frame extensions are large steel hinges from the local hardware store! I now tack weld the bush, the brace and the "ear mounts" mounts with the damper which I have got from Stucchi mounted in the frame at the positions marked out from various scaled photos. I hope I have measured the angle and position correctly.....

Once mounted, I check the frame and the rear swinging arm for twist. I level the bottom frame plates on my work bench and then put a level at the end of the rear swinging arm. It is twisted!

With the help of a couple of hefty tiedowns and equally strong and hefty friends, I place a long rod in the swing arm and lift till both ends are level with each other and parallel to the workbench. I attach a large welding magnet to the flat slotted end of the swingarm and then place a level against it and measure at both sides of the frame under the engine to make sure the swingarm has no lateral alignment problem - luckily, there is not. The mighty SA engine is not strong enough apparently to pull the swing arm to one side...

So, at the frame and swing arm seem to be in alignment in both axes.

Beadblasting

Step one was cleaning and beadblasting the frame, wheels and tank to remove rust and old paint.

Three days of peering into a sandblaster cabinet and I end up with a frame, girder forks, mudguards and oil tank stripped of paint and rust. I wash the parts down with a power washer and hot water and then dry them with a Makita 1500 watt heat gun. I then wash down with a solution of metal wash to prevent rust prior to painting.

The Tank

I peer inside and realize that it is full of rust. I throw some small stones and old bolts inside and shake it and out spews a huge cloud of smelly rust. I then notice a number of pin hole leaks. That's about it for the tank. A new one from Stucchi costs around $700 - maybe this one can be salvaged?


I send an email to Ross Thompson Metal Finishing in Alisa Craig, Ontario, Canada. The tank is taken to the post office, the required form filled out and off it goes. Ross calls back with an estimate for cutting open, repaneling, pressurized leak testing and chrome plating the tank. It comes back in a month looking beautiful. The filler cover is just a threaded cylinder and so I get one from Stucchi which is a plastic lookalike with Super Alce embossed on it. I also get new taps.

[Note: at the end I have pdf parts drawing, English names for the parts, and the original Italian names and part numbers. These are from Patrick Hays who scanned and translated the original. Many thanks, Patrick!]

The Belly of the Beast

So, I took a deep breath and started. First, off came the tank revealing rust and pin holes in the bottom. The oil tank looked OK. The mudguards came off next and I suddenly realize that there are no footrests anywhere on the bike.

I see that the frame is actually in two parts and that the front half can be literally wheeled away. This done, the bike now sits on its center stand with the rear section intact. Now, the engine comes off and after much huffing and panting is lifted onto my workbench for contemplation.

Now I realize I need help. Dr. Nasio has sent me a binder with an instruction manual from a certain Patrick Hayes in California. Since the manual is dated from the 90s I have no idea if the address is current. I contact him and soon realize that I have stumbled on one of the experts! Patrick sends me a couple of articles, an updated translation of the manuals, and crucially, a supplier list for the long list of parts I know I need.

At this point, let me thank Patrick for taking the trouble to scan the original Italian parts list, the operator and repair manuals and for creating the Super Alce website. Without his help and his efforts, there would be no way for me to finish this project. Many thanks Patrick. The link below takes you to his SA website.

Jerome Kimberlin, also from California, was invaluable when I got into the guts of the project. He clearly is the technical wizard as far as Moto Guzzi singles go. Jerry always came to the rescue each time I got stuck and took the time and effort to even make some of the parts for me. Crucially, I got a crankshaft from him. More on all of this later...

Tim Smith of Illinois was another key contributor to this project. He supplied me with wheel bearing seals, examples of the dust caps on the bearings, an original horn, and very generously, a rare to find rear hill brake.

Dorien Berteletti was restoring an SA around the same time and it was useful to have someone going through some of the same issues. Thanks, Dorien for all the advice on starting the beast!

Many, many thanks, guys, for all the advice when stumped, parts when needed, and support when discouraged. Without you the project would still be in cardboard boxes collecting dust.

Finally, without the help of the ladies at Stucchi in Italy, I could never have got the long list of missing parts. Many thanks, Lisa and Elisabetta! Stucchi (info@stucchiluigi.it) has been able to find virtually any part I asked for, the staff there speaks and reads English, accept Visa, and ship to the US. Other than hit-or-miss trawling through an Italian antique bike flea market, enjoyable though that might be, there is no better way of getting parts than going straight to Stucchi.

In the US, Paul Montgomery at Motoguzzino (motoguzzino@yahoo.com) has advice and parts for Moto Guzzi singles.

Lastly, this project is dedicated to Enrico Cantoni who worked with Guilo Carcano and Umberto Todero. I met the trio when I was in Italy in early 2000 and spent an entire afternoon interviewing Carcano. That evening I visited Cantoni and he and his wife Joanna very generously invited me to their home for dinner. We had a wonderful evening, a wonderful meal and neither did they speak English nor I speak Italian yet there was no problem communicating. Many thanks Joanna and Enrico!

The Unrestored Bike

The photo on the left shows that someone has hacked off the rear sub-frame, the rear mudguard is not standard, and the rear dampers are missing. Chopping off the rear sub-frame has also taken away the rear damper mounts. The photo to the right shows that the leg shields are missing, there are no dampers on the front fork, the flywheel cover is not to be found and the air filter on the carb is from other bike. The front mudguard is not from a SA nor is the silencer. The paint and chrome are not the right SA colors. What the heck have I let myself in for?

The photos below show the right side and the missing rear damper, chain guard, lack of kick starter, broken kick starter quadrant, seriously bent and squeezed oil lines and an interesting hand shift. There is no wiring, the dynamo and battery are long gone, and what control cables there are are not connected to anything. This looks like it is going to be a very long restoration and I have not even got into the engine yet.

In the Beginning

This is a record of my restoration of a Moto Guzzi Super Alce.

First, some history:

The Super Alce was derived from the earlier Alce in 1946.The model was designed for the Army in dark olive-green and the one for the Carabinieri was painted a light olive-green. It was produced till 1957 with an automatic magneto fitted in 1952 and a cylindrical silencer replacing the unique double barrel silencer in 1955. The price for a two seater version in 1949 was 480,000 lire but was never made available for sale to the general public. This information was taken from, and a lot more history can be found in Mario Colombo's English edition of "Moto Guzzi" published by Giorgio Nada Editore. I took the color photograph above of the single-exhaust model that was displayed in the Moto Guzzi musuem at Mandello del Lario. I have also attached the "official" factory specs.

This particular bike with engine number AV 79119 and frame number 25054 was produced on November 13, 1948 and shipped to S.A.J in Buenos Aires on January 27, 1949. The bike was brought into the US on December 4, 1996 by Dr. Ruben Nasio who then sold it to me. The Moto Guzzi factory authenticated it when I visited the museum.

The bike was in a terrible condition. The frame had been hacked off at the rear and was missing its rear dampers. The front and rear mudguards were not authentic Super Alce items. In fact, at first I could not identify the bike, noting some similarities but a lot more differences to the "standard" Super Alce I saw at Mandello del Lario and the photos in Mario Colombo's book. The dynamo and battery were missing as was any hint of wiring of any sort. It did not run and the Mikuni carb clearly did not start life with that engine many years ago. The US Customs papers showed it as a 1939 model which compounded my confusion. The next blog shows some photos of the unrestored bike.