My Aprilia Pegaso Diary

The following events are in the order in which they occurred. To follow this chain of events read on or to jump to a chosen repair click one of the links below:-

Cooling system missing, Rev counter not working, Replace fork seals, Gear selector fell off, KPH to MPH speedo conversion, Number plate replacement, Gear selector repair, Straightening handlebars, Cure the backfire, Tyres and wheel bearings, Overheating problem, Speedo converter repair & complete failure, Left fork seal replacement, Hand guard repair & painting.

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On the 26^th July I was bought (by my wife for our wedding anniversary) a 2001 Aprilia Pegaso 3, 650 single cylinder bike from a very popular auction site. Pictures below from advert.

(Click to view bike specification)   (Click here to download Service & Repair manual and Rotax Repair Manual)
(Animated Aprilia Engine)

A couple of days later a friend and I drove to Lincoln to collect it. On arrival (in fact all the bloody way there) it was raining heavily so in the end we decided not to take it for a test ride. We did however look over the bike in the guys garage. Everything seemed ok. The guy had admitted to having a low speed off while green laning causing some slight scratches to the hand guard and tank. Other than this the bike seemed sound and in good condition. The chain and sprocket had been recently changed and the bike had been serviced and MOT'd a month earlier. It came complete with a pair of Givi panniers and an original Aprilia top box. The money changed hands and she was mine.

We then loaded it onto the trailer I had borrowed. The slight draw back was that between the three of us no one had ever secured a bike to a trailer before so it was an experience but after 15 minutes and lots of straps it was on and maybe ever secure but that was to be seen. We then started our 125 mile home. After about 100 feet and the first corned I pooed my pants. I was then convinced that every corner we took the whole thing was going to flip over and destroy the bike, trailer and possibly the car and us in it (you have no idea how many corners there are over the 125 mile trip). Eventually after an eternity we arrived home with a bike still on a trailer. It was unloaded and put in the garage.

A few days later I pushed it to the back garden and started looking over it and running through the normal things that you would check on any bike, oil, water, chain tension etc... I found that the oil was a bit low so I topped that up then discovered that the water expansion tank had gone? I don't know where but it was not there. The pipes where but the tank was not. Very strange. I ordered one from my local Aprilia dealer and a couple of days later it arrived and it was fitted. I had to top up the water in the radiator but other than that it all worked straight away. Unfortunately to get to the radiator cap you have to take the front fairing off which is not a problem just a bit of a pain. The job was done and the fairing put back together. Job done. So I thought. I started the bike and then I realised that the rev counter had stopped working, BUGGER. Off came the fairing again, on unscrewing the rev counter cable from the back of the clock I discovered that the end of the cable had snapped off in the rev counter. As I could not get this part I decided to put the bike back in the garage in bits. I ordered a new rev counter cable the next day from the dealer. Another few days went by then the cable arrived. I had to strip off the side panel and fuel tank to be able to see the run of the cable. I removed the old and fitted the new, put all the bits back on but this time before fitting the fairing started the bike. Success the rev counter now rev'd. The fairing went back on. Something that had been annoying me from day 1 was that the plastic surround round the clocks was not the same colour as the bike. I decided that I would spray this part and as I could not get the correct colour blue (apparently Aprilia don't sell paint and don't make the paint codes public so that you have to purchase the original part from them at a cost of millions of ponds no doubt) I was going to paint it black (egg shell black to be precise) as everything goes with black (so I am told). I did this, fitted it and it does look a lot better. Whilst fitting and then refitting the fairing and clock surround I had noticed that the brackets that hold the fairing and clocks in position where bent and that to fit the fairing the clock surround you had to lean with all your body weight on the fairing so that the holes in the dash surround lined up. This was something that I would have to try and remedy at some point. But for the time being back to bed she went.

The next day I went up to make sure it was still there and discovered a pool of oil by the front wheel. Strange I thought (well that's not exactly what I thought but you get the drift). On further observation I discovered it to be the left fork oil seal was weeping but only when the bike was on left lock. If the bars where left in a straight position it didn't leak. I ordered a pair of oil seals from the very same auction site and when they arrived called my motor biking friends to came and lend moral support and they kindly did. The job didn't turn out to be that difficult and it went quite quickly and before I realised the bike was back in one piece and going to bed leak free. (Sorry no photo's)

I finally got the V5 back and enough money to insure, tax and purchase the clothing I required to ride her (See reviews section). With this all done the bike was finally legal so home I went fitted the tax disk and readied myself for a ride. I was out and about getting used to the bike until after about 20 minutes I went to change gear and the gear selector sheered off. After stopping the bike and walking back down the road to find it I discovered that the selector shaft had been fractured at some point in the past probably from the guy fell off and the last little bit that was hanging on had finally given up (you can see on the right picture the dirty part of the shaft is the old fracture and the cleaner part is the only part holding the shaft in place). It left me 5 miles from home on a bike that was stuck in 1st gear. I got her home (slowly and at high revs with more backfiring than I had ever heard in my life) put it back in the garage and left it muttering profusely under my breath. I rang the dealer to see how much parts would be. The shaft with 2 gaskets came to £85. I was told of a local mechanic that was good so gave him a call and he said he would fit the shaft for £50ish. Dam this bike game was getting expensive quick. Everything went on hold while I raised funds but I eventually ordered the parts but then had to wait for them to come from Italy.

I had also noticed while out on my short ride that the handle bars seemed bent. I read on the internet that this can be caused when the fork legs are removed and then re-clamped. The leg retention bolts tighten and the clamps twist slightly giving the appearance of the bars being bent. All you have to do is loosen the bolts again and get someone to hold the bars in the correct position as you tighten them up. A bit of trial and error and job done. This is a job I will have to do as things like that will eat me away and cause me to have a nervous breakdown, but first I need to be able to ride it to see if they are straight or not so that job will have to wait.

Whilst riding I realised that it was quite difficult to see what speed you where travelling at as even though the bike is not an import the larger numbers around the outside of the speedo are in KM/H and the MPH are very small silver numbers within.

I did some research and discovered the easiest method of overcoming this is to fit a Motrax KM/H converter to the speedo cable. You can get two different types one for the top and one for the bottom of the cable depending on space available. Both do exactly the same job. I ended up finding a second hand one on an auction site. It was a bottom fitting (gold one) one and lots cheaper than a new one. To install all you have to do is unscrew the speedo cable from the front wheel then screw the unit in instead. Once tight screw the end of the speedo cable into the back of the unit. Job done. The outer ring even though its still marked as KM/H is now MPH and is much easier to read.

Something else that had been bugging me since I bought the bike was the number plate and the extra mud guard piece. I didn't like the fact that there was a motorbike shop advert at the bottom of the plate and the fact that some git had then found it necessary to drill a hole through the advert to bolt it on. I decided to get a new plate and remove the extension to the mud guard. After much hunting I found a site that was very cheep but still provided a quality plate (Pimp Ya Pl8). I purchased a slightly smaller plate 8"x6" instead of the standard (and legal) 9"x7". I had a boarder, hex background and a bottom line all (MrDimpy) for only £7.50 delivered. Bargain. It came and I then decided that bolts messed the look of the plate up so I had to come up with some way of attaching it to the bike without drilling holes in the plate. The obvious method was to stick the plate to the bike but there was not enough surface area to do this and the wind would rip the plate off. The only other thing to do was to manufacture a metal plate 8"x6" and mount this to the bike. With that in place I could then mount the plate to it. I did this and using countersunk screws fixed it to the bike. Now I had a 8"x6" backing plate to mount the number plate to so using 8 number plate sticky pads I stuck the number plate to the metal backing plate. I have now ended up with a perfect un-drilled number plate. Lovely. I also left of the mudguard extension and in my opinion this looks better as well. There was only one small problem with the whole exercise. Due to the plate being smaller than the original it uncovered the bottom screw hole on the bike (you can see this in the last picture below). After these pictures where taken I fitted a small black blanking grommet to disguise it. (See pictures below)

Eventually after a week of waiting the gear selector shaft and gaskets where delivered. I rang the mechanic who came and collected it. After about an hour the phone rang, it was the mechanic who informed me of some bad news! The £50-60 repair that involved removing the gearbox cover and working within to replace the selector shaft had suddenly turned into a £600 full engine and gearbox strip and rebuild. This was due to the gear selector shaft going through the the gearbox and the way the Rotax engines are constructed it would require the engine being split which would mean its removal. On top of the £600 would be required a full gasket set for the engine and gearbox which costs £165 plus anything else that is found to be worn or broken during the whole process. In short and including the parts already purchased this would total a minimum of £850. This as you can imagine was not the news I was waiting for. The mechanic kindly dropped the bike off with no charge while I decide what to do. I was left with a few of options (1) Sell the bike as it was. (I looked into this and I would not get very much for it compared to the purchase price.) (2) Let the mechanic repair the engine in the bike and incur the minimum £850 price tag. (A price tag this high makes the bike a write off.) (3) Purchase a second hand engine and gearbox and fit that. (A viable option if an engine can be found at a reasonable price.) (4) Try and repair it myself by drilling the remainder of the shaft and bolting the pedal to it. (The cheapest option if possible.). After a lot of telephone calls I decided as the engine in the bike now was worthless I would have a go at securing the pedal myself as I would be loosing nothing even if it went horribly wrong. Other than this it would be cheaper and safer option to purchase a second hand engine and gearbox and fit it myself. I had found a place with a couple of Rotax engines out of crashed Pegaso's at a cost of £440. These engines are guaranteed to work. This option if it came to it was almost half the price of the repair and still making the bike a financially viable machine.

Days later I discovered that a friend was a welder and contacted him to see if it would be possible to weld the spline back onto the end of the shaft while leaving it in the gearbox. He came round and believed that it could be possible to MIG weld the spline back on but the cover would have to be removed to give a bit more space. This was fantastic news and could save me £440 (which I haven't got, so that's nice).

A couple of days later my mate called and said that it was ok to bring the bike round. I did this and let it with him to see what he could do. The end result was about as good as I could ever imagine.

He started by dropped the water and taking the water pump cover of. From here the gearbox cover came of then the removal of the nylon / plastic gears that drive the rev counter where removed making the shaft a lot more accessible. With it being a dry sump only a small amount of oil came out when the cover was removed.

The next thing to was to chamfer the ends of the shaft and the spline so that the weld would have something to hold onto. Once this was done the spline was then tacked onto the end of the gear selector shaft and positioned so it was straight. Once happy with the alignment the shaft had to be pre heated so that the weld would take better. Once this was done the welding took place. This went well and after it had cooled the excess weld was ground off so the shaft was back to its normal diameter so it would fit through the case. In the chamfering, welding and grinding half of the spline was lost but this didn't seem to be a problem as the pedal bit on the shaft as well as the front part of the spline.

From here it was a case of cleaning out the gearbox in case any weld or fillings had got it and then replace the gears and refit the cases. The coolant system was refilled with distilled water and anti freeze and the oil level was topped up. The gear selector pedal was not fitted yet as its location would depend on where my foot was positioned when sitting on the bike. I mentioned earlier in the diary that when trying to fit the fairing it was very difficult as the speedo bracket seemed to be bent. I had mentioned this to my friend and he had a look at it. It seems that the bracket was a new one but the problem was that the two eyelets that hold the bracket to the front of the frame where not straight. He removed the two bolts that hold the bracket in place and tapped them straight. Re fitted the bracket and as if by magic all the screw holes lines up. Fantastic.

The next day I went round to his house and we determined where the best position for the gear selector pedal was and fitted it.

After this we had the small job of straightening the handlebars that have not been right since we removed and refitted the fork legs while replacing the fork oil seals. The four bolts that hold the legs in place where slackened off and as I sat on the bike my friend held the front wheel in position and I aligned the bars to what I thought was straight. On riding the bike I discovered that the bars where now the same amount out in the opposite direction. Plan 2. The four bolts where slightly slackened off and I tapped the front wheel against the wall. I then road the bike, still so repeated the process until eventually the bars where straight so the bolts where tightened.

Big thanks and respect to Captain Scarlet the welder.

I road the bike home (the long way) and all is well thus far.

Riding home I realised that the bike back fired a lot, mostly on overrun. I spoke to the Aprilia dealers and they told me that that kind of thing was normal for a single cylinder and not to be concerned. Even though I was new at the single cylinder game I could not believe that this was meant to happen. A couple of days later I was reading through messages posted on the Aprilia Pegaso forum on "Yahoo Groups" and found that other people had had problems with back firing and surging at low revs. Eventually I found the solution that they had all come to. It turns out that when Aprilia manufactured the Pegaso3 they fitted a 4.7Kohm resistor to the ECU which controlled the firing point (advance/retard). They did this so that it would pass emission laws (somewhere I don't know). The bikes where shipped with this resistor in place but in the pack that is delivered to the dealers with the bike was a replacement 10Kohm resistor that was supposed to be fitted in its place therefore adjusting the firing point of the engine to the correct place. There are about five or six people on the forum that had carried out this mod and had said that after it was like ridding a new bike. No back firing or surging at low revs. I went to look for the resistor on my bike and found it just above the battery. I thought I was going to have to remove the side panel but it turned out that it was close enough to the top of the frame that you could pull it into view after removing the seat. The resistor is connected to a plug. I unplugged it and discovered that I still had the 4.7Kohm resistor fitted.

I went to my local Maplin and purchased a 10Kohm 2watt resistor for 18p and home I went. After measuring the blades in the old plug I found that they where the exact size of the female spade connector so instead of cutting up the original plug I manufactured a new one (in case of any problems). I fitted the new one to the bike but time had ran out for the day. The bike started fine and felt ok as I rode it 50 foot up the road.

A couple of days later I took the bike out for a little spin and found to my amazement that as stated on the forum there was no backfiring or surging at low revs (fantastic). To think for the last 6 years the bike had not ran right and I (with the help of Yahoo Groups) had fixed it and all for only 18p, lets hope all repairs are that costly from now on.

When riding there was a large wobble when cornering I put this down to the tyres as they where badly worn. The rear tyre was a lot worse than the front with a large flat section in the middle. I decided that new tyres where definitely in order. I removed the wheels as I have decided on having a pair of Pirelli Scorpions fitted. When removing the wheels I discovered that the rear wheel bearing seals on the disk side was destroyed. I removed all the pieces of rubber and luckily the bearing where fine but there was nothing I could do at the time so left it at that.

 I took the wheels to the garage to have the new tyres fitted. The guy there told me of a place down the road that sold bearings and seals. I chatted to the guy as he fitted the tyres and be told me that the rear tyre had been fitted the wrong way round so the direction of rotation arrow was going the wrong way (this would not have helped the wobbly ride me thinks). After the guy had fitted the tyres (the right way round) I went to the bearing suppliers and after measuring up the inner and outer diameters found the one I needed at a cost of £3.50 (not as good as 18p but still not bad). I went home and fitted the new seal which went in perfectly. I now also had to make a decision on the PSI to go in them. After many hours of research and browsing forums (Aprilia Pegaso and BMW F650) I decided to go for 30PSI front and 32PSI rear. This is slightly more than the manufacturers but its what people on the Yahoo forum seemed to be using with no problems. After comparing the photographs of the old and new tyres I have decided that I have never seen such a difference. The old tyre looked flat in the middle before but my god does it look flat now. I fitted the wheels late that afternoon.

After a few days of crappy weather I took the bike out for a larger spin on a variety of roads. I discovered that the bike after the resistor mod and its new tyres now rode fantastically. It pulls from much lower revs than before, smoother through the rev range and not a sniff of a back fire. The tyres where great with no wobble what so ever. The top speed of the bike has also improved, (I assume due tot he resistor mod) it used to pull strongly up to about 80mph now it pulls to 100mph maybe more it just gets a bit windy at that speed (these are mph values read from the speedo, I have not yet checked if the speedo is reading correctly).

I finally took the bike out for a longer ride a friend and I covered over 50miles one evening on a variety of road types, from single track to large A roads. Everything behaved as it should. Fantastic!!!

I hope that it will be some time and many miles before I have to add to this diary again.

I left the bike in the garage over winter connected to my Oxford Maximiser (battery conditioner). As February started and the weather took a remarkable turn for the better I decided to get her out. She was a bit reluctant to start but after a couple of minutes did and all was well.

My friend and I went for a ride to Bala and Vyrnwy, the day was great (see pictures) and the riding good. After 4-5 hours we where back on home soil. We stopped for a chat and my bike's electric fan came on for a few seconds then turned off but the bike's temperature continued to rise. I decided to ride home and as soon as the wind started moving over the radiator the temperature dropped and all was fine again. I got home and in the time it took me to get the garage keys and open the door the temperature had gone to the top of the scale and boiled over all over the floor. It was to late that night to do anything so I closed the door and would have a look the next day in day light. In the morning I decided first to test the electric fan. You do this by removing the two spade terminals from the thermal switch in the bottom of the radiator and shorting them out. If the fan spins its ok. It span which is good as a new one is £100!! The next thing was to top up the water in the radiator and expansion tank and run the bike to see if the radiator gets hot. In my mind if the radiator gets hot the thermostat must be opening and thus ruling out it sticking closed and blocking the water flow through the radiator. I did this and the radiator started to get hot, a good sign as all this seemed to leave was the thermal switch in the radiator and the spade connections. The temperature gradually rose higher and higher until it was at the point where the fan should be on. At this point the fan didn't switch on so I tapped the thermal switch with a screwdriver and low and behold the fan started spinning. I subsequently found that gently wagging the wires to the switch made the fan stop and start so I removed the spade terminals and cleaned then, crimped them tighter and crimped the connections where the wires go into them. I re-attached them to the thermal switch and started the bike again very soon the temperature was reaching the point where the fan should come on and amazingly it did. I have rode the bike and tested the fan by letting the temperature rise and it still works ok so I assume it must have been a bad joint and dirty terminals causing the problem. I have done more than 50miles now and the fan still comes on at the correct point and cools the engine lovely.

A couple of days after the above ride I pulled the bike out of the garage and heard a ping noise. I thought nothing of this and thought it was a stone popping out from under the tyre. I rode to the end of the rode and discovered that the speedometer didn't work anymore. I removed the fairing and then the speedo cable and found that the speedo worked correctly and the cable seemed ok at both ends. I then discovered that the Motrax KM/H converter was not working. I replaced the speedo cable and the fairing and rode the bike and all worked fine (well in KM/H). I dismantled the converter and found a small interference fit cog was loose and couldn't turn the output drive to the speedo. I cleaned the unit up with white spirits and superglued the cog back onto the shaft. The glue set instantly and it would not move with all my strength simply turning a speedo cable should be fine. I re-greased the unit and reassembled it. Below is a diagram of the unit whole, exploded and a close up of the broken cog.

 I fitted the unit back to the bike and all seemed to work ok but after a mile or so it stopped working again. I removed the unit and put the speedo cable back onto the front wheel and it worked fine. When I got home I dismantled the unit and found the same cog had come loose again. I cleaned everything with white spirits and found that the cog was cracked and slightly splayed open. I tried to close the gap but due the cog being so small and cast it shattered. At the moment the speedo is running in KPH which is not a big problem, I just preferred it in MPH. Oh well you cant win them all now can you.

After a couple of trips out I noticed that as before the left fork leg was leaking oil. Over the next couple of times out this steadily got worse until it was dripping from the bottom off the leg. I decided to investigate and stated on the Pegaso Yahoo group. They had a lot of advice some being that there was an intolerance between the third party seals and the genuine Aprilia ones. Another was that the leg maybe bent. Armed with this information and a £24 pair of genuine Aprilia oil seals I removed the leg from the bike and set to work stripping it down. On inspection there was no physical sign of damage to the seal but it did come out of the leg with little effort which I found odd! After cleaning the leg and using a steal rule I found no bend in the leg at all. Things where getting stranger by the minute. The only difference I could find in the 2 oil seals was that the outer diameter was 0.2mm larger on the new one. Was this enough  to make any difference? I fitted the new seal which was a lot more difficult to go in as I had to drift it in with a large socket. I assembled the rest of the leg and fitted it to the bike once again. I rode up and down the street and there is no leak as yet but having said that the other seal lasted a few hundred miles so we will have to wait and see wont we.

1 Year Later

Since I last added to this diary or even rode the bike its been a year. Its been sat in the garage gathering dust but has been plugged into the battery conditioner. I went to start it and as I thought the petrol had all gone. I put 5lts in and turned her over. Again and again it went until just as the battery sounded like it was going to die the bike fired and started. It was not very smooth and if you tried to rev it it would start to cut out but I put this down to the carbs being dry and full of gunge. After a couple of minutes on tick over the bike was fine chock in normal temperature and you could rev it as normal.

I decided to get it ready for an MOT which had ran out a long time ago. Whilst checking it over I remembered that I was going to paint the hand guards as the one was very badly scratched where the guy who had it before me had dropped it. I removed the guards, cleaned and rubbed them down ready for undercoating. I used a white undercoat, mainly because I had some not that I even new it would be the correct colour for the paint I was going to use on top. I then decided that as I could not get the correct Aprilia blue that they where before that I would paint them satin black as every body knows black goes with everything (or so the wife says!!!). After multiple coats of black the job was done. I must admit I could have rubbed them down better as you can still see faint scratch marks under all the paint but they are a lot better than they where before. See pictures below:-

I took the bike out of the garage to fit the hand guards in glorious sunshine by the time I had fitted them it was lashing it down with rain so above is a picture of the newly painted, fitted and rained on hand guards. I think they look a lot better.