Well....there's another difference...........Mine are both RH thread. Wonder why yours are different?
No, not making sense...... .....what possible problem could exist if the drive side swingarm pinch bolt was right hand thread? Surely there's no rotary motion there that could cause it to come undone?
Weird innit? But I just had a thought..........do the pinch bolts go in from top or bottom of the swingarm? Mine go in from bottom..........so the head is underneath. Perhaps yours go in from the top and maybe Ducati in their 'wisdom' thought the movement of the chain might try to undo the bolt (if the chain slipper was worn or didn't exist)....so they used a left hand thread instead....... Nah....surely not......
So moving on from Ducati wisdom and swing arm pinch bolts, I now have a more pressing issue. I have managed to get two of the three frame mounting bolts out. I'm sure you can guess what's coming next, the near side front bolt won't budge. The socket head has rounded out, so I'm not sure what my options are. If I can drill the head off, I'm not sure there would be enough clearance to slip the frame off. So any other ideas.
Finding a Torx bit that size may be a bit hard..............but can you find an Imperial type allen key which you can cut a short length off and thump it in for a tight fit and so you can get a socket on it? In this case, I wouldn't drill the head off..................if that bolt is well and truly stuck, I foresee a real problem getting the remaining bit of bolt out...........keep soaking it in whatever you can find.................even if you have to pee on it...........and keep working on that bolt to shift it.
A T50 torx bit fits exactly, and a T55 is just to big. My further thoughts would go something like, as you say thump an imperial hex socket in, and apply some heat to the engine lug, or take the head off either use an angle grinder or an oscillating saw to cut off the bit of exposed bolt, then put some flats on the remains of the bolt and then apply some heat and try to turn it with a big pair of stilsons.
Once the head of the bolt is off, surely there isn't going to be much bolt protruding from the lug is there? I was looking at some pics of mine trying to see how much bolt is actually 'hidden' in the frame lug and it looks like half the width of the frame lug.......so that means you may have to spring the frame over that to get it clear. I think the heat idea might work,especially if you can thump the appropriate piece of Imperial size allen key into the head while it's hot.......... the cooling down effect might tighten the grip on the key and the thump while hot might crack the bolt thread enough.
It funny that the same bolt is seized on my 750, but when I removed the engine from the 400 they were all fine, in fact a little lose.
so not much progress to date, work, and lack of money being the main culprits. So today I got stuck in, got the front disc off. Cleaned up the front wheel, checked the run out, looks as if I have a bit of a flat that will, need to be fixed, bearings seem OK, but will need changing. As per AL's suggestion I have cut down a 3/8 Allen key and chamfered the end and then hammered it in to the remaking engine bolt. First attempt not looking promising looks like I will need to heat the engine case to see if that will help get it out
I haven't yet, just seeing if they were all stuck in case I needed too remove the engine, it nearly at 50,000 miles so I guess it will need to come out in the next few years. I'm nothing if I'm not prepared!! Any how, how you doing, going to be ready for next summer?
