Ey up, my 900ss hasn't had much use in the last 5 years. I pull it out of the back of the garage each spring with every intention of a couple of road trips. Ill give it a service and spruce up which always unearths an issue or two. I'll spend a £100 or so, then never use it. I reckon I've spent £300-£400 and ridden 200 miles! Well, so far this spring is no exception. I was confident I wouldn't have much to do this year but, it was running a bit lumpy on tick over. I pulled the FCRs off and gave them a clean and changed the plugs. I didn't find anything remarkable when I had the carbs apart and I made sure all the adjustments were the same as when I put the bike back together 10 years ago. Once it was all back in one piece, I thrashed it to its MOT. Still a bit lumpy on tick over but certainly nothing wrong with the way it runs once the throttle is wound out. Lovely, MOT passed, bike working, here comes summer. Next day I started a run of night shifts, lovely sunny evening so I thought Id treat myself and commute on my SS. Starts on one cylinder! No time for investigations so back in the garage. Next day (now here's why I don't get to ride my bike) there are three small children all waiting for me to get out of bed, no chance of any bike repairs, and so this goes on for the next couple of days. meanwhile, whilst on my breaks at work I was able to do a search to see if other SS owners had had similar woes. This lead me back to the forum and this thread: https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/91-supersport-woes.75067/ Strewth! what have I done? Reading that thread really made me want to get cracking and see if i could suss it out. I was worried i'd messed the carbs up somehow! Yesterday evening with an hour before I was due to leave for work, I pulled the fairings off and the bike started and ran as it should. Keen to ride it, I put the fairings back on with a view to riding it to work. I guessed it must have been some muck in the carb. 45 mins later, all ready for work, one cylinder again. All I had established at this point was it was the vertical cylinder not behaving. So tonight before work, the fairings came off again which revealed a leaking clutch slave!! It had a rebuild with a kit 10 years ago and the bikes done 37,000 so I've splashed out on an Oberon. We are more like £400-£500 now for my £200 miles! Back to the Vertical cylinder, I took the plugs out and checked for a spark. Great big blue flash from the horizontal and a limp orange sparkle from the vertical. Now where getting somewhere. I checked the horizontal plug in the Vertical HT lead which produced a lovely blue flash. Hey presto- duff plug!!
Dont you just LOVE these bikes? I certainly love mine so much that despite its faults I have owned it since 1994 and have learned so much about it. Let us know if it was simply a duff plug. In addition, what banjo / bleed boly arrangement have you used on the Oberon? im interested as im contemplating replacing my original.
I agree, its great but I needn't of bothered replacing the original. It wasn't the source of the leak!! The push rod o rings had failed. 50p fix!
