Yip, I had the same thoughts and experience as you Duke. RSV1000R with ohlins, and the same problem. It took 6 weeks for warranty approval and 6 weeks for delivery of two right side forks. Useless! the techs at the dealer said that Aprilia and ohlins were arguing who was responsible. from Aprilia, the view was the product was defective. from ohlins, that they were manufacturing to Aprilia spec and they specified an axle diameter which was too small to cope with braking forces etc
the my ohlins road and track forks state 12nm for the pinch bolts which is not much beyond finger tight tbh
And my latest purchase is a Teng 5-25nm torque wrench. I wondering how many fractured pinch bolt sets are out there right now.. Scary. Note you can only see it from underneath. Tomorrow the new casting should arrive at ftr so they can work their magic.
For the record the Ducati workshop manual says "Before tightening the pinch bolts, lower the motorcycle to the ground and push up and down the handlebars to load the suspension; so the fork legs will become properly seated onto the wheel axle. Lubricate the pinch bolts.Tighten the pinch bolts to the torque of 10 Nm ± 5% (1200 ABS) / 19 Nm ± 5% (1200 S ABS) (Sec. 3 - 3, Frame torque settings) following the sequence 1-2-1." That section reads "Ohlins fork end terminal fixing screw aka pinch bolts 19Nm* Sequence 1-2-1 *dynamic safety-critical point; tightening torque must be within Nm ±5%." When we removed the wheel at the tyre depot we saw that white/pink powder that normally indicates thread lock. There was no grease. Given that this is a 23K mile bike these pinch bolts would have been undone and retightened many times. Hence without the full manual we just used our standard red thread lock. If I had lubricated the bolts I think I may have heard the snap at the garage! Interesting that some posters on here state that the torque is quoted dry, when here is is clearly quoted greased. It just goes to show you must always RTBM!:redface:
OK for the sake of completness I'll conclude this thread with this. FTR contacted me today to request £400 (just shy of). Thats a foot at 203, 100 for labour, 40 for shipping and the rest for oil, seals etc. I'm satisfied, but not happy. Tomorrow the best bike I've ever owned will be back on the road. Just for the sake of fun I was asked my weight...naked around 125Kg, so add a bit of cow and some cotton say 135Kg. Ohh...was the answer...I was wondering why you had upped the front fork springs by 3 stages*, but that seems about right. Ummm being harder to kidnap seems to make some people uncomfortable
OK....first test ride. We've been so careful tightening these bolts up on this wheel, two of us have taken 2 hours to fit the forks....20 minutes normally! Note: The replacement foot does not have a batch or part number, but does have 19nm engraved on the outside of the fork where the pinch bolts are.
So was that an hour a side??????? Surely a 1-2-1 torque setting takes about 30secs longer than just doing it by feel?
right - 'horses mouth' information as far as i'm concerned :- Ohlins U.K. have just told me that the figure they recommend tightening pinch bolts in question to is 19 Nm DRY - i.e. - no lubrication. Unofficially the representative* I spoke to said he would personally use the figure of 15 Nm. *was well aware of the ongoing problems concerning these forks along with those fitted to Aprillia a while ago where Torque specification was wrongly listed as 40 Nm on a similar design - no wonder they were cracking regularly.
Well thats interesting as Kevin at FTR (Ohlins UK) instructed me to do them to 19Nm only yesterday! This figure is lubricated. Note the screws are so tight in the new casting that we did them up and down a few times to blend in the thread. At 15Nm they wouldnt have been pinching at all. And if the advice "really" is 15Nm, why would someone at Ohlins pay to have 19Nm engraved and then filled with White wax. Picture to follow. And really we did take all moring to reassemble and refit the forks / front wheel. After spending £400 and two weeks off the road we didn't want to make any mistakes. Note the front forks must sit within the yokes to within 0.1mm of each other. That is easier said than done given the tiny amount of access. Did you know that Ducati requires you to have access to over 13 different grades of thread lock! This may explain why some bolts are very hard to undo...Given that all mine look Red/Pink and I know that Yellow is the colour of some of the grades required. Me thinks that some Ducati service people use some license when selecting Type 1-13 thread lock.
OK test ride. Great. But now I need to uprate the rear spring, as it feels like I'm the only one in a two man canoe and I'm at the back.
only just got back to a computer this evening - the plot thickens as I today realised there is no single Ohlins U.K. rep* but I believe it was a 'Kevin' that I spoke to (at KAIS - *one of approx 5 official U.K. Ohlins representatives) and he most definitely said 'dry' and also said he was happy for me to quote him after I asked. If you carefully read my last post again Air con you will see that the figure of 19 Nm was never in dispute, it's the 'dry' or 'lubricated' bit.. I have just come off the phone after speaking to will at FTR Ohlins* and he is going to ask Ohlins directly when they are back after their holiday shutdown and whatever is said will be an end to this afaic. There is far more to the whole story - have come across conflicting instructions listed on what looks like official Ducati Fastener tightening Torque specification sheets online hence my interest.
Thanks for reminder Andy - Will is coming back to me later today. EDIT - he didn't come back - I will phone him again on Friday. Despite early efforts to help it became clear on the 4th call that FTR Ohlins "Number One for suspension" (sic) are not the kind of company I thought they were and so have given up. Tried Ohlins direct but a combination of language transposing and long waits between transferring call also halted my efforts here. The figure between dry and lubricated will be around 1-2 Nm.
I am about to change my tyres out and after reading this will have to be xtra careful about the front, What a fuckin carry on!
you are right - glad you saw it first. At least it's in the ballpark apparently unlike many Aprilia owners who were whacking their pinch bolts up to 40 Nm.
