Project 999

Thanks Alphaoctane, that looks far more sensible.

 

I've had some other priorities over the last week, so progress on the 999 pretty much stalled.
I'm sure many will understand the need to top up the Brownie point tally with the Lady of the house.

I have manged to steal 10mins hear and there, so have got the Battery box etc off the bike and tidied up.
making sure of course that each connector is marked up with where it goes back.

All the original Cloth wrapping was soaked in oil and really dirty so it came off and I cleaned up everything underneath as best I could.

 

I wrapped some of the various branches of the loom in non-adhesive PVC tape, with just a small tab of adhesive tape at the ends to secure it, but where possible I wanted to remove the crimps from the Connector blocks and cover the cables properly with heatshrink.

So time for another demonstration of just how easy some of these processes can be.

The superseal connectors used by Ducati are really easy to disassemble and rebuild with a very simple homemade tool.

Female contact removal:


Male contact removal:


Amphenol do sell a pair of specific removal tools, actually at a reasonable price, but I've been using Superseal connectors for years and still have the special tool I made at the beginning.



The end is actually filed into a flat, but you can't see it in the image.

 

So then it's simply a case of removing the contacts:


Slipping them through some heatshrink, possible with the help of a little silicone spray:


And pushing the crimps back in the body, followed by the locking tab:

 

After finishing off the various cable splits with more non-adhesive and adhesive tape, and raiding my stash for some proper Ducati rubber cable ties it's all looking far better.



And the backing plate come heatshield fits far better.


Hopefully I'll get some time in the coming days to fit it back on the bike.

 

Yep, I keep meaning to buy one, or 'borrow' one from work, but I get so much satisfaction using my homemade tool.

 

One exciting development is that I've just heard the headlamp shells are ready at the powdercoaters, along with my spare set of Monster footpeg hangers which I'll swap out for the rough ones on my M1000.
So I'll be off in a minute to collect them.

I went with Silver rather than my initial Satin Black thought.

 

I'm also expecting a small parcel tomorrow with a couple of replacement Micro Relay mounts.
I have both the different sized latched contacts in stock and am going to make up an extension to the Fuel pump relay loom branch to position it somewhere far better.
Possibly near the fusebox on the headlamp shell.

 

I got the battery box etc mounted back on the bike today and all the various branches of the loom back in place and connected up.

I've extended the Fuel Pump Relay cables quite a bit so the relay is held to the frame rail with a Rubber cable tie just under the two quick release fasteners for the top of the fairing side - image to follow tomorrow.
The plan is to be able to change it by just undoing the two quarter turn fasteners and reaching just inside the fairing.

I also built up the newly powdercoated headlamp shells with the headlights etc, but won't fit it yet as it will be easier to remove the bottom yoke with it off the bike.

 

Thanks RickyX, it is on the list to do, but I'd not decided on a location yet, but that looks ideal.

 

Now this area of the bike is back together and has taken far more effort than I'd imagined it would, I'd like to move on to something more exciting.

Although I do need to look more into swapping out the Reg/Rec.
I've got a 1200 Multistrada one and some Triumph cables that plug into it ready to use.





Note newly positioned Fuel Pump relay where I should be able to swap it out at the side of the road in very little time.

 

I might change the belts next, I have a new pair purchased from the usual place, the Ex-frequenter of this Parish
And also sort out the Clutch with the extra plate quiet clutch mod, as it was making a hell of a noise when the bike ran.
Once the belts are done I'll do what I usually do and strip the clutch out to run the engine so any nasty noises aren't masked by the clutch banging away and sounding like it's destroying itself.

I've changed lots of Cambelts in my time, even my old twin Turbo Subaru GTB, which was a complete nightmare for access and being a really wide Quad Cam Boxer engine, and I ended up doing the job twice on my old Discovery TDV6 because of the miles I put on it. I'm hoping to keep the miles down a bit on my latest Discovery so it won't need doing for a while.

I've got changing the belts on my Aircooled 2 valve Ducatis down to well under an hour using the JP Diag software on a Laptop with a remote microphone to tension them, which I find far easier to use than the Gates App on my Phone which really doesn't work well for me.

So I need to do some investigation into the process on my first 4-Valve Ducati via the workshop manual and perhaps a couple of youtube vids.
Does anyone have any tips or recommendations for a particularly good demonstration?

 

Thanks Sev

I'm still on the look out for non-race rep body panels that I won't have to get painted.
Still in the vain hope that I can put a set together for less than the cost of a Chinese EBAY set.
At this stage they don't need to be perfect, just presentable enough to get it on the road.

The Nose cone that came with the bike is recoverable, so I'm looking for side panels and Monoposto seat panels.
The bike is obviously a MkII, with 'single vent' nose cone and side panels without the little wings at the top and bottom of the vertical blades on the side panels.
Can anyone confirm that if I find decent MkI side panels and matching wings they will fit the MkII nose cone?

 

The other major thing I'm still contemplating is the front end.
Obviously I'd like to do a full Ohlins conversion, but really can't justify the cost of the parts.

The existing forks and Calipers all need rebuilding, the fork seals are leaking, and by the state of the Gold coating on the stanchions it looks like at least the lower fork bushes need changing.



None of it is obviously too costly parts wise, and I have all the tools to do the work myself, but I'd much rather put the effort into refreshing a set of Radial caliper forks with 53mm top and bottom yoke sizes from something like an 848 or 1098.

If anyone has anything for sale please get in touch.
I've been very kindly offered everything else I need to do the conversion at a good price, but just need the forks themselves.

 

Nothing much has progressed on the bike for the last week as Lady Nasher, the dog, and I decided to have a long weekend walking on Bodmin Moor.
However, I did get some quality thinking time in without the distraction of work or doing stuff around the house.

Unfortunately I've returned to a small pool of Oil under the bike which is dripping off the connector between the engine/alternator and the Reg/Rec.
I'll need to investigate this of course, I'm assuming at the moment it's coming from the grommet where the 3 x Yellow wires pass through the casing, as it appears to be too much to be coming up under the insulation on the cables into the connector.

 

Have investigated the Oil leak today, and annoyingly it appears to be coming up the three wires from the alternator.

But, not around the wires where they exit from the case through a grommet, but up between the Copper conductor and the Yellow insulation on each wire.
It's coming out the end of the insulation, filling up the connector block and dripping out.
And quite a lot has come out during the very brief time I've run it for after reconnecting the electrics to see if it all still worked.

Obviously it's a lot harder to solve this issue without replacing the cables, but I might try some adhesive heatshrink over the ends of the cables inside the casing.

It may not work though, as it didn't work when I had the same issue with the wiring on my TD5 Landie.
That Oil found it's way to the ECU from the Coil packs and shorted the pins out in the connector block.