Mine is a knock-off DID chain tool, purchased off of eBay. Third time I've used it to connect a chain, it does a great job.
Did mine with a JT carrier. The bike is a keeper and the carrier itself was going on ebay for £50 as a new still in box item. That and the sprocket was close in cost to a one piece sprocket anyway. Ideally would have gone for 15/42 ratio but wound up getting 14/40 over the OEM 15/40. This has worked out nicely for A and B road, as well as town, riding. 6th is no longer the overdrive gear that it was. Not so 'lazy' on the motorway though but I can live with that as I try to avoid them if I can. That's not to say it's unusable but it's doing around 5,400rpm at 90 in 6th.
Genuine DID KM500R, hard as nails. https://www.wscperformance.co.uk/products/did-profesional-chain-cutter-and-riveting-tool-km500r
Unlucky, not an issue I've encountered with mine though I don't use it for cutting/removing, just for riveting the soft link. Use an angle grinder and pin punch to break the old chain.
When I fitted the carrier I didn't have the tools to remove the rear wheel and thought I could save by doing it myself. In practice the work all got lumped into major services and I didn't touch it till this year. Now I have the necessary torque wrench for the rear wheel the irony is, I don't really need the carrier. In the long run I have saved some money, as carrier sprockets are around £35ish vs £80 for non carrier that would be around £200 so far.
So only really applicable if there’s a need to replace rear sprockets? At that point it save money, otherwise not.
My DID knock off lasted 8 years, so can't complain at that. After cutting the old chain off with an angle grinder, I'm now using an AFAM Riv 5 for riveting the new chain, a good piece of kit that works well.
Exactly, the higher mileage you'll do and longer you plan to keep the bike the more this should pay off as each change would cost less and should take less time. As Bumpkin said the initial outlay for carrier and sprocket is about the same as a OEM style sprocket so that shouldn't make much difference and it does look pretty. It makes most sense if it's a track bike where you want a wide choice of sprockets and minimal weight and want to quickly chain sprockets with a minimal set of tools. If you intend to try different gearing combo's then the carrier would help as you could fit 525 or 520 sets and have a wide choice. If you are happy with what you have and want to ride a few thou a year I doubt you would see any benefit beyond appearance.
This is the one I bought , many years ago . Multi-purpose chain tool ..... it even does " quad-staking" https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/chain-splitter-rivetter.74915/#post-1520237
37k miles and just belts and sprockets...hmmm, don't know. Every 30k km Ohlins should be serviced, at 48k desmo better to change pulleys, just to be sure in your next miles. Also headset bearings inspection aaaaand rear swingarm bearings.
DIY I am doing all my servicing and repairs. Have done 4 DESMO services so far - belts and shims replacement. Done half a dozen chain and sprockets changes, brake pads & oil changes, replaced front wheel bearings, MAP sensors, removed and cleaned chain eccentric (now has a JT carrier and 41T Renthal sprocket) etc...etc..Next job do to is replacing the steering head bearings. My Multi 1200s 2013 runs and sounds perfectly and I use all the horses. She's done over 64000 miles so far but only shows 1100 miles on the odometer, courtesy of Ducati (odometer can only display 5 digits - max 62136miles. Ducati never thought Multis will do more miles or even last so long...). If you can do your repairs / maintenance go ahead and do it. You save money but mostly is the enjoyment and satisfaction you get out of it.
Thanks Stavrich, but I’ve done all the fettling-palaver. Rebuilt bikes, refurbished, resurrected them, made an arse of it and had to redo it, all the above. Yes, I had a lot of satisfaction. But I’m getting on-past three score and ten. I’ve no decent workshop space so end up working in the outdoors or cramped. It’s no fun any more. What might tilt the table is if I can save the hundreds of £ Labour charge, balanced against the hassle, loss of time (‘cos it’s bound to take me longer than a professional with all the access to tools, parts etc.) and peace of mind. I’m going to try to get the rear wheel nut off. If that fails, it’ll go in to the dealer and I’ll bite the financial bullet. If it works, then-see you all after Christmas, once I’ve finished.
I've just done my DVT belts and checked the clearances, its time consuming more than difficult. you only need a few special tools like the crank locker and the crank turner makes life loads easier. the only caveat with the DVT is the crank pulley doesnt always line up with the timing marks, only after so many full revolutions, so having timed mine up, I then did the obligatory few revolutions by hand only to find that whilst the cams were perfect, the crank pulley advances by approx 15 degs every full revolution till it eventually comes back to the marks luckliy I found a really good video on it before I pulled it apart and timed it back to the marks, its something to do with different numbers of teeth on the pulleys and spreading the valve load over the whole pulley instead of the same teeth everytime the valves open..or so I'm led to believe ! I cheated...paint dotted belts/pulleys, transfered to new belts and lined it all up, worked like a charm
That's the way to do mate for the DVT, so long as you're at TDC on the horizontal cylinder compression stroke, there are no set timing marks, the ECU takes care of all the timing via the crankshaft, inlet and exhaust camshaft position sensors. Some would have you believe that the camshaft pulley variators move but they can't when there is no oil pressure a pin locks them to the pulley. Similar system to Audi S and RS VVT.
