Hi Tony, I noticed in your pic of the cracked head tubes, it looks like the frame may have sustained more significant damage e.g. from a front end shunt, not just frame joint cracks during use, unless it is a mark / shadow. Might be worth checking the frame is straight.
Hi Jon, thanks for your concern. What you can see is some paint or something that must have been spilt on it during storage. Things have moved on a bit now - I welded the cracks today and will be making a strengthening gusset tomorrow to be welded in to reinforce the area. The engine is in the process of being painted and I'm awaiting new belts and tensioners together with the necessary shims to sort out the valve clearances and new valve seals. The guides seem to be OK with no obvious play, so I'm leaving it together. I got the Showa forks from eBay for £190 and I'm pleasantly surprised with the condition. There is a bit of pitting of the chrome on one leg, but it is out of the stroke area, as the seller stated. I've got new seals and oil ready to clean them out and re-build. I've tested the valving and it all works, so any further mods can wait until it's been ridden. I need to source the paint for the frame next if anyone can help with that please? I'm still not convinced that the clutch is serviceable, but my experience is with wet clutches only - it's difficult to see in photographs, but the basket is badly serrated and the tangs on the plates are battered. You can see daylight through the pressure plate in the spring wells as if the bottoms spring supports are about to break off! Perhaps this is OK??? All in all a very happy Tony thus far
Hi Tony, totally your choice with the clutch of course, I’ve seen worse and easing down the tangs and the ridges would give it enough life to decide if you want to replace it with a standard steel outer, steel friction plate set up, all alloy (less mass faster revs) or a slipper. New or old, it will rattle like a bag of marbles! Also, the stack height must have been somewhere near when you got it, so fewer variables when you put it back together.
I remember reading about the plate before this might help, but different bike 916 Pressure Plate Wear
Ah!, if it's a major issue I may just paint it all in a matt gold colour. It's unlikely that it will ever be considered to be a fully restored bike, so it probably doesn't really matter?? Tony
Just had a quick look at your clutch pics, doesn't look bad at all, and I'd say still plenty life left. I've seen far worse than that still in use. What happened is the more wear the faster it gets worse, as the tangs have more space to batter the basket.
I think I panicked when I removed the clutch cover and saw the "mess" as I'm used to wet clutches! It has cleaned up quite well. The stack height is 38.2mm, made up of the following plates (so not original, I don't think). inside out: 2x2mm steel, 3mm friction, 1.5mm steel, followed by 6x pairs 3mm friction, 2mm steel. No sign of any curved plates. I'm going to re-assemble and see how it works before I do anything else. I noticed that the eight bolts attaching the clutch basket had copious amounts of locking compound or something, but no mention of this in the manual - what is best practice? Tony
Tony, I'd use strong threadless. All the baskets I have removed have had red threadlock on them. If you imagine the hammering the basket takes, it makes sense to apply some, even if the manual doesn't state. I've always used. I try to get as much use out of them as I can, as they are not cheap things to replace.
Does anyone have a YSS rear shock? I've been looking for something better than the one fitted (Sachs I think) and paying circa £120-150 for another 25 year old unit seems mad as the YSS is £299 and adjustable in length too. I know Nitron or Ohlins would be the choice, but I'm not prepared to pay that sort of money, on the advice of Jon, until I have ridden it on road and track to get a feel for the bike. The engine is close to being finished - I'll post some pics tomorrow. Tony
Apologies, the previous post is not clear - i'm not trying to buy one from anybody - looking for feedback on the quality of the shock! Tony
Hi Tony, I have not used YSS shocks on an SS so can’t offer a view on their quality or usability. I have tried and tested loads of others though! - Nitron, Ohlins, Technoflex, WP, Hagon, all of them different but all better than the original Showa on the carby, which was in turn better than the Sachs on the ie. I’m sure the YSS would be an improvement. Sorry to do this / not intending to divert you from the YSS path but if you are interested and can wait a few days until I find it (we moved house recently) I have a Hagon shock I kept as a spare - spare that I could bear to part with which would probably be in the lower price range you mention for the Sachs as it isn’t perfect cosmetically IIRC. No worries if not of interest of course. Cheers, Jon
I'm ready to put my new timing belts on but I've noticed that there are marks on the black plastic gear cover (for want of a better description) where the belt has been rubbing. it can be pushed back towards the head, but it just springs out again! I can't find a cover in the Ducati parts catalogue that has the "skirt" on, they are the same depth across the back as the sides and the head has a "vibration damper pad" 70010271A. My head has finning behind that skirt. I did notice that a 2001 model does appear to have the "skirt". Should I just cut it off to prevent it rubbing? Tony
This weekend I stripped and re-built the Showa forks I got from eBay. There is a problem that I had noticed before I took them apart which I wrongly put down to a lack of oil in one of the legs. When I compress the fork there is resistance from the spring and damping as expected, but when I let go the stanchion jumps approx. 6mm and then continues to the top with damping evident as would be normal. It responds to whatever level of compression or rebound damping is selected. If I hold the stanchion still for a second or so before releasing it it returns as expected (no undamped movement). Any ideas greatly welcomed.... Tony
Hi Tony, I’ve seen this coming from a couple of causes. From the scale of the free play and ease of checking, I would check if the preload adjusters on the top of the forks are not correctly assembled (I.e. what is locked against what). You can usually spot this without any disassembly if you wind in the preload adjusters and the alloy pillar the rebound adjuster screw is mounted on does not stay out as the preload goes on. You can get to a point where as you extend the fork fully you can see that pillar move in and out freely.
Jon, the preload adjuster seems to be working fine. The 'jump' is more like half an inch unless I hold the stanchion still for 5 secs and it then returns as expected....there is a bang as the stanchion pops up until the damping begins?!?
