Cheers guys. Right, I've had pretty much two whole days dedicated to the bike, this doesn't happen very often. I managed to make a 'to-do' list over the last week or so, and I have gotten through at least half of the jobs. Friday saw a visit to Probolt, I got a few bits for the duc, a few for my road bike and a few pieces for a mates gixxah. For the 748 I got a handful of m6 hex/flange bolts for the mudguard bracket on the forks. They have replaced socket cap heads, so I needed to turn them down a bit so they would fit in the small recess. You can see the subtle difference compared to a standard on on the rIght:- No pic of them fitted, you can hardly see them anyhow... Friday evening was spent checking the alternator nut for tightness. I have a strap wrench but I knew it wouldn't be man enough to hold the flywheel, so I made a bit of a tool to hold it proper. The bike on its side, to stop any oil escaping. And the tool:- I know its a bit over the top, but it makes the job easy. They reckon it should be checked every year, or after every couple of trackdays anyway, so it should see some use. Then yesterday I made up a little widget to lose the mounting bolt on the petrol tank. The bullet is made from titanium, naturally. And fitted:- I have done loads of other little jobs, but they are just not exciting, only time consuming. Like putting a new connector on one of the dash switches, and neatening the wiring loom routing, and fitting a new battery. Boring, but therapeutic. I did manage a cheeky ride around the estate yesterday tho
ooooer nice piece if machining, if your ever bored and feel like making another tank pin I would buy one. :smile:
I like that ... you can make me one as well I keep meaning to order another rubber for the tank mount as I only have one between two tanks - one road, one trackday - but seeing your ingenious use of the exhaust mount rubber reminds me that I have a load of these kicking about so I can hopefully do the same
Hey Anthony, I had no idea it was the wrong part? Should it be a rubber grommet? Further to my tinkering a few weeks ago, I have pretty much sewn up my list of jobs to do this weekend. Today I reset the TPS (which was way out), balanced the throttle bodies and set the tickover a little higher than normal at 1200. I rode a track bike last weekend at pembrey and that had a much higher tickover set at about 1500, and I really liked the way it rode. It made the bike feel less lurchy coming out of the hairpin, and I could get away with second gear. Anyway, heres the setup. AVO for the TPS, vacuum gauges, and a little RPM sensor for engine speed. This little job is only a cheapo from ebay, I did have a better quality one but I think it was borrowed, permanently. :/ Its supposed to be for a mx/enduro/kart so assumes you have wasted spark ignition, but just double the figure on the display to get the true RPM. And another cheeky razz around the estate. Shes all set now for Louigi Moto next weekend.
Snap!!! I made this a few years back for my sons 748 Race bike as part of the preparation for the Maaxis challenge. The idea works well but if you crash, as he did!!! it puts a lot of sideways strain on the fitting. As you can see it bent although it still retained the tank in place.
The one I have on my original tank is plain not castellated, or whatever you want to call it! I had a quick look through my "no idea what this is but I'm going to keep it because it may come in handy one day" box and found a grommet the same as yours in black. I know the same style is used on the exhaust can hangars but are blue, so maybe it is the right part and just a later version that is now used in loads of places rather than specific parts, and it helps keep the cost down. Any road up, it does the job
The original tank rubber is a grommet which has different sized flanges on it, a top hat washer goes through the centre of it with the washer side at the bottom. A large head allen bolt which is shouldered goes through the tank washer\rubber and provides the rear fixing. The setup allows a degree of movement with some degree of insulation from vibration. The washer allows the bolt shoulder to bottom out but still allow the tank to flex at the joint slightly and i guess this is to help prevent vibration causing the fuel to "foam" and slosh.
Yes, that's the setup that I have, but only have one grommet with shouldered washer, and I'm too tight to buy another so swap them over when I swap between road (pretty) and track (scraped) tanks
I know what you mean!, I used one that was split for a long time, not sure why, but I never seemed to remember to order another one when I was buying parts, they are not expensive so I don't have an excuse. Having recently started work on rebuilding a Suzuki RGV 250 track bike for someone I am now more of the opinion that Ducati parts are almost reasonably priced compared to the insane prices that Suzuki charge for this model.
Hmmm, I wonder why you have made the pin so tall? Surely the tank would sit too high on the bike? Its no wonder it bent, theres not enough support in shear.
Right, one of the parts I have been meaning to recondition for a while is the ECU. I had a spare a while ago, and had intended to apply the recon to that, but I can't find it anywhere, must have gotten lost in the move. I trawled ebay for a cheap donor, but could only find fiat ECU's, they are almost identical externally, but differ slightly inside. The Fiat ECU has a fixed PROM rather than an EPROM slot, it does't have the CO trim, and has a different number of transistors etc. Secretly, I had hoped that they were the same and I would have cheap access to ECU's... Having worked out how to break the seal of the lid cleanly, I started the process. Here is a pic of the first one I did last week. It looks ace, but the case has a fair bit of pitting, and up close looks pretty rough still. So, this weekend I decided to see if i could linish the rear of the case, and lose the area that the decal usually sits in. Starting to disappear. And gone:- Once I had given it the once over with the bead blaster, and tumbled it for an hour it looks like this:- Pretty nice. The front cover has a hole in it to access the EPROM, neither of the fiat ECU's has the opening, so I had to use the original. I wanted to take care not to mark or gouge the surface so needed to find a way of removing the silicon glue. Turns out soaking it with tar+glue remover is perfect. Having polished it by hand, it looked too shiny. Now most would be happy with that, but I don't like to look of polished parts, I'd much rather have something more subtle that didn't need any maintenance. I don't have a pic of the finished cover, but I tumbled it for a while and has put a bit of a sheen on it. It looks far better, I will post a pic tomorrow when it is finished. More in a min....
A visit to Halfords found some suitable silicon RTV in grey. Going back together:- I've just realised that you can see the finish of the lid here. This is how I have left it for the evening. Full cure takes up to a week, but it should be 'dry' in the morning. A few weeks ago, I had the idea of having some decals made to cover over the access hole and seal it from the elements. You can buy a specific decal from Ducati, but thats boring. I drew them up with advanced CAD hardware. Turnaround from the decal man on the estate was a couple of hours, pretty impressive. So, as soon as it back on the bike tomorrow I will post a pic of the finished article.
Having rebuilt my old RGV250L's barrels so many times that I could do it in my sleep, I feel your pain!
It was an experiment originally and the thread is quite long but the tank sat very tightly on the top fitting. However the crash pulled the thread up and out of it's mounting. I did notice more rocking when I made the pin, at first, but that may have been down to a worn grommet,they tend to split and rip with age and I think this one had seen better times. There may just have been enough movement when it went up the road, the tank stayed on though. Possibly a stronger piece of material was the answer regarding the pin.
