Right, time to start on my new toy .... ST4S, as if you could miss the previous stuff! First job up is to sort out the minor notchiness of the head races. Going to give them a clean & grease first just in case that's all it needs but I'm not holding my breath. Had a read of the workshop manual and see that the bike should have caged rollers ..... if I need to replace them is it a good idea to fit taper rollers? If so does anyone have the correct numbers? If I'm better replacing with caged balls are they available from outside the Ducati network? Any hints & tips very much required before I start!! Thanks chaps.....
Changing them is not a difficult job - if you're going to the bother of getting the front end apart anyway why not replace them instead of stripping, cleaning, greasing and reassembling just to find no improvement? Taper rollers would be better, yes... (IMO) The numbers are usually stamped on the races - I have the part numbers written in my workshop manual, but it's back in the UK (not much help to you, I realise, sorry...) Yes, the bearings are available from other sources. I'm lucky in that I have a friendly bearing factor not that far away who will match up the bearings from the bike to what is available. Most of the bearings are made by SKF and packed in a Ducati box. Cheaper to buy them direct instead of paying for them to go to Italy and back...
He's right, if you've stripped it down you might as well replace them. Contact Wemoto, give them the bike details and they'll supply correct figment bearing. No need to search about. Just done it...glad I did.
Yes, figment bearings are good. OP - ask for figment bearings and don't accept "uh?" for an answer (means it's a cowboy outfit). Totally agree with the previous posters - don't mess about with the old ones, get taper rollers (much easier to tension, much larger roller bearing surface area, and likely to require less adjustment as well as holding more lube), pattern bearings are cheap and fine and there's a bunch of brands that are all more than good enough. Think I paid about £12 a side a few months back. Put the new bearings in the freezer a day or two before you're going to do the job - it really pisses em off. You can heat up the headstock/neck if you like but you don't have to. Drift the old races out a bit at a time (ie take your time and don't be a gorilla) and they'll come out just fine. Work radially around the race by placing the drift inside the neck tube. When you put the new races in use the old races, upside down, as a well fitting drift for your new races. Place an hammer-able object over the old race to attempt drifting the race in squarely. You can see by eye if it's right and it 'wants' to go in squarely anyway. The proper way to do it is with the correct tool - which is a long threaded stud with a large disc at each end and two nuts. You basically wind the two races into the headstock at the same time. Take your time, it really doesn't take long at all once you've stopped thinking about and got on with it, and also spend a few minutes packing grease into the new bearings - rotating each roller and generally getting your hands very messy. If it doesn't work call someone else.
Yeah, figment bearings. Hmmm. They'll supply the correct fitment bearing. Auto incorrect ion .....see it did that automatically. Or is that a figment of my imagination.
Well, that's that done. As it happens I think it was the easiest race change I've done. Even the lower inner race came off without too much of a protest. Thanks for all the input, chaps. Now it's just swap the hand controls over ..... or rather try to find suitable components as cheap as possible and see if they work! The stock master cylinders look too hideous when fitted upside down for me to contemplate thousands of miles looking at them. Going to sub out the top end service as well .....
