750 Ss Restoration In Spain

Yeah.. It's been really a long time with not too much progress.

The company I'm working for has been listing one of their business lines in the stock exchange market, and being the responsible to deal with capital market investors, I've been travelling almost all weeks since January.

Awfully tired and with very little time to play with my toys on the weekends.

Also I've been helping my 16 year old son to prepare to apply to universtiy. He is willing to go to US to study, and it is a very tough process where he has to prepare a lot of maths, physics and also his english skills.

In the meantime, I've been also very busy trying to finish up my home made CNC Router that I will need to cut custom made pieces for the dashboard and seat (amongst others)

It is almost finished, but his has stolen nearly all my free time. (I've been learning a lot on CAD desing, Arduino programming, CNC projects and informatics that I had very rusty)

This is how the machine looks like now.


Almost finished. I'm now fiddling with the electronics (a pesky nightmare. Too many little connectors crowding in a very little space), and I had to go back to the drawing board many times until I managed the way to route all cables along the mobile axis.



Every thing is done with a 3d Printer and cheap chinese electronics. No manuals. Trial and mistake, luck and frustration...




Coming back to the Ducati, here is the progress made.

I finished the fuel lines using some fuel braided lines and quick coupling connectors (idea I borrowed from Wolfram)




Also would like to thank Gary for sending me his templates to cut the solo seat support brackets, that were cut in steel and folded at 15 euros each on the same ironsmith shop where they fabricated the battery box

This is how identic to the OEM part they look. (at a fraction of the cost).

Thanks Gary, I owe you a big frozen beer for this.



Now it has come the time for painting.

NZDave (thumbs up) gave me a good idea when he suggested painting the bike in the classic Orange and Blue GULF colors. It was very inspirational and I decided to move one step forward (yeah.. let's do unexpected things)

I'm now planing to use a combination of classic GULF orange (like the frame is) and CHROME!!

Please, please,.. don't judge until is finished!

I have fully dissasembled the tank



It has an small dent that will have to be repaired



And did some color testing with spray can to figure out how it would look chrome painted.

In reality it will not be chromed, but water chrome painted (a new technique that allows a durable mirror looking chrome finish in any surface)




At this point I went a little bit ballistic, and decided also to use different DUCATI stickers for the tank sides. Choosing the vintage ones in gold with the old letter font




It will look close to this when finished



It will also have a long wide GULF orange stripe along the upper part of the tank (pinstripped in black), so I got my handy laser beam



Found all the straight lines needed.



And painted all the lines that will help the paintshop to follow my instructions (hopefully)

Use your imagination, see the colors, and sed me your comments.




Also finished the adjustment of the new bikini front fairing



But the fins have no attachement points, and it looks like they will vibrate a lot when the bike is running (if it ever does...)

So, some headscratching and out of the box thinking will be required to figure out how to fix the pointy part of the fin to the frame in a concealed, easy to dissasemble way...




Back to the drawing board for some time...

This is all for now. Thanks for giving me a heads-up Mark, and thank you all folks for being patient and all the good ideas and support.

For now, I will go back to fight with the CNC robot who believes he is going to win this battle.. (idiot AI, he does not know that real stupidity and stubborness will always beat artificial intelligence...)

I'll be back soon

Cheers

Tom

 

You're right dave.

I did a bit of google research looking for ideas, and I came across some good examples:





I don't pretend mine to be so shiny, so, besides the orange stripe to match the frame, rear and front fairing will possibly be of a darker metallic color to compensate.

Still thinking..

 

It is indeed Al..

And worst of it, the pointy bit is very tiny and thin to work in it.

I will have to figure out some sort of hidden boss connecting to a rod or screw on the frame similar to this.. (credits to a very nice thread of Ducati Up North forum)



But mine will certainly involve 3d printing, CNC milling and lots of glue..

There is nothing like overengineeried solutions to simple self-created problems...


By the way, tank is now on the shop being refurbished and painted.
hopefully back home in one week

 

Hi Gents,

Way loong time with no posting, but work has not stopped.

I got the tank chromed and painted



Awful garage light on the pictures does not bring out the real orange color that, in reality looks like this



Now that the tank is finished, a quick afternoon in plumbing and installing pump, lid, and

frontal strap



Opinions and comments welcome. I know it is a very unusual color combination, but she, definitely, is going to be a looker!

Now I need to finish the rest of the fairings (which, by the way, I still have no idea on what color they will be painted...)




The solo seat fairing I bought in Ricambi Weiss was cheap (good thing) but did not fit well on the rear (bad thing)



As you can see, the ends do not embrace the rear light properly and, what is worst, they are not even symmetric.

So some fiber work was required.



Hours of sanding, fiber dust breathing, (man, I'm getting old for this.. ) and some gross talking afterwards, the result was acceptable



Same sanding treatment applies also to the front end and Bikini fairing



Painting of fairing will come after summer (hopefully by end of September it will be done)

For now she will stay like this for some time.



Now there is only two things pending

the Seat, and the dashboard

For the seat, i will cut some 10mm. thick nylon plates using my CNC cutter, and i will pad them a send to trim in a professional upholstery (I'm totally unable to sew a shirt's button)

For the dashboard, I'm planning to reproduce the original one with a bit of hi-tech solutions.

I don't know if you are familiar with this guys in USA http://www.speedhut.com/
they produce custom made gauges (speedos, tachos, fuel, etc..) that you can build to your specification.
Speedos are GPS controlled, so there is no need of cables, magnets, etc.. and tachos are digital with the possibility to add gear shift lights and so on.

I've done my own design (still a work in progress) and it will look similar to this.



Those gauges are some 20mm thick (gorgeous) and, therefore, I can not use the existing dash of the Ducati, so I will have to fabricate my own.

How!??

Very simple

First I will cut from the old one the lights box that I will be re-using



Then, let's go crazy.!!..

Using a CAD software I design a new gauge frame that fits the new clocks (SpeedHut measures in inches and the gauges are some mm. wider than the originals)


Once the prototype is done, I will fabricate it using the 3D printer (total cost less than 10 euros)

Afterwards I will use the CNC cutter to cut a 2mm aluminum plate to use it as the visible face of the dash (plus to add rigidity to the set)



Sorry still no pictures of the finished thing. I will post them after summer.

This is all for now.

Wish you all a wonderful summer vacation and let's catch up in September


Tom

 

Yeah, that would be terrific. But a 900 engine in good condition costs more that what I paid for this girl.
Besides, I believe the small 750 still has some roaring to do.

 

Hi Al, mine will be finished in satin Aluminium.
I'm now a bit stuck because the size of the gauges frame is 210mm long and my 3D printer printing space is only 200x200
I have to figure out how to solve this (without buying a bigger printer bed)
Defeated by a 10mm piece of plastic.. wow!