Hi. My 959 seems to have blown either one or two head gaskets. I'm weighing up doing them myself but the biggest thing that concerns me is the mating surfaces. I'm thinking that the best route would be to resurface both heads whilst they're off so I don't have to strip the bike again if one of the mating surfaces isn't quite up to scratch. I've seen that in the service manual Ducati advise that the heads are ground with a lapping paste in a figure eight motion. Has anyone actually done this or is there anywhere in the UK that provides this service? Alternatively, has anyone ever head their Superquadro heads skimmed? I'm not sure why Ducati say to lap the head rather than skim it?
I've never done cylinder heads but I have ground other surfaces using that method. There's nothing difficult about it. You need a genuine flat surface, I use a sheet of plate glass from the front of an old (really old) TV screen. Spread a little valve grinding paste on the face to be ground and work it in a figure eight on the glass. Grind until there is an even finish visible over the whole of the face. You may have to change the grinding paste a few times.
Maybe they think there isn't much wiggle room for skimming the heads before you have interference problems. A quick lap would show where your problems are without removing much material. Or you could try blueing the head to see what us up
