The engine paint on my 999 is quite badly corroded so I am slowly painting it piece by piece rather than take the whole engine out. The front cyclinder head cover is quite bad and was thinking of removing it, having it soda blasted and then powder coated. It looks straight forward but I dont wont to make a small job into a large nightmare job, ie gaskets are prone to tear and cost a fortune or you'll struggle to get the head nuts off etc. Easy DIY job or best leaving it in place and paint it with silver engine enamel?
Piece o piss, Bananaman. There are no explosions of bits everywhere. Remove ignitor cable then the 4 hold down bolts. There is a rubber gasket but if you remove head cover carefully it should be ok to re fit. They aren't expensive. Go for it....
I have a little bit of flaking on the rear head cover and the headlight shell and was going to use this paint.... DUCATI 998 999 748 749 2002 AEROSOL KIT ENGINE SILVER. | eBay
I bought that kit in a touch up bottle and then used an airbrush to spray it on to the sump area, it wasn't as silver as I was expecting, more of a grey/silver. I think it might have been the dark etch primer I used that gave it a grey appearance. Let me know what you think, maybe I'll buy the aerosol product and not use a grey primer next time.
I will probably use an acid etch primer and the last time I used it was on a mates engine cases and the paint is still mint so we will see. The colour was almost white so wi see what it looks like.
5 min job my arse! The head cover will not come off unless you remove the airbox & the timing belt by the looks of it. After removing all the fairings, radiator etc I got to a stage where the cylinder head won't come off due to the timing belt & airbox being in the way. Am I not trying hard enough or should I put more force in to try & wiggle the cover out, or does the motor need to be removed before I can get clearance?
seems that if you had a cam locking tool , the sort you can get for a fiver from ebay , you could then ease the tension , slip the belt off , temporarily refit once head cover is off till repaint is done , I could be wrong as I've never had these parts off , someone here will have this knowledge
They just come off, you don't have to remove anything IIRC (for the horizontal cylinder, I can't remember if you have to loosen the oil cooler and angle it forward). If the bolts are off, its being held in place by Three Bond or whatever gasket sealant they used. Just give it a tap, it'll come away.
if your gonna blast it.. mask off the seal face with heavy duty tape. we use it at work and it withstands 100psi peen blasting. if the seal face becomes distorted or damaged it will weep oil
You need the belts off. One it's much easier to get the covers off, but more importantly you will spill oil and if it's on the belts then consider them scrap.... You don't need the airbox out, just lift it. Undo the jubilee clips on the intake manifolds and lift it out of the rubbers. The covers have 6 screws, each with an o-ring under the head. The gaskets aren't much cop, especially the one that seals the plug chamber, but using a thin smear of threebond on them helps no end. Refit them to a clean mating surface, grease the o-rings and tighten down. Push the airbox back intot eh manifold rubbers and tighten back up. Refit the belts.
you dont need to remove the belts to remove the cam cover. the job is a piece of piss. the radiator needs moving slightly. not taken off. the rear cam cover is even easier. are you sure you mean the cam covers and not cylinder heads. if your struggling to do a simple job like this then perhaps you should consider letting somebody do it who knows their way around the bike.
Thanks for the advice, I was hoping for a straight forward removal of the head cover for a quick soda blast & repaint but it appears I now have the belt & the airbox in the way as it will only come about 15 mm forward. I'll have another look tonight, I have all winter so no rush. If it's a belt removal job then I'll take it down to Ducati dealership, simple.
The cover has now been removed and sent away for powder coating, I had to loosen the airbox intake mainfolds and lift the airbox slighly so it could clear the cover, then managed to get it out sidewards in order to clear the cambelt. Having spoken to the Ducati dealership mechanic he said it is possible to remove but they recommended removing the cambelt otherwise it is very awkward.
Got the cover back from the powder coaters yesterday (Triple s power coatings in Bingley), they do an excellent job. Just got to get some liquid gasket and fit it back on now. I didn't ask for an exact colour match and just chose a silver metallic finish as it's on the horizontal cylinder anyway so not really that visible.
All my bits I ordered from Ducati have arrived so it's time to start the re-assembly process, anyone got some advice with regards to applying liquid silicon to the valve cover rubber gasket? I see the manual suggests applying it. I'm just trying to avoid putting it on both sides of the plastic gasket and then struggling to get it off when it comes to valve clearances time. Any suggestions? All the way around the gasket on both sides or just at some places?
