After much deliberation I am going to do @Chris 748SP suggestion and use an aerosol on those spots after a wire wool and antirust treatement. Its only surface around mainly the bracing nr headstock. I want my bike to look used. I love its patina. I dont want a fully restored 916, which it would end up being as once you tug that thread.... I'm simply going to take bits off one at a time and clean them and replace. Before I move onto the next bit. I may do swingarm and grease up everything and replace bearings there though. I remember transforming my old GS750 by just replacing all swingarm bearings etc.
@Chris 748SP I assume you mean these? Bike Colours, Lune Valley Estate, Caton Road, Lancaster, LA1 3PG
@bootsam yes that’s the one. I used him a few times and paint has been spot on. RS paints are good but like all things that begin with RS there’s a premium. Especially for anything over 20yr old lol
Exact cables arrived. Thats a nice comprehensive set of beefy looking kit. Cheers Stu if your lurking.
Recommend me some sparkies. OEM are Champion RA59GC. I guess these are ok enough for me. Some are £30 each on fleabay. Theyre £9 each here https://www.gsparkplug.com/1x-champion-gold-palladium-spark-plug-ra59gc.html
I personally went Iridium with NGK-DCR9EIX. They worked perfectly for the last 2 years/10.000km or so.
The ones I took out were NGK, but ive put champion in due to manual. No biggie. Ive no preference either way. Theyll be binned in 2yrs anyways.
Did belts and pulley bearings, made sure Hori was at tdc and all marks lined up before removing old and replacing with new. Did belts to 110Hz etc. 916 ran ok before, albeit with very stale fuel. Now she wont fire up the bugger. I assume I can spray easy start down the trumpets with tank removed to see if it fires. I have good sparks on both plugs. Fuel pump primes okay.
depending how good your tank periphery seal is (or can loosen front fixing) you can poke the extension tube of WD40/GT85 etc under tank seal/front briefly and churn immediately as the propellant is very flammable and there's no risk of paint/rubber damage from the Ether (or equiv) in Easy Start.
Thanks Chris, my thinking is that if it fires, then fuel is my issue. If it doesnt, then the spark I have is fibbing.
I’ve got both spark and fuel. These spark plug caps, they don’t seem to reach to properly clip over the nipple. They’re the oem ones but I’d rather feel a solid click from them. I also replaced the fuel relay with one hanging around my garage. The oem one looked suspicious. I think I might’ve had a wee tickle. But it’s flooded now. So I’ll overnight with plugs out.
bit of a mystery Boots.. particularly as engine in good fettle. Thinking back to the "old" days, these modern piston rings don't always like sitting, I wonder if a squirt of thin oil down each bore might help before putting plugs back in for the next attempt. Just a hunch but could be dry rings or "bore wash" preventing adequate compression for that initial fire.
I got a little tickle after replacing pump relay, but that was after much trying and it was flooded. Then I ran out of time and light. So will try again tonight. Its deffo getting fuel now as plugs showed very wet. I dont believe it was before. I have a hunch my relay went pop as its next to battery and old battery went boom recently (literally). I still dont like the plug caps. They feel as if they just touch the top of the plugs without clicking over them as they need a bit of a shove to push over them when not on the bike but done manually in hand.
Are your HT leads and caps OEM or has someone replaced them with another part? I had a situation with a misfire on my 998 when it arrived, when going through the process to uncover the fault I discovered the previous owner (or most likely a mechanic) had saved money by buying a car part, probably off a Fiat. At £90 for the OEM HT lead I’m not surprised. However, the non-OEM one was very slightly shorter, just a couple of mm or so which meant it wasn’t making a secure contact with the plug but merely resting against it. OEM from the other cylinder at the bottom.
Thats exactly my concern Paul, but theyre oem and have been on the bike all the while ive owned it (20+ yrs) and have the elephant moniker on them.
Not meaning to confuse things, and can’t give you a timescale, but Ducati did fit Fiat/Lancia plug leads as OEM at one time, these were identical part number to those fitted to Integrales etc at the same time.
Bought a set of these to eliminate them from my enquiry. Ive a good spark, fuel and timing is triple checked. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132097243639?fits=UKM_Make:Ducati&hash=item1ec19bf9f7:g:q3QAAOSwa3lcPfA8
