Ducati John... Took the motor out myself, took it up to Sheffield and left it with him... Do that.. Taking the motor out yourself would save labour costs.
My Monster did the same with 6th gear, it should be obvious if teeth are missing without splitting the engine. Here's what I found in the oil; And here's the gears; I got a good, used gearbox set for not much money and swapped it myself. A bit daunting if it's not your thing but not that difficult really and I dread to think what a Ducati dealer would have charged me. Took me a while to get it done but that was mainly because, whilst in there I noticed the exhaust valve guides were very loose so got them done at the same time but, due to the specialist nature of the job I took it to an engineering place who took a couple of months to do them. Also you should be able to get a view of the gearbox down the rear cylinder 'hole' - still need to remove the rear cylinder to get in but less time consuming than removing and splitting the engine though, ultimately you'll need to to do that anyway if it is a broken gear.
Might the rattle be something else, like a gear selector, rather than teeth? As others have suggested, you really need to drop the oil and hope the residues point you in the right direction. A rattle implies something less solid than a hardened gear tooth flying about which would be making uglier sounds
As above, if it's only a rattle it may not be as serious, could it be something in the selector mechanism under the left side crankcase cover? When my 6th gear lost some teeth, my first thought was that the sprocket had lost teeth or the chain some rollers as it was snatching and not just in 6th gear, it was also struggling to pull away in first, presumably because the gears weren't meshing/spinning properly on the shafts? I even suspected the clutch basket was somehow slipping until I saw the 'hedgehog' on the sump magnet and then I knew something was wrong internally.
Thanks for all the replies. @Sev - I think I tend to agree with you. My main issue is not having the time to be able to drop the engine and strip the ancillaries off it so that Baines or whoever can work their magic without having to spend a few hours doing the initial tear down. I don't like the idea of fitting a second hand engine all that much, when my bike is such a lovely, immaculate thing otherwise. I love the idea of it only being a selector mechanism issue under the left side crankcase cover; despite the noise, it pulls normally in 4th, so maybe I'll hang onto the idea of it only being that. In the meantime I've bought a somewhat tatty GSX-R1000 K5 to keep me on the road, so no mad rush now in fixing the Ducati. For the investigative work it will probably to be down to whoever can fit it in out of Baines and Desmoshed (heard good things about them). Cheers all. Will update this thread with news (I'm sure you're on tenterhooks).
Yep, cheers for that. I'd rather pay the couple of hours I think. Poor life choices (aka twin babies) preclude such luxuries as endless hours of spanner twirling. This is my 4th GSX-R1000 (had K2, K6 & K8 previously). This K5 is an absolute unloved festering turd though. Will be a good running project to bring back to its former glory.
Financially, I have to second @Sev here-the £ is gone whichever way you turn. Better to bite the bullet and get it rebuilt, rather than fit an unknown quantity.
yes, spoken to Mark several times over the years, i wouldn't hesitate to use these if i really needed them, rather than just talk about them - i may have misunderstood but, point was/is, the ratios, the whole gearset complete, are perfectly fine for fitment to 1098/1198 Streetfighter or "Super"bike.
Thanks @Sev - I know James really well; did Cadwell with him in June and discussed his 1198 when he came over recently. I’ve used Baines too. Cheers
Sorry to read about your woes, did chortle at the thread title though, apologies and good luck with the above.
Having discussed the rebuild with Artur at Desmoshed, I think I’m going to be without the Streetfighter for a good couple of months. That’ll give me a bit of time to decide what to do about my multiple bikes storage issue. Whaddya mean, just sell one???
