Hello All

Yep... Sure are... The noisier the better.. Does it have an open clutch basket...?

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Welcome

 

welcome - can you post pics of the noise ?

 

The noise you refer to is the legendary dry clutch! Welcome to the wonderful world of Ducati where 'They all do that Sir'... This noise seems to divide opinion amongst the biking word, some love it and some hate it... I personally love it A Ducati wouldn't be a Ducati without it!

If you are still unsure though, get a video when you get the bike started up and post in the relevant section of the forum for re-assurance from some of the Oracle's that reside on here!

Last but not least, well most importantly actually with regards to you getting a nice new bike! Forum rules dictate if there are no photo's it didn't happen!!!

Hope you enjoy getting acquainted with your new machine! Keep it shiny side up

Ben

 

welcome

 

The metallic banging you are hearing is the sound of the clutch plate tangs banging backwards and forwards in their slots, bashing notches in the basket slots and hammering the tangs smaller until it gets so bad that you have to replace both plates and basket and start again.
As you have already discovered, many Ducati owners hear this as music but not all of us and there is a simple way to avoid it and make your clutch basket and plates last much longer.
If you are interested in this, please let me know.

 

I was hoping it was open then I could have flogged you a stock clutch cover...!

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Think you need to post on utube, then post a link on here.

 

Ok, I will try to explain.
The plain plates have tangs on the inside of them that run in slots in the clutch hub. The friction plates have tangs on the outside of them that run in slots in the clutch basket.
The hub is inside the basket but is not connected to it except by the pressure of the clutch springs pressing the plain plates and the friction plates together hard enough that the clutch stack of plain and friction plates becomes a solid unit connecting the engine to the gearbox and providing drive to the chain and rear wheel.
When you operate the clutch lever, the friction and plain plates separate and disconnect the engine and gearbox.
This disconnection can be partial, so the clutch is deliberately slipping for moving off etc.
Forgive me if you know and understand all this already.
The fit of the plate tangs in their slots needs to be tight enough to not float about too much but loose enough to allow the clutch plates to move within the slots to separate and rejoin according to your movement of the clutch lever.
When new this free play is pretty limited but it doesn't stay that way.
Most bikes have wet clutches and run in oil that cushions the contact between tang and slot. Indeed, Ducati themselves have now gone over to wet clutches for Panigales etc.
However, our bikes have the famous Ducati dry clutch and no oil means no cushioning and as the tang and slot contact points wear, so the gaps increase and the wear accelerates.
The clutch chatters more and more, bashing backwards and forwards in the slots, bashing notches in the slots and hammering the tangs smaller and smaller until you get to the stage when the clutch is not only chattering loudly at idle in neutral, it also chatters when riding along on a neutral throttle.
It is at this point that most people cry enough and decide to replace plates and basket and restart the whole cycle.
However, although the plates and basket are now knackered by all the bashing, the friction surfaces will still have plenty of life in them.
Happily, for those of us with enough mechanical sympathy to not enjoy the sound of unprotected metal hitting unprotected metal, there is a solution.
This solution relies on the happy fact that the basket slots are machined in such a way that they have a rounded end to them, which the hub slots do not. The hub slots have a flat, square end to them.
The standard arrangement for the Ducato clutch is to have a plain plate at the bottom of the stack and then basically alternate plain and friction plates until you fill the slots with a plain plate at the top to contact the reassure plate which the springs bear on. It's not quite as simple as that because some of the plain plates are doubled up but that's the general idea.

Now, with a plain plate at the bottom, the first friction plate sits on top of it and doesn't ever reach down to the bottom section of the slots where they are rounded, it always stays in the parallel sided section of the slot.
The first plain plate at the bottom of the stack is sitting on the flat bottom of the hub slots, with all the other plates above it all in parallel sided slots, so they are free to oscillate within the slots and the amplitude of that oscillation is directly related to the wear between tangs and slots.
HOWEVER, you can put a friction plate in first and if you do that, the friction plate tangs can now sit right down into the rounded, curved, concave section at the very bottom of the basket slots. This means that that friction plate is jammed in place and no longer free to oscillate and this has a knock-on effect on all the other plates, the whole stack is now stabilised.
No more oscillation, no more bashing. No more bashing means that wear is incredibly reduced and you can now keep the same friction plates until the friction surfaces are worn, rather than having to prematurely replace both plates and basket because the tangs and slots are knackered.
In fact wear is reduced so much that @Derek on here was able to keep the same clutch for something like 36,000 miles.
Usual scenario is just a few thousand before plates and basket are knackered. I believe he only had to change it then because the friction surfaces were worn. I don't know what state his basket was in, perhaps he can tell us.
I have to tell you that there is a theoretical downside to this mod, in that it does place a small extra load on a bearing that wasn't designed for it. However, as far as I am aware, there are no documented cases of this causing a problem.
The usual method is to simply put an additional friction plate under the first plain plate, this can be old, knackered, second hand one.
However, I am now convinced this is not necessary and all you need to do is simply re order your existing plates, so you have a friction plate first.
There is a lot of mystique surrounding the order of the plates with people religiously measuring the stack height and making sure the plain plates are doubled up in the correct places.
IMHO, it's all bollocks. As long as you end up with a plain plate at the top and the last plate is nicely within the slots, so it can't jump out, all will be fine.
I don't think I have any doubled up plain plates in my stack now, so the stack height is way below the theoretical minimum. In theory, this could lead to slipping, due to the reduced preload on the springs. It doesn't, it just gives me a lovely light lever. Not only do I have a light lever, I also have plates that clear so well that I can engage neutral at rest not only by tapping up from first but by tapping down from second just as easily.
Win/win
Another thing that people worry about is the dished plain plate. It is supposedly there to smooth the clutch action. It's actually there to help stop resonance but there is so little dishing you can't even see it, so it's not worth worrying about whether it's the right way round or not.
Hope this explains the mod, sorry if it's rather long.