I even stick Castrol R in the petrol tank....... ......then I still think I'm racing......... (But don't do it in the Ducati petrol tank, 'cos if you don't use it for a week or so, it will block the pilot jets)
A tech guy at Gates told me that belts should always have some reasonable and noticeable tension, but not be too slack otherwise when cold they could jump a tooth..... ..........I also asked him about flat spotting and his reply was 'how many new cars have been standing around unsold for years?). The only bit I don't like about tension on the belts is how much they tighten as the engine warms up owoing the expansion of the cylinders and heads.........certainly surprised me.
Very true. I discovered this the hard way in 1980. The Pantah had only just come out, and there was no detailed information or equipment for tensioning toothed belts accurately. I set mine to what I thought might be right, but it turned out to be too tight. As a result a belt snapped on the road to Norwich. I believe that was the first Ducati belt ever to snap. After that, we knew to leave them a bit looser when cold.
WTF were you doing on a Pantah heading for Norwich in 1980? They were still using Burrells and you would have got burned at the stake if they had caught you....
Actually I was going to visit a patient in Norwich Hospital; he was a mate who had broken a leg falling off at Snetterton.
I was more concerned for you Pete..........the Norkies might have pitchforked you because they hadn't seen a Ducati before; plus what with your long hair you were lucky Mathew Hopkins wasn't there at the time.....
I still pull the plugs and crank the engine over on the starter until the oil pressure light goes out anytime my old Fireblade's been standing for a few months. Drastically reduces the load on all the bearings until there's oil moving around. I got this from my old car-engine tuning days when I was a kid - some magazine article recommended it whenever a highly tuned engine has either been standing or has been stripped for work. Made sense to me!
Do you think this is a bit overkill ......tank off, air box off take plugs out and so on , how many folk have bikes that stand all winter or longer without a run ,they start up and run no problem .....cant say ive heard of any lubrication issues with fireblade engines due to standing .....cant say ive heard of many issues with blade engines full stop . I can see with if you have had something stripped down you need to build the oil pressure up and get the oil around and fill the filter, gallerys and bucket pockets and cams journals and so on . Like if you left the bike for a week the oil gallerys will partially drain down , if you left it for 6 months will it drain down anymore ?? the cams and journals will hold oil due to the film strength , the oil filter will be full due to the pressure hold diaphram . I start my bikes after long standing periods and the oil light goes out pretty quick , if i start it the next day it goes out in the same time . If the time taken for engines to build the pressure was such an issue why isnt there loads of knackered engines out there , rarely see duff cranks or cams now on engines the engineering is so good , and if you do see something bad its normally down to some other catastrophic event . Not getting at you Mr Blade in anyway ,just thoughts from working with engines over 30 years
Yeah, I may be going OTT on it but it's not quite as bad as it seems: My 'Blade's an old '93 RRP which means I can get the plugs out (though it is a bit fiddly) without removing anything other than the side panels. If I had to do all that you mention, I probably wouldn't do it. I'd still say it's worthwhile spinning on the starter with the kill switch off until the pressure light goes out though as forces are considerably less than when combustion occurs. It's perhaps more of an issue for me as my bikes stand around for months at a time as I work overseas.
