Mk1 Superlight Detailed restoration the saga Begins :-)

When you say "coke". I hope you mean Coca Cola :biggrin:

I'm just being obtuse, Superlights are great, iconic bikes. I hope to have one sometime.

Keep up the good work, would like to see it in the flesh when it's done

 

Cor! I'd like that in my garage

 

4 valve owner by any chance? LOL .

 

Nice Simon, I don't know how often you see an S/L over that side of the world but they are a rare sight over this side.

The FCR's will wake your MK1 up a bit,
944 kit?

 

Yes very nice! 01/02 ? Don't get me wrong Simon , I like my 4 valves as well. I own a couple.
The 2 valvers can be just as much fun though IMO .

Don't blame you for snapping up your mk1 as soon as you saw it, it's the one to have.

 

No, not at all (yet, but that's another story), just a bog standard SS owner :smile:

 

I would mod that further to take the engine earth straight to the battery -ve terminal to eliminate a connection in the high current starter circuit. I doubt you will get that wee allen-head bolt tight enough to guarantee a long-term, very low resistance contact. Adding a heavy duty cable from battery -ve to the engine earth point made a big difference to the cranking power on my bike. I think the oem layout is a fundamental weakness in the starter circuit.

 

I really must do this, my SS is reluctant to crank..although I work on my Honda from time to time, I tend to leave the Ducati to the professionals. Never even lifted the tank.

Is this a difficult thing to do yourself? Source of the right length / gauge cable(s)?

 

I think the main thing is that you have bypassed the short strap from the engine case to the back of the foot peg hanger, which is the main weak point IMO. My mod was quite painless as I didn't need to remove the air box etc. Just bought a thick terminated lead from Halfords and added it.

 

Yes, it's a neat mod. You're probably right about the bolt staying tight enough.

Another mod I did, which may or may not have helped, was to use the ignition feed to power a relay so that the coils and ignition modules are switched directly to the battery when the igntion is on. I was measuring ~9V on the modules and coils prior to this mod, due to all the connections up-stream. I used a double throw relay, connecting the ignition feed to the coil and the NC terminal, the modules/coils to the common terminal, and +12V to the NO terminal. This way, if the relay coil fails, the circuit operates as though the mod was not there. I'd like to think that this mod helps with starting, if the battery voltage dips.

 

nice work Sim. Humbug, you can never go too thick. I did the same thing to my SS, going up to 14mm cables for both positive and negative. You'll be shocked at how easily it cranks over.

What Sim did is basically make a BusBar as it's known, and all you're really doing is allowing all your negatives and positives to go to a common point instead of firing off to locations all over the frame, which as has been touched on can be weak points.

Really the only reason you have all these earth points on the frames etc. is to keep the cost down when you make the wiring looms. It also means that you have only one main lead running to and from the battery instead of all those connectors stacked on top of each other.