I bought my duc 900 last year and have fallen head over heels for it. Its a 94 17,000 miles and in decent nick. But the engine cases are not in good nick, paint missing, alloy oxidizing, barrels and head likewise. I am stripping it down, but I am in a quandary. I am reasonably handy with a spanner and have built a few specials over the years primarily 2 strokes, but for some reason I am massively un-confident about stripping the duke motor down. Now ordinarily I wouldn't strip it but to clean and re-finish and paint the cases,barrels etc I will need too. I have enquired about G-Tec doing it (circa £2k ) Gulp, or buy a later 1000 ds motor and fit it? Or do I just bite the bullet and go for it? Now previously I have used PJ1 for engine cases then cured it in the oven having had them vapour blasted? what do you recommend. I am self employed so have some free time, but sometimes can be swamped with work for a few weeks at a time.
The 1000 DS motors are no better at keeping the paint on... photos as you strip it will help you recall when you come to reassemble, make up card board templates for the screws for each cover. We use A6 resealable bags (write on the outside what they were for) for fasteners when we strip our engines.
If you've got the time go for it :wink:, it's not as hard as you think. I've done a few SS engines over the years and as Android says take loads of photos and bag everything up clearly labelling them and you should be ok. It really is a labour of love though, the more time you take with the prep' the better the finish you will get. As for the finishing, it all depends on how much you want to spend. I got my superlight engines barrels, heads and side casings shot blasted then powder coated, they came out really good and they were in a very poor state. I've also sprayed a couple of other 900ss engines with rattle cans and I'm happy with how it turned out too. Before and after...
I would definitely go for it. Before the build I'm doing just now, the most I'd done to a bike was ride one! I just took my time and enjoyed it. As Android says - photos are a massive help.
Leave it, the motor is mostly covered by the fairings anyway, stop obsessing and get it out and ride it!
Nope going for a half fairing or a F2 so the motor needs to be right otherwise it will look like a bag of shite
