Winter Layup - 1995 Ducati 900 Supersport

[pete376403]

What I have read of older Ducatis makes me wonder if the factory took as much care the first time round as you are taking now.

[OddDuck]

What I have read of older Ducatis makes me wonder if the factory took as much care the first time round as you are taking now.

Thanks

Haven't seen much in the way of assembly defects so far... but I am seeing a lot of basic design mistakes. It really looks like the designers have no idea how things age. A good example is the crankshaft oil galley plug, the big one that I replaced... they've put something made of aluminium into something made of cast iron, in an assembly which will cycle over a 100 degree celcius temperature range. The thermal expansion coefficients don't match up. I've done everything I'm supposed to do but I'm pretty sure it'll come loose again.

[OddDuck]

Getting over a cold so not garaging tonight... been looking for valve guide seals instead.

Might have found something - these guys list seals by dimension:

http://www.elring.de/en/products/oil...tem-seals.html

Still playing around, but I have a list of seals for 8mm valve stems and 12mm valve guide diameters. If I can link this to a car then I'm away.

[OddDuck]

Further browsing turned up this online supply house, Irish based but shipping worldwide (and not at the ludicrous money the US places want).

https://nz.micksgarage.com/

Narrowing it down to valve guide seals and then searching for Elring part numbers turned up three matches: 348295, 761389, and 562645. Dimensions matched so I placed an order for 4 of each, postage was about $30 NZD. The OEM Ducati sock seals are about 7mm tall, each of these is a bit taller, so it'll be down to trying them for fit and seeing what works.

[OddDuck]

Had a reply from Stein Dinse about the bearing half-rings:

http://www.stein-dinse.biz/Ducati/En...lue::3104.html

This wouldn't have turned up in a normal search. I've had a scout around the other online parts houses (Star Twin, Ducati Omaha, Ducati.com itself) - nobody else even bothers listing parts catalogues from prior to 2001.

Anyway, it looks like this is in the tips-and-tricks side of things, it's recommended on the forums but not mentioned in official manuals or parts lists. I'll have to order in and measure everything to be sure.

Also ordered in a 400 x 300 piece of 10mm aluminium plate, to serve as a (very) small benchtop welding table. I'll have to place it onto a couple of bits of 4x2 to protect my lino workbench top. Wakefield Metals maintain a stock list of off cuts, at:

http://www.wakefieldmetals.co.nz/index.php/cuts/

Credit card over the phone, courier delivery, buying an offcut means you don't have to pay full sheet prices. This piece cost about $100 plus GST and $15 courier. It's basic but should do for tube scraps being welded at a distance from the surface.

[Ocean1]

Also ordered in a 400 x 300 piece of 10mm aluminium plate, to serve as a (very) small benchtop welding table. I'll have to place it onto a couple of bits of 4x2 to protect my lino workbench top. Wakefield Metals maintain a stock list of off cuts, at:

http://www.wakefieldmetals.co.nz/index.php/cuts/

Credit card over the phone, courier delivery, buying an offcut means you don't have to pay full sheet prices. This piece cost about $100 plus GST and $15 courier. It's basic but should do for tube scraps being welded at a distance from the surface.

What's wrong with a free manhole cover?

[OddDuck]

What's wrong with a free manhole cover?

OK...

Rust everywhere, in an area with engine bits and pieces all over the place.

Low chance of getting caught vs loads of shit coming down if I do... It could cost me. Big time.

I quite like putting piccies on KB of what I'm doing.

People who gain advantage by cheating make life very hard for the rest of us. I don't want to be one of those people.

If someone crashed into the open manhole and got fucked up from it then I would find that very hard to live with.

Finally the thought (of going thieving - call it what it is) simply never occurred to me.

Good enough?

[Ocean1]

OK...

Rust everywhere, in an area with engine bits and pieces all over the place.

Low chance of getting caught vs loads of shit coming down if I do... It could cost me. Big time.

I quite like putting piccies on KB of what I'm doing.

People who gain advantage by cheating make life very hard for the rest of us. I don't want to be one of those people.

If someone crashed into the open manhole and got fucked up from it then I would find that very hard to live with.

Finally the thought (of going thieving - call it what it is) simply never occurred to me.

Good enough?

Peace, dude, I wasn't necessarily inciting you to pilfer stuff. In the dark ages you could browse through treasures at the local scrappie's yard, and a big lump of cast iron would cost you a half a dozen. Makes a good welding surface because it's quite stable in spite of uneven heat, and it only rusts if you wet it.

And I like your piccies too, keep 'em coming.

[OddDuck]

Peace, dude, I wasn't necessarily inciting you to pilfer stuff. In the dark ages you could browse through treasures at the local scrappie's yard, and a big lump of cast iron would cost you a half a dozen. Makes a good welding surface because it's quite stable in spite of uneven heat, and it only rusts if you wet it.

And I like your piccies too, keep 'em coming.

That's a good tip, I hadn't considered cast iron. There's a scrappie in my area and there's a pretty good chance he'll have something rough that I can work off. He's still small enough that Joe Public can walk in and shop around.

Pete, Ocean1: sorry if I go off like a hand grenade sometimes. The name's OddDuck for a reason...

[OddDuck]

First attempt at setting up and welding today.

I checked resistance on the surface of the ally plate and found that as-delivered, there's a chance that it won't conduct properly. There's a layer of oxides and oil on top. It's not difficult to scratch through it but a decent contact patch is needed for high welding currents. About thirty minutes or so with block and 240-grit paper, with methylated spirits, cleaned it up. Testing was via multimeter and probes, taking care to place probe tips instead of cutting them in.

I had my first go with the welder on a scrap piece of steel tubing, running weld beads, then trying to use filler rod, then attempting to join pieces together. It's pretty clear that serious practice will be needed before attempting any frame repair. I've had a go at MIG (back in high school) and stick (last year), after just a couple of hours it's become clear that TIG has a lot of advantages but is going to have a fair old learning curve as well.

[OddDuck]

Using a tube notching rig to fishmouth some short pieces of scrap tubing. I'm making a few more practice pieces, little T-junctions, and these pieces will be the stems of the T.

The tube notcher is a cheap substitute for a milling machine. Accuracy isn't fantastic but it's a definite step up from hacksaw and half-round file. Running horizontally, and keeping cutting pressure light, helps prevent destructive bind-ups or jamming. It's very easy to blue a holesaw doing this so keeping speed down and using cutting fluid are both essential. The holesaw leaves a lot of thin, rough metal around the edges of the cuts so deburring afterwards has to be done.

Finishing was done in the vise with hacksaw and files. I'll have to degrease before starting welding.

[actungbaby]

First attempt at setting up and welding today.

I checked resistance on the surface of the ally plate and found that as-delivered, there's a chance that it won't conduct properly. There's a layer of oxides and oil on top. It's not difficult to scratch through it but a decent contact patch is needed for high welding currents. About thirty minutes or so with block and 240-grit paper, with methylated spirits, cleaned it up. Testing was via multimeter and probes, taking care to place probe tips instead of cutting them in.

I had my first go with the welder on a scrap piece of steel tubing, running weld beads, then trying to use filler rod, then attempting to join pieces together. It's pretty clear that serious practice will be needed before attempting any frame repair. I've had a go at MIG (back in high school) and stick (last year), after just a couple of hours it's become clear that TIG has a lot of advantages but is going to have a fair old learning curve as well.

All i know surposed to sound like bacon eggs cooking ;-) oh correct amperage for the thickness of materials

[Madness]

...after just a couple of hours it's become clear that TIG has a lot of advantages but is going to have a fair old learning curve as well.

Get a stool to sit on and get your helmet just right. Ditch the heavy gauntlets and get some decent goatskin TIG gloves, I kid you not.

Allow around 3 seconds to form a weld puddle, any sooner & it's too hot. Focus on maintaining your arc length and introduce filler wire to the gas-covered area but not into the arc itself. A lot of people use a low-frequency pulse even in downhand just to assist getting into a rhythm. Pulse also allows you to crank the peak current up a tad, which can be helpful working with low amps on very thin-walled tube.

P.S - Thoriated Tungstens are mildly radioactive. Buy E3 Tungstens instead and use them for both AC & DC applications.

[Voltaire]

Dusted off the 900SL yesterday. I haven't used it a lot since I bought it as very hard to start from cold.
PO ( in Japan I imagine) fitted 39mm FCR's and whilst its great once you get it warmed up its a pain.
I had been thinking of replacing the ignition with a Fastbikegear Ignitech ( which I have been running on a race BMW for a few years)
Well did a bit of Googling, took the FCR's off which is a 10 minute job and looked at all the settings.
They were pretty much as the suppliers in the States say to use as 'baseline' settings other than the 155 mains being 140 at the front and 145 at the rear.
The idle mixture screw is underneath and its really easier to take the rack off to adjust.
Too them from 3/4 of a turn to 1 1/2 and reduced the Slow air jet from 1 1/2 to 3/4.
Was not exactly holding my breath.
Three twists of the throttle for the pumps, then pressed the button.
Fired into life and settled down to a nice idle.
Its got a Yoshimura digital meter fitted ( Japanese love gadgets) and it indicated 12 degrees , previously needed a very warm manifold for it to keep running, used to spit and cough and not nice for the sprag clutch.

[OddDuck]

Followed advice and bought the kidskin gloves. Much nicer to work with. Also using rare earth tungstens, bought a bench grinder and sharpened a series.

I've pictured the last few days worth of test pieces. Unfortunately the good ones are an earlier effort, the pitted, bubbled jobs are today's work. Not sure why... possibly the workpiece picked up grease, possibly the argon in the gas lines has been picking up humidity. Or maybe my beginner's skills regressed in the week... anyway, they really aren't too good. Next thing to try is the 3 seconds weld pool, I think currently I may be running too hot, too fast, and this may be part of what's going wrong.

Got the tube notcher out again and cut the next few test pieces. These are the same wall thickness as the frame, so are better to practice on than the scrap tubing pictured.