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Thread: Summer running - 2000 Ducati ST2

  1. #16
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    14th July 2006 - 21:39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laava View Post
    Yep, i also did about 3000km before I noticed it. Was wondering why I was wallowing a bit more in the corners than I needed to!
    Sounds like servicing issues not Ducati specific issues - front end must have been dropped at some stage (fork oil change?) and put back without the relevant final checking. In my experience on different brands the fork clamp bolts don't get torqued up a lot.

    I wonder if workshops run a buddy check system - I know a tyre outfit that used to - someone put the wheel back on and before the bike was lowered a colleague ran a spanner over the relevant nuts and bolts to ensure they had indeed been tightened.

  2. #17
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    3rd October 2006 - 21:21
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    Quote Originally Posted by AllanB View Post
    Sounds like servicing issues not Ducati specific issues - front end must have been dropped at some stage (fork oil change?) and put back without the relevant final checking. In my experience on different brands the fork clamp bolts don't get torqued up a lot.

    I wonder if workshops run a buddy check system - I know a tyre outfit that used to - someone put the wheel back on and before the bike was lowered a colleague ran a spanner over the relevant nuts and bolts to ensure they had indeed been tightened.
    Yep, not a ducati issue at all but frustrating that the shop that sold it and put the wof on it didn't pick it up...
    funnily enough, I rode my v strom back from cycletreads one day after getting a new front tyre and the pinch bolts were completely loose...and they do run the buddy system!
    Only a Rat can win a Rat Race!

  3. #18
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Quote Originally Posted by neels View Post
    I've done about 40k on my ST2, still loving it, they punt along ok on the twisties but still comfy enough to do 500+ k's in a day. The factory panniers are excellent, and almost completely waterproof.

    Found the same issue with the front sprocket locking plate when I pulled mine to bits for a clean the other day, no other damage done though.

    Mine's only ever failed to get me home 3 times, and never had to do any major pulling apart, so not too bad given it gets ridden and parked in all sorts of weather.

    First time completely dead battery, bike won't run without one due to the single phase alternator.
    Second time would start but not rev, corroded contacts on the throttle position sensor connector.
    Third time turned over but wouldn't start, corroded contacts on the ignition pickup connector.

    Due for a 10k service and new chain and sprockets very shortly...
    Nice going! Good to hear it's working out.

    Might be useful... Stein Dinse have a lot of deals going on chain and sprocket sets, there are 3 options for the ST2 (various grades of chain / sprocket) and they're all cheaper than local, even with post.

  4. #19
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Carrying on, sorting one issue after another... this time it's the hesitation the bike had when starting.

    Turn key, press starter, there's a hesitation - one, two - then the engine turns over and comes to life. I've been here before. It's the starter motor not getting enough current.

    I'd worked out that it draws around 50 amps on the 900SS. This is basically the same motor starting the (roughly) same engine so I don't imagine the current draw would be much different.

    That's a lot of amperage, but it happens at low voltage. 12 V isn't that much electromotive force and it doesn't take much in the way of oxidation / dirt / oil etc to mess up a connection. On the 900SS, after thinking that the issue was skinny starter cables, I'd found that the starter motor (oops) was loose in the engine itself. Since the casing is the return path for ground, there just wasn't the metal-to-metal contact needed for the current.

    This time around I started at the booted connector to the rear of the starter motor, after verifying that the motor itself was tight to the engine. On the Ducati forums, this boot is notorious for filling up with water and then corroding the spade lug and terminal. On this bike, the terminal is still under the original grease and appears immaculate, although I didn't do more than pull the boot back to see.

    The battery negative terminal was a different story, though. There's a 90 degree adaptor used and this one was in bad condition.

    It's clearly broken at some point - corrosion damage maybe? - and been rebuilt, with a grabbed and welded-in screw. Whoever did this didn't bother cleaning any of the surfaces up post welding. Obviously this works, the bike runs, but I can't imagine 50 amps getting through this cleanly.

    The other issue is connection to the battery terminal. The passivation coating is a thin but effective insulator. Sanding it back opens the steel to corrosion further down the track, but after seeing this repair job I think I'll be purchasing a replacement part anyway.

    Not a big deal to clean up with a needle file and some paper. The photos show the before and after for this component only - I did similar cleaning up for the other ground eyelets and the securing nut. Everywhere metal faces got clamped together was cleaned. I haven't checked the other connections yet. The starter circuit depends on a clean loop, right from battery positive, through the starter relay, through the starter motor brushes and windings, through the engine casings and then the engine ground cable back to battery negative. Every step of the way has to work, 50-ish amps needs a good contact patch of clean metal every time there's a connection.

    As far as I can tell, the area around the battery has been worked on, the other bits are still ex-factory. It's worth a look at the positive side of the circuit as well. I'll be testing the engine soon hopefully, but I'd quite like to check the other big two of belts and shims first.
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  5. #20
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    3rd October 2006 - 21:21
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    If there wasn't a strange kind of satisfaction in keeping a bike in top running condition, I would never bother with anything italian. I have had 4 and my Laverda is the most attention I have ever paid into a bike...
    Only a Rat can win a Rat Race!

  6. #21
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Sorting out the mirrors. This one kind of got away on me a bit...

    The first issue was that, as purchased, the bike's left mirror was a bit loose on its mount. There's a spring release to allow it to contact things and take the hit.

    Maybe it had been hit too hard... there was a home repair on the spring mount and the mirror lens itself is clearly not mounted properly any more. It won't adjust, yet is loose and shakes while the bike is running. The whole thing is loose enough on its fairing mount that it bounces with every decent jolt in the road. There's nothing wrong with the right hand mirror.

    However even if they were both 100% I'd have to think about taking them both off. This isn't a style thing, or wannabe cafe racer nonsense, or me being too tight to spring for the pricey and 2-to-8 week waiting time Ducati OEM parts. It's just that they stick out from the top of the fairing, that makes the bike quite wide when it's on the side stand, leading to the second, ridiculous issue...

    I have a narrow, small garage. It's possible to get the car and the (stock) bike in, it's just that the free clearance is around two inches total. Yes, that's with the car's wing mirrors folded. It's just a matter of time before there's a scrape or a bash.

    Right, off with the stock mirrors and on with bar ends.

    A couple of notes here for anyone not already familiar with cheapo aftermarket bar end mirrors:

    1) Oberon do pricey but good mirrors, everything else is basically a copy of the Oberon design
    2) Most of the cheapies use a multipiece collet design and it's crap, guaranteed to loosen while riding and fall off
    3) The really cheap and nasty copies use flat glass for the mirrors and this is all but useless, you've got next to no field of view in the mirror.

    That out of the way, a cheapie with curved glass and a multipiece mounting actually was the best for a replacement. The ST bars are a solid, cast aluminium design. There's an M8 thread but no hollow stem. Some flattening off of the mirror clamp boss, lots of use of threadlock, and mirrors went straight on to replace the stock bar end weights. They're comparable in mass so vibration should be controlled to a similar level.
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  7. #22
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Mirrors, part II: replacing the clamping plates on the front upper fairing.

    Where the mirrors mount is probably important, in terms of support of the top piece of the fairing. Best to bolt this up again, but a couple of mudguard washers would look pretty cheesy. I've spent a few hours making a couple of bits of stainless steel sheet metal for this.

    They were marked out using one of the old mirror gaskets, drilled, hacksawed around the perimeter and then filed. I then very roughly dished them by hammering them out against a bit of 4x2. Stick-on foam sealing strips, which looks pretty awful close up, protects the plastic once the screws are done up.

    There's room for improvement - button head stainless cap screws and something decent for cushioning would do wonders for the aesthetics - but for now they'll get me rolling.
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  8. #23
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laava View Post
    If there wasn't a strange kind of satisfaction in keeping a bike in top running condition, I would never bother with anything italian. I have had 4 and my Laverda is the most attention I have ever paid into a bike...
    I went through the wringer a couple of decades ago with a Honda. At the end of much heartache, I had... a Honda. An old Honda. Not even a classic Honda, just a manky one. Hmm. There's a lesson there.

    I've had total strangers cross the road to compliment me on the 900SS and have a chat, even non-bike people like it. It's great fun to ride. I've had to work extremely hard on that bike but I reckon it's been worth it.

  9. #24
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Might have stumbled across something useful, should anyone be looking at purchasing a used Ducati and want a pre-purchase checkpoint.

    If the bike has been dropped, there's a chance that one of the rubber tank support blocks will be sitting high - i.e. not in contact with the frame rail. This can be seen easily during inspection if you just look under the edge of the fuel tank.

    This happens because the tank sits on a pair of these rubber blocks, about a third of the way back from the front, and a hinge at the rear base of the tank (under the front edge of the seat). There's a hooked latch at the front. That's all that's carrying the tank. It's very handy for lifting the tank and doing work underneath.

    In normal riding that's fine, straight up and down motion is all it's really going to see. In a crash situation, suddenly there's the full weight of a tank's worth of fuel, applied sideways. The hook at the front is made to be springy, so it won't lock the tank down to the frame without giving some free play. The rubber blocks only provide resting support, they won't do anything in tension. That means there's a strong twist applied to the hinge mounting plate and the frame crossmember that it sits on. Both of these are 2mm-ish sheet metal, and given enough force, they bend. End result is a tank sitting skewed. It's obvious once you go looking for it, or trying to gently lift the tank by one front corner and then the other - it's very easy to feel different weights if it isn't sitting straight.

    The giveaway was the bent rubber block. These are made from rubber cast over a metal plate bracket (it's on the bike's RHS, photo LHS, in the photo taken over the top edge of the windshield).

    I've straightened the rubber-over-steel-plate block and shimmed the hinge plate with some M6 mudguard washers. I didn't feel confident enough to attempt to straighten either the hinge bracket or the frame crossmember. It's a bit bodge engineering but the tank is sitting properly again.

    The rubber strap securing the tank at the front must have been stretching a bit because of this... it was a bit rattly. Experience suggests that this metal on metal rattling will rapidly wear either the hook or the cast bar on the tank, so I've put a cut piece of PVC sleeving over the bar and cable-tied it into place pending replacement of the strap.
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  10. #25
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Lifting the tank to check the air filter (this was why I found out the tank was sitting skewed).

    I wasn't that impressed with the tank prop design and in the end did an overhead lift, using an eyelet and one of my interisland ferry tie-downs on the tank's latch-down bracket.

    Not much to say here really - it's a pretty good design and aside from the dodgy tank prop bar, it's easy to pop the airbox cover off and check the air filter. The dead insects were a surprise, but with the bike using a fairing nose inlet mouth and internal trunking to feed slipstream air straight into the box lid snorkels, it makes sense that bees etc end up sitting in there. It isn't a slipstream pressurised airbox, though. The trunking pipes don't connect and seal to the snorkels. I used a vacuum cleaner to pick the bugs up before pulling the filter and giving it a good look-over.

    It was very tempting to drop in the old K&N filter I'd kept with the 900SS airbox after going to pod filters on that bike. It's the same part number between both bikes, so the filter would fit. I didn't, after finding out via the forums that the engine doesn't automatically adjust for this change. Re-flashing would be needed otherwise I'd be running lean. This is a popular mod, though, usually done at the same time as replacing the stock mufflers with more open aftermarket items.

    The air filter itself is very clearly used, with some cracks visible in the foam sealing the edges, but it'll make the 30,000 km service interval.
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  11. #26
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Out and about today, summer running - finally.

    Wainui Beach, Martinborough, Tainui (on the way to Castlepoint), didn't quite make it to Castlepoint itself. Bike did everything just fine, even on the rather old tyres it was sold to me with... if I read the date codes right, the first one's 4712 (rear tyre), the second is 0413 (front). That's the 47th week of 2012 and the 4th week of 2013, unless I'm mistaken?

    Good to get out and ride.
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  12. #27
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    28th January 2015 - 16:17
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    Yesterday I gave the bike a post purchase clean (finally), there were a few bugs I wanted off the fairings and a lot of brake dust on the front rim but the main reason was the old chain lube. It's sprayed right over most of the left rear quarter of the bike. It's a black, tarry, sticky, spreads everywhere and gets on everything horror. It's a hassle cleaning it off but it's much nicer working on a bike once it's been cleaned up, I'm sick of getting this stuff all over my hands and arms every time I do a small job.

    Getting in close and looking at things underneath meant I noticed a couple of things.

    The buffer for the centerstand, a rubber stop plug which pushes into a bracket on the left hand muffler, is missing. There's been a horrible clunk every time I've taken the bike off the centerstand. I'd been thinking that the stop was the steel bracket itself. Nope. It's a small thing, but clean up and examination of the centerstand has shown that the stand's enamel is breaking off on the contact point between stand and muffler. The muffler bracket hasn't started to get chewed up yet but it's just a matter of time. I don't have any photos for this yet.

    The side stand was a bit more serious. Both mounting screws had loosened. The lower screw had got to the point where it wasn't even finger tight.

    The issue here isn't turning up somewhere at the end of the day, going to put the stand down and finding that it fell off somewhere back on the road. It's having the stand look OK but then failing once the bike's weight is on it. The damage bill could be surprisingly high... carved up or broken fairings, bashed hard bag, knocked handlebars and / or damaged tank, possibly even damage to the engine case itself if the stand ripped the last few turns out of the threads during failure. It all depends how hard it goes over and what the bike lands on.

    Such a simple thing. I found gunked-on chain lube under screw heads, between the bracket to engine case contact points etc - simply tightening it up again would be easy but wouldn't hold long term. Lots of scrubbing with paintbrush and rag, an old tin of kero, water based degreaser and a noodle sponge got it sorted out. I used Loctite 222 on the screws for reassembly.

    Riding today, took the bike out to Castlepoint.
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  13. #28
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    3rd October 2006 - 21:21
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    Agree re the clean thing, makes it much easier to get into the job of maintenance or whatever. Just a shame that bikes are such bitches to clean, no doubt helped by having a bike hoist or similar...
    I am always putting off cleaning my bikes, and then I spray chain oil and just make the job harder!
    Only a Rat can win a Rat Race!

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by OddDuck View Post
    Turn key, press starter, there's a hesitation - one, two - then the engine turns over and comes to life. I've been here before. It's the starter motor not getting enough current.
    Mine does that, been through all the connections and pulled it apart and replaced the brushes, slightly better but still crap. It's a permanent magnet motor, so never going to be stunning.

    Quote Originally Posted by OddDuck View Post
    The side stand was a bit more serious. Both mounting screws had loosened. The lower screw had got to the point where it wasn't even finger tight.
    Mine has had that problem too, even after some serious cleaning and loctite on the bolts. I did arrive somewhere one day with one bolt missing, but as the sidestand is so crap anyway I never trust it so noticed before it got any serious weight on it, fortunately it also has a centre stand.
    Riding cheap crappy old bikes badly since 1987

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  15. #30
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    9th January 2005 - 22:12
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    Quote Originally Posted by OddDuck View Post
    Yesterday I gave the bike a post purchase clean (finally), there were a few bugs I wanted off the fairings and a lot of brake dust on the front rim but the main reason was the old chain lube. It's sprayed right over most of the left rear quarter of the bike. It's a black, tarry, sticky, spreads everywhere and gets on everything horror. It's a hassle cleaning it off but it's much nicer working on a bike once it's been cleaned up, I'm sick of getting this stuff all over my hands and arms every time I do a small job.

    Getting in close and looking at things underneath meant I noticed a couple of things.

    The buffer for the centerstand, a rubber stop plug which pushes into a bracket on the left hand muffler, is missing. There's been a horrible clunk every time I've taken the bike off the centerstand. I'd been thinking that the stop was the steel bracket itself. Nope. It's a small thing, but clean up and examination of the centerstand has shown that the stand's enamel is breaking off on the contact point between stand and muffler. The muffler bracket hasn't started to get chewed up yet but it's just a matter of time. I don't have any photos for this yet.

    The side stand was a bit more serious. Both mounting screws had loosened. The lower screw had got to the point where it wasn't even finger tight.

    The issue here isn't turning up somewhere at the end of the day, going to put the stand down and finding that it fell off somewhere back on the road. It's having the stand look OK but then failing once the bike's weight is on it. The damage bill could be surprisingly high... carved up or broken fairings, bashed hard bag, knocked handlebars and / or damaged tank, possibly even damage to the engine case itself if the stand ripped the last few turns out of the threads during failure. It all depends how hard it goes over and what the bike lands on.

    Such a simple thing. I found gunked-on chain lube under screw heads, between the bracket to engine case contact points etc - simply tightening it up again would be easy but wouldn't hold long term. Lots of scrubbing with paintbrush and rag, an old tin of kero, water based degreaser and a noodle sponge got it sorted out. I used Loctite 222 on the screws for reassembly.

    Riding today, took the bike out to Castlepoint.
    I had the exact same issue on my Street Triple when I first got it! Both the bolts holding the sidestand bracket to the frame were loose.

    What I have failed to understand with your issue with the front sprocket: how can it be put together wrong like that? was the sprocket on backwards? was there a spacer missing?
    I thought elections were decided by angry posts on social media. - F5 Dave

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