Project Ducati

Starting in on the Engine

2010-02-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

Well, with the compressor down this week-end we decided to start in on the engine.

We pulled the heads and cylinders. Pulled the clutch pack, removed the clutch housing. Pulled the alternator cover and removed the starter.

We then disassembled the heads, labeling parts and placing them in plastic bags for the machine shop.

I used a trick in removing the opening and closing rocker arms. When I use to do a valve adjustment on my 748, you had to pull the cams. I used a small body dent slide hammer to remove the cams.

I discovered that I could to the same when removing the opening and closer rocker arm shafts.

Here are some shots from this week-ends work:

Right hand side of the engine

Left hand side of the engine

Cylinders and Heads

Using the slide hammer to pull the opening and closing rocker arm shafts

Buffing and Polishing

2010-02-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well it is raining again this week-end, so no painting or powder coating.

My compressor died last week-end so I am also down for this reason. I ordered new parts and hopefully I can be back in business next week-end.

We are making good progress with buffing, It really helps to have a son who recently graduated from UCSD with a degree in Computer Science, who can't get a job. I have put him to work doing all of the dirty cleaning and some of the buffing.

I am going to have the frame powder coated by a local shop, It would be too much to build a larger oven, cheaper to pay the $200.00 for frame.

I am almost ready to start in on the engine. I am going to leave the body fairings for the last project.

Here is a shot of the buffed chrome.

It is not perfect and I do not plan on removing every little nick to make a complete mirror finish. I could easily drop a few hundred more hours in buffing.

Painting and Powder Coating

2010-02-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

Well I spent the last week-end powder coating and painting various parts. I have discovered a few tricks to powder coating. Pre-heat the parts that you want to powder coat. Then as you spray the powder on to the part it starts to melt and adhere to the part much quicker.

Since I am using the Harbor Freight inexpensive gun there are a few tricks with the application as well. Clean the gun after several applications. It appears that powder starts to build up in the tube as you are spraying parts. Then when you tilt the gun down to change the angle, trapped powder falls out of the tube on to your part and leaves an uneven surface. By using compressed air to blow out the gun every few applications the powder does build up in the gun.

The hardest parts to spray are the parts that have many sides or angles to them. As you spray these parts the powder then builds up on the parts unevenly and can leave what looks like orange peel on your surface.

When spraying powder it is really hard to tell if your part is evenly covered. After the part is cured and removed from the oven it now becomes really apparent of the areas that you have missed.

I have found that if you lightly sand the parts with 320 grit sand paper and wipe down the part with acetone you can now re-coat the part and get very good results. But you must re-coat the entire part. If you only do one section the rest of the part will have a nasty look of over spray.

The same goes for orange peel. Powder coating is very sensitive to powder thickness. If you apply too much in one area and not enough in another will cause the part to orange peel like and the thickness changes will be very noticeable. The best solution is to sand, wipe down and re-spray the entire part.

I also have noticed that the powder from Harbor Freight is not as good as Powder by the Pound. The Harbor Freight powder orange peels much easier than the other powder.

Here are some images of the finished parts.

Here is a shot of the swing arm chain adjustment caps, axle plates and fairing brackets. The gold powder coat is from Powder by the pound and goes on really nicely.

Here is a shot of the instrument cluster bracket, clutch master cylinder and a few brackets.

The master cylinder was a pain to shoot because of the size and many angles.

Here are the exhaust header sections.

These were not powder coated. They were painted with POR15 High Temp paint and cured in the oven at 400 degrees F.

Same goes for the exhaust pipe ends. POR15

Next week, more work on polishing the swing arm and rear sets.

Thanks

Joe

Soda Please

2010-02-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

Well, It rained most of the week-end, so any chance of powder coating and painting parts went out the window.

I am waiting for some small 1" buffing wheels to come in the post so I could not do much buffing. I spent the first part of the week-end washing, cleaning and buffing some smaller parts.

My son and I have been discussing the merits of doing some soda blasting on some of the parts. We made a trip to Harbor Freight tools, and looked at the soda blaster gear. But we did not want to dump $100.00 on a soda blaster and buy 50 lbs of baking soda if it did not do what we wanted to do. So we took the cheap R & D approach.

They had an air blaster kit, used for glass etching and small parts blasting. It had a small nozzle which we need for soda blasting. We then went to the local Costco (large quantity food store) and picked up 13 lbs of baking soda for around $5.00.

I decided that since it was raining I would strip the brake calipers down clean then up, polish up the bolts and possibly media blast them for powder coating.

The more I worked on the calipers the more I did not want to media blast them and powder coat them, but they had dirt embedded in the powder coat finish and some one had painted the Brembo logo red and it just looked crappy.

We did some testing with out make shift soda blaster and found out some really cool things. The soda blaster would remove paint without messing with the smoothness of the finish but would not remove powder coat. The soda blaster works great on removing carbon from pistons.

So we decided to give the soda blasting a try on the brake calipers.

Here are some pictures of our findings:

Here is yours truly doing some soda blasting:

Another shot of the back side of a caliper.

We found that the soda works great at cleaning up powder coated parts.

Here is a shot of a dirty caliper as I first started blasting:

Here is a shot of the caliper as I progressed, Notice that the soda blasting removed the cruddy red paint and cleaned up the gold powder coat.

Here is a shot of the finished calipers before I put them back together:

Here is a final shot of the calipers put back together, calipers washed and polished bolts:

Next week if it does not rain we will hopefully do some painting and powder coating.

Thanks

Joe

Is is a Dirty Job but someone has to do It

2010-01-31T18:50:00.000-08:00

I picked up a cheapo media blaster at Harbor Freight Tools and ordered a wheel polishing kit from the Eastwood company.

My son wanted to get involved in the rebuild process so I enlisted his help.

This week-end was spent doing some of the very dirty work of media blasting various parts in preparation for powder coating and painting as well as buffing and polishing some of the aluminum parts.

This part of the rebuild is not the most fun and is quite a bit of a dirty job.

I had my son do a lot of the media blasting and I spent most of the time buffing and polishing the aluminum parts.

Neither job is fun and at the end of the week-end I had to sweep out the entire garage of blast media and buffer dust.

In the polishing operation I started out with a 3M green wheel and some spiral sanding cartridges. In the case of the swing arm I used an orbital disk sander with some 80 grit sand paper.

After roughing in the parts with the green wheel I started in with the 80 grit and 220 grit buffing compound.

It is time very time consuming. First you have to dress the buffing wheel and let the compound try for 10 minutes. Then you can start buffing. Then you have to start all over again. I tried to stagger the green wheel and buffing wheel operations so I could keep working without having to wait around.

The worst part is getting into the very small parts of the rear sets and foot pegs. I tried felt polishing bobs but they leave grooves in the metal. The sewn buffing wheels work the best.

This job is really a pain in the behind.

I am hoping we can wrap this up and move on to the powder coating and painting by next week-end. Maybe not though.

Here are some recent pictures.

First one is my son media blasting. I have to give him credit he kept the compressor going most of the week-end and at the end of each day was covered from head to toe with aluminum oxide dust.

The next image is of some brackets that have been media blasted and buffed with 220 grit compound in preparation for powder coating:

The next image is of some of the aluminum parts that have been green wheeled, 80 grit buffed and 220 grit buffed.

Powder Coating

2010-01-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

Right after New Years I picked up the Powder Coat setup at Harbor Freight Tools when it was on sale.
I found a used oven on craigslist for free. An electrician friend wired in a 220 volt outlet in the garage for me.

There is a powder coat company called Powder by the Pound powderbuythepound.com/ that sells powder and powder coat supplies for a good price.

So I decided to give powder coating a try. I figure with out too much investment I can powder coat everything with the exception of the frame with the oven. If things go well I might even give the frame a try with either heat lamps or build a cheap propane oven.

I have found that I get better results when I heat up the metal to 400 degrees F before I powder coat.

I have also been experimenting with distance of the gun to the material. I have also tried flat black powder coat and then a clear powder coat on top of the flat black. In some of the examples I was getting some orange peel.

When the distance was increased and the metal was powder coated right from the oven the orange peel was less.

I am now going to try a thinner coating of the powder and a slightly lower temperature and bake slightly longer.

I will keep everyone posted:

Tools are Arriving

2010-01-16T20:15:00.001-08:00

I have started to receive some of the engine tools that I have ordered. I purchased the above tools on ebay and the prices were very reasonable. I still need two more tools in order to dis-assemble the motor. I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and purchase them from Ducati.

In inspecting the master cylinders I discovered that they both were leaking and needed rebuilding.

The good news: I contacted Steve at Bevel Heaven and he sells the rebuild kits for the 13mm clutch master cylinder.

The bad news: Steve informed me that Brembo does not carry rebuild kits for the 16mm brake master cylinder and the only way is to purchase a used one from ebay or buy a new master cylinder. I purchased a new master cylinder from Bevel Heaven. I am not a happy camper about this.

The kit and new master cylinder have been ordered and are on the way.

The Rebuild Begins

2010-01-16T19:57:00.001-08:00

I dis-assembled the bike and started to gather together cleaning supplies, paints, primers and other needed items for the rebuild. Dis-assembled items were grouped by category and placed in boxes.

I started ordering the needed engine tools required for the engine dis-assembly.

I started inspecting various parts and began to clean and repair them.

The instrument cluster was the first to be dis-assembled. The gauges were rather corroded and the paint on the bezels was faded.

I cleaned up the gauges with a scrub pad and some 220 grid sand paper. It is very difficult to remove the bezels without destroying them. It can be done by a speedometer shop but it is rather expensive.

I have not made up my mind if I want to paint the gauges or polish them.

The instrument housing was rather beat up and when I took it apart there was a section of plastic that was cracked and damaged. I am trying to keep the rebuild budget to a moderate level so I decided to repair the housing than replace it.

I purchased a can of ABS cement and cemented the cracked piece back in place. The above image shows the the section of plastic cemented back in, sanded and a second coat of cement added. This second coat will be sanded smooth then the area will be wet sanded and the whole gauge will be rubbed out with rubbing compound.

Don't Stop Now

2010-01-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

From the time I purchased the new flywheel I made the decision that when the bike was running properly, since I had spent all of this time and money, I might as well rebuild the bike and ride it myself.

While I had been searching ducatipaso.org for solutions I ran across a very interesting blog of a guy in Canada who races and rebuilds Ducati's. His name is Steve Munro and his web site is loudbike.com.

Steve's blog has inspired me to rebuild my 750 Sport. Steve has several images of a engine stand that he uses during his bike rebuilds.

The stand is fixed and mounts directly to the several motor mounts. The stand has wheels so the partial assembled bike can be rolled around.

For my up-coming rebuild I thought it would be great to build my own version of this stand. I wanted a stand that could be raised and lowered for easy installation and during the dis assembly and assembly of various bike components.

Here are a few images of my stand.

It all comes down to Timing

2010-01-15T22:12:00.000-08:00

I started doing a lot of digging on ducatipaso.org and the original Ducati Maintenance Manual. The more I read the more I realized that the flywheel was the problem. With two ignition pick-ups I needed a single flywheel pick-up point instead of a flywheel with 4 pick-up points.

I found a newer Kokusan flywheel on ebay, purchased it and waited for it to arrive.

I installed the flywheel, reset the two ignition pick-ups. Set the timing with a timing light. Crossed my fingers and attempted to start the bike.

The bike started and I warmed it up and took it for a ride.

Success, no engine miss-fire at 5000 RPM.

What you resist most is what you get

2010-01-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

All of this time I considered that the ignition system that the mechanic replaced had to be correct. I had trouble-shot every system except the ignition system.

Deep down I guess that I did not want to confront this one system. It was not stock, I did not install it and what you do not know you sometimes fear.

Well I had to confront this.

I started digging though the manuals, the ducatipaso.org web site and the Bimotacagiva.com web site.

I took my trusty ohm meter and started trouble-shooting the ignition system, from one end to the other. I found that the entire system was wired correctly and everything checked out.

There was one thing that kept bugging me. The Digiplex ignition system had one pick-up and the Kokusan ignition had two pick-ups.

Could the pick-up points on the flywheel be triggering the ignition to fire the spark plugs incorrectly at high RPM to cause the miss-fire?

Sometimes you just have to do it yourself!

2010-01-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

I went out into the garage and stared at the bike. From the start I figured that I could take the easy route and find someone to fix the bike. That way I would not have to get involved.

Yes I did have the skills to perform these tasks but I guess deep down I knew it was going to be tough and I elected to be lazy.

Well the Ducati Gods were not going to let me off so easy.

I had the sudden realization that the only way this bike was going to get fixed it if I do it myself.

So the work began.

I started going though the bike system by system checking everything.

I took the cam belt covers off and checked the cam timing. The timing was spot on.

I checked the valve opener and valve closer shims for proper valve adjustment.

Thinking that the engine was not getting enough fuel I took the fuel tank off and attached a gravity feed tank directly to the carburetor to check for fuel starvation.

I purchased the original Weber Carburetor, manifolds and air box. Rebuild the Weber Carburetor, installed the new configuration. Balanced the carburetors and tested the bike.

The bike still miss-fired at 5000 rpm.

The Rest of the Fuel System

2010-01-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

The original carburetor that came with the 750 sport was no longer on the bike, it was replaced by the original owner with twin Mikuni carburetors from a Ducati 900ss.

It appears that the original Weber carburetor was not well suited for the bike and caused the bike to run poorly. For the 1990 year the 750 Sport was considered a parts bin bike and the Ducati factory used a Fiat automobile carburetor.

Since the tank and fuel filters were so dirty I figured that the carburetors were dirty as well. I took the carburetors to a local shop near work and had them rebuild the carburetors.

It took the shop three weeks to rebuild the carburetors.

I installed the carburetors, warmed up the bike and balanced them and took the bike for a ride.

The bike miss-fired at 5000 rpm.

This time I took the bike to the same shop that rebuild the carburetors and asked them to trouble-shoot the bike.

I waited another three weeks.

I went in to see the mechanic, he told me that the air filters were not fitting properly and too much air flow was affecting the fuel air mixture and they could not further trouble shoot the problem.

They also could not re-attach the fuel tank as the bolts used were the incorrect ones.

I rode the bike home with the tank bolts in my pocket.

I came to the conclusion that they did not want to trouble shoot the bike as too many items were not stock. The ignition system was not stock, The carburetors were not stock and the stock air box would not fit.

I came to the conclusion that the only way this bike was going to get fixed is if I did it myself.

I rolled up my sleeves and started in.

Check the fuel system

2010-01-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

I got home from work the next day and promptly took the bike out for a ride to test the changes. The bike started miss-firing at 5000 rpm.

There was no way in hell that I was going to call the mechanic again. I wanted to blow up the bike or part it as it was becoming a royal pain in the behind.

But I soon realized that I had dumped way too much money into the conversions.

So I decided to do some trouble-shooting on my own.

I decided I would go through the entire fuel system and see what I could find.

I removed the fuel tank and emptied it's contents into a clean pan and discovered that the remaining fuel was filthy with gunk and particles. I flushed the tank and proceeded to remove the fuel filters and fuel pump from inside the tank.

The fuel filters were filthy. I placed the fuel pump inside a pan of gas an wired it up to my power supply. The output was weak at best.

I found an aftermarket fuel pump on ebay and purchased it.

I replaced the in-tank fuel filter with an external fuel filter and fabricated an in tank fuel pump screen to prevent particles from entering the fuel pump.

I reassembled everything, refueled with fresh gas and took the bike for a ride.

The 5000 rpm miss-fire was still there.

Never buy a Ducati from a Poor Mechanic

2010-01-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

The guy I bought the Ducati from indicated he had his own private shop and that he had all of the parts on hand to perform the 17 inch wheel conversion and the Kokusan ignition system conversion. He indicated he would give me a good deal.

So I indicated he could come to my house and perform the conversions for me.

I will not go into much details about what took place but what started out to be a few week job turned into several months and my garage and driveway turned into a storage area for a mechanic who lost his local storage area.

Also the estimate for parts and labor keep on increasing as time when on.

When the work seemed to be finished I indicated that his services would no longed be needed. I was told that the bike was running properly. I had him clean out his tools and vehicle from my driveway and very politely indicated that we were done.

The wheel conversion he had performed worked out very nicely.

I could not wait to take the bike out and test ride it.

What do you mean, no Tires?

2010-01-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

While I was searching on the ducatipaso.org forum I also discovered that Michelin does not make 16 inch tires for the 750 Sport anymore.

You could either try to fit a different profile and width of newer tires or perform a 17 inch wheel conversion.

The tire swap was not the ideal solution. In order to perform the 17 inch conversion you had to purchase new rims, brake rotors, brake calipers and somehow get everything to fit. I was busy at the time and did not want tackle the ignition system swap and the wheel conversion myself.

Oh and also the wheel conversion was not going to be cheap either.

There has been three times I have allowed other people to work on my bike and two of those times the results have not been good. This incident is the second time.

The first time I had just purchased a new 2001 748 Ducati and had to perform the 600 mile service to maintain the warranty. When I dropped the bike off at the shop I asked the mechanic to please clean and re-lube the chain for me.

When I picked up the bike the mechanic had just sprayed new chain lube on top of the dirty chain.

The second time is approaching rapidly.

The Coils Arrive

2010-01-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

After a few days the new coils arrived. I checked the ohm reading on the coils and everything checked out. I installed the new coils, wires and caps and checked for spark. Nothing. Oh boy, What now. Back to ducatipaso.org, a great web forum on Ducati Paso era bikes.

After much searching the results were not good. It appears that only 400 Ducati 750 Sports were imported for the year 1990. They came two possible ignition systems: The Digiplex or the Kokusan ignition system. I had the Digiplex ignition system that had a single ignition pick-up.

According to the search results on the forum, the Digiplex had a habit of easily burning up and no replacement units are available. You could search on ebay a try to get lucky in finding someone parting out a bike or switch the ignition system to the Kokusan ignition system. This system had two ignition pickups and was wired differently than the Digiplex. To switch it was not going to be cheap.

Let the Saga Begin

2010-01-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

After a week of riding the bike started to miss fire around 4000 rpm.

When I got home I pulled and changed the plugs. The plug wires looked old and the spark plug caps looked even worse. I decided to change the wires. Wrong. After doing some digging on the web I found that the plug wires were permanently attached to the coils. One post indicated you could dig out the plug wires and re-attached new wires.

I removed the plug wires and attempted to attach new wires and caps. It was a bodge at best. I took the bike out and the miss got worse. By the time I go home the bike quit and would not start. I checked for spark at the plugs and coils. No spark at all.

So for a few days I did some digging on ebay and found a used set of coils, wires and caps from a Ducati Monster. These coils has removable wires.

Now I just have to wait for them to be shipped.

1990 Ducati 750 Sport

2010-01-13T20:19:00.000-08:00

A Year or so ago I came across an old Ducati 750 Sport that I wanted to pick up for the wife. She was riding a 750 Vulcan at the time and I wanted to convert her to the world of Ducati. She sat on the bike and said it felt OK. I purchased the bike, lowered the rear shock and cut the seat down for her. She has short legs and cannot ride very many bikes as she has trouble with her feet touching the ground.

She got on the bike and immediately proclaimed she did not like the way the bike felt.

Oh well, I guess I will keep the bike for myself. In the mean time she fell in love with the Piaggio MP3 500, and proceeded to buy one.

I took the 750 Sport, raised the shock and starting riding it myself.

Let's Start This Thing

2010-01-13T19:39:00.000-08:00

Well I finally decided to document some of this madness. I have been riding, tinkering and messing around with motorcycles for over 20 years. I have been blessed or cursed, depending on how you look at it, owing Ducati's for 10 of those years.

I have always been a tinkerer and have always performed all of my own maintenance on my motorcycles and scooters.

There are trade-offs to every passion and Ducati ownership is no exception.

Working on Ducati's has been by far the most time consuming, hair pulling, madding processes that one can encounter. But it is also one of the most challenging and rewarding processes one can perform.

The purpose of this blog is to share some of these experiences. Let the games begin.