How to service a Ducati 750ss - Documented with pictures

[Hooli]

Fizpop said:

Excellent write up thanks for sharing. Have been putting off bleeding my brakes as it's usually a PITA, but you have inspired me.
Where did you get the clear tubing from? I have tried the windscreen washer pipe from Halfords but the inside bore seems to small for bleed nipples.

Get one of those 'ezi-bleed' hoses with the one way valve in the end, it's about £3 & makes life easier

[RemaL]

Lewis I got to say I love threads like this. don't know how I missed it first time. loving the report and pics

keep it going

[podman]

Nice work mate, she'll be well sorted by the time you've done.

You can get rubber tubing from £0.50 a metre from your local pet shop.

[Ruttager]

I like reading these type of threads. Its always interesting to see how people tackle the problems that crop up during a service. Especially when home brew tools have to be bodged together

[lewis s]

Job 9 - Valve Clearances (finally)

Should have been a fairly easy on ethis, but alas, it was not

Its a bit difficult to explain fully myself, but there is an excellent web page below which describes in much more detail the process than i can and goes into the workings of the Ducati Desmodromic valvetrain. In simple terms though instead of having a valve spring to close the valve, there is a second rocker which lifts the valve back into place. This is the link below:

http://www.ducatisuite.com/valves.html

All of my troubles came from seized bolts. 3 in the rocker covers and 1 for the oil cooler.

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

The horizontal cylinder is apparently the easy one, but this is where the 3 bolts for the rocker covers were seized i guess due to being splattered with road crud its whole life. For this cylinder you should be able to just remove the side fairings, detach the oil cooler and remove the 2 rocker covers (one for each rocker)

I on the other hand had to remove the seat, tank, battery, oil cooler, airbox and ECU to be able to drill out the seized bolts

One of the offending covers:


The view through where the tank / airbox used to be to drill the second cover:


With the covers removed this is what you see (note the 2 rockers)




To do the vertical cylinder you also need to remove the shock. This is what the bike looked like at this point!


Shock removed


The actual business of cheching the clearances is pretty simple really. You have to get the cylinder you are working on to top dead centre (described well in the link above) and then using feeler guages check the clearance between the top rocker and shim. Then apply pressure to the bottom rocker and measure again. The before gap minus the gap when pushed down gives the clearance of the closing rocker. Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing but it is described better in the other link.

My clearances were as follows:

Horizontal Cylinder

Exhaust Opening - 0.05mm
Exhaust Closing - 0.05mm
Inlet Opening - 0.10mm
Inlet Closing - 0.05mm

Vertical Cylinder

Exhaust Opening - 0.15mm
Exhaust Closing - 0.05mm
Inlet Opening - 0.10mm
Inlet Closing - 0.05mm

So after all that work they were all in spec and i did'nt have to do anything

This took me pretty much this whole weekend, but without the seized bolts i imagine it could be done easily in 4 hours or so.

I finished putting the bike back together around 3:00pm today and the bike started first thumb of the button and all is working well

Overall a very frustrating job and i don't really fancy doing it again in a hurry, although all the bolts are now stainless with plenty of copperslip so i shouldnt experience the same issues again hopefully.

[supersingle]

Good work. Glad they were in spec, I wouldn't fancy re-shimming those valves!

[lewis s]

Just been reminded of this thread, so i will finally get it updated and finished off tomorrow if i can find the time

[Xenocide]

Great thread cheers. I've got to check the valve clearences and change belts on my monster 900 very soon.

Effort though innit.

[Bortoi]

Hello,

I have a 750 Sport 2001. Today i was looking at the timing belt and i think someting is wrong. Can you tell me the number of teeth between the marks? For the future i would like to change the belt for my self, I hope that isn't a big deal. Thank you for your response.