Lucky Phil

This has to be the shittiest looking race track surface I've ever seen. Ciao

2 pack paint, base and a hardener and a little thinner. Dries chemically not due to flashing off solvents. Tough, hard great depth but hard to apply without a booth to keep the dust and contaminants off. Takes about 30min to touch dry. I did mine outside and then put the stuff in the spare room with the door shut to let them cure in a dust free environment. Ciao

I believe it is docc. Its often hard to tell. Some use a wipe test with solvent which isn't totally reliable but powder is generally thicker and if you look at a flake its devoid of any primer. It also seems reluctant to respond to cutting and polishing and lacks depth. I have stripped a swing arm once that had been powdered and it came off in long plastic like strips when you tried peeling it like a piece of fruit instead a chipping off. The Guzzi parts didnt seem like this but I'm still inclined to believe they are powder. Not 100% sure but pretty confident. If you had a decent painted surface even if it is 20 years old you should be able to cut and buff it to pretty much the same finish as new paint as long as its not been sun affected. You just cant get the V11 frame like this. I also read it was while doing research which isn't of course definitive but made me test and evaluate. Ciao

Pulled the tape off the painted parts today. I'd rate the finish quality as an 8.5 out of 10 which is about all you can expect from an amateur that hasn't sprayed 2K paint for 35 years so I'll call it done. For anyone thats contemplating whether to powder coat or paint 2K here is the difference. I realise this is straight off the gun compared to 20 year old powder but I've cleaned and polished the powder part and the protected parts of the frame aren't really much better. If you want a tough and glossy finish with real depth you can't beat 2K, the powder just doesnt compare and thats the reason I repainted the side plates and front support. I just got tired of the lack of depth and richness to the finish. The battery tray and rear swingarm are next in satin black. My original arm has quite a bit of weld spatter on it from the factory which is pretty pathetic really and the finish is quite poor now esp on the round tubes where the original rear hugger rubbed the surface. 2K V powder Ciao

Got the 2K painting done today, its decent. I'm no painter. Ciao

To me it looks like something that is on a petrol driven cement mixer. Mufflers are such a style cue on a motorcycle,they can completely change the whole style of a bike. While I'm having a soap box sermon I also hate with a passion wrapped headers on just about any bike. Ugly as sin and totally pointless. Ciao

Yes personally I think the quad d look effing horrible, but to each his own. Ciao

After years of reading about the difficulty of this task I though i'd attack my first one by engineering the issue. The tool shown can be made by anyone with a hacksaw,drill and file and 100 mm of 50x2mm wall square. Something with a little bigger ID would be better but I used what was on hand and thats the reason for the end slots to allow for the fact that the tube id was 46 and the bearing OD was 47mm. The radial slot is for the 3/4 spanner to hold the bearing puller as you crank up the slide hammer nut. When you have moved the bearing 10mm or so you can slide hammer it out easily or just keep cranking the wrenches. The steel plate was just scrap I had laying around and when I have the time I'll make a decent looking dedicated one. On the bench is one of the other size bearing puller adaptors for reference to style of puller and a hammer for docc. The key is to apply a decent load to the bearing puller and slider hammer combo via the wrenches and then give the swingarm boss a few light taps just in one area is good enough and the bearing then releases. I used my copper hammer for the task.This is an important technique which I learned removing Ducati Crank gears. Load up the puller then a "tap" with the hammer and drift and they pop free. Exactly the same here. Time to remove? as the header says 30 seconds. Ciao

The images I've seen the quad D uses it own headers. It may have OEM headers option,not sure but it would be worthwhile to check. Ciao

Yes docc its always a wrench to disassemble again to do the painting and finishing. My main issue at the moment is waiting for parts and materials to arrive in the post. Silly stuff like fuel hose etc. Slows the process down a lot and you tend to need everything on hand with a project like this because you're making it up as you go. So to run fuel and breather hoses you need to have things like the throttle cable routed etc because everything is so tight and messy under the tank you need to consider everything before you can finalise things. The next major hurdle is adjustable steering stops which is going to mean fabricating a pair of stops and then machining off the old ones and bolting on the new. Cant see any other elegant way around it. My friend that usually does my machining for me is currently quite unwell and the last thing he needs is to be doing me machining favours so I'll need to work around that. Ciao

Italian bikes dont leak they perspire a little is all. Ciao

Hmmmm, just sayin. Always good to recheck when you have an issue. Crank sensor that uses the cam drive as its reference. It MAY need adjustment depending on the difference between the exact dimensions of the original and the new but its always good to check the gap when replacing anyway. Ciao

Looks like a step backwards. Side plates and front support removed for painting and finish removal of the remains of the old horn/regulator bracket. I have also machined the threaded section of the regulator housing back 5mm and relieved the body to give me some comfort factor clearance wise to the TPS. The Centauro throttle cable arrived and am glad to say it fitted perfectly. Ciao

Was reading one of Brad Blacks reports yesterday and came across something I didnt know. One very important thing to know about the 1.5M ECU is that it runs rich for the first 3,000 rotations every time you start the engine after turning the key or kill switch off and then on. I just thought (while typing this) that I don’t know what happens if the engine stalls and you restart it – I’ve never tested that. So best to assume it does it every time. And this is not just when it’s cold. Every time! Even when it’s hot. If you start it up and check the idle mixture quickly and it’s 5% CO after idling for 3 or so minutes (3,000 rotations at 1,100 RPM idle is about 3 minutes) the mixture will drop to maybe 1% CO or so and it’ll idle like crap. I usually allow at least 4 to 5 minutes for the mixture to settle after starting the engine. It’s very annoying when you’re in a hurry, as you have to turn the engine off then back on to initiate the setting procedure with the diagnostic tools, but that’s how it is. For the full report and hours of interesting reading...... http://www.bikeboy.org/ducati2vthrottleb.html Ciao

No that would look horrid. Ciao

You cant get them wet Chuck, they dont like the rain. I never ride mine in the rain. If I get caught out I just go to the nearest hotel, book in and come out when it's fine:) Ciao

Yes chuck or its just failing period. Buy yourself a cheap Chinese copy one for like $15US and try that. If its not you havent spent the $170US they seem to want for the OEM. OEM ones are a little hard to come by these days and you see a lot of aftermarked retailers selling the Chinese ones so they cant be all that bad as they are used on a lot of older automotive stuff. Thats my theory anyway having bought one to use in the Daytona engine. Havent got it running yet so I cant comment on the performance. Ciao

Your rod should be the correct overall length give or take. It looks like what you need to do is machine the clutch end dia down and along the length enough until its a slug fit in the pressure plate button and bottomed out. Then check the protrusion as i outlined. It should be close to these figures give or take a little. And then you can do what I did with the Daytona engine and 6 speed with the RAM clutch which is to fit the slave and slide half the drive shaft onto the gearbox output shaft,put it in gear and see if when you pull the clutch it disengages and at what point from the bar and that you have a little freeplay before it loads the pressure plate spring. If it disengages a long way from the bar then the rod is too long and the converse would be too short. Ciao