2006 MS2R1k

Seems to be going alright. I'd forgotten just. how. good. the brakes are when you team the extreme pros with fully floating Brembo rotors. Looks good with the red rims, need to finish the spare tank etc up with a red stripe.







Steve Kairl's commuterlite was good fun, too.



Even got my knee down on both. Not a bad Anzac day.

 

'Full' circuit, theres a couple of pics from the new T7 that now isn't really turn 7 cause there's no turn 6. Extension to full track is still not done and no pit buildings on the south circuit yet...

 

I have been riding it. Still the last thing I would sell.

 

I've spent the last few weeks (on and off, mostly cause I'm lazy) trying to find the reason for a bit of vagueness and play in the rear end. Usual suspect is the rear hub bearing, which I replaced in early 2010 in a second-hand hub I put in. At the same time as I did this (necessitated as the cush drives had failed), I put in 2nd-hand cush drives I got from the seller with the hub. These were earlier part numbers which were recommended.

Cleaned the chain and did a few other things and found that the back end play pretty much was down to two things:
a) the retaining clip had snapped where it goes through the axle, so it was 'present' but not retaining the rear sprocket nut, which had come undone to the point of being finger tight. This gives a bit of play in the rear axle, but not enough to explain everything.
b) the cush drives had started to fail. I would have had more of a clue, in that they'd either eject out the back of the sprocket if I didn't use one that had retainers, or the front half comes forwards, adding play to the drive side of the rear axle. With the retainers and some neat lockwiring by Brett at Moto Garage, neither had happened, they're just a bit looser in the rubber which means the drive side of the hub has a touch of play too.

This means new cushdrives. There's been a few attempts by Ducati to get the bonding correct on these parts, and turns out you end up with parts that were for an 848 (which uses the same cush drive setup; the 6 bolt rear ends on 1098 etc through to Diavels use different cush drives again). Nice. So, I'll order 2 sets this time I think... always good to have spares in stock.

 

Also, I might refresh the grease on the rear hub... maybe. In any case, I decided it was time I bought some circlip pliers suitable just in case I have to rip the hub out again.



Not your normal sized circlip pliers . Work pretty nicely on one of the spare circlips I have for the hub though.

 

One of the perpetual problems on these bikes are pretty ordinary rear brakes. They're not really necessary but I like having them for slow speed stuff, just in case I cock up a wheelie, or sometimes they're good when cornering.

In any case, mine hasn't been working brilliantly (even by their crap standards) for a while now. Decided yesterday I'd swap the fluid and bleed it, as the lever was super long but you could make it slightly harder by pumping it.

Mistake one: forgetting how small the reservoir is. So I took out all the fluid and did a swap that way. Absolutely nothing, just air, so damnit, obviously a huge air lock. Sucked out the rest of the fluid with the vacuum bleeder I have, then filled it via the bleed nipple.

Still nothing! Bled and bled and bled yesterday with my vacuum bleeder and just couldn't get anything. Rode it today with absolutely no rear brake. While I don't use it much, it's disconcerting.

One of the 'unique' design decisions Ducati made is in the layout of the rear brake circuit. Reservoir is the highest point, bleed nipple the lowest. Not really the best for getting air out of the system.

Today I pulled the back wheel off, took the caliper off the holder, and lifted it up so the nipple was pointing up and about the same height as the reservoir. Used vacuum bleeder again, took about 3 reservoirs of fluid (about 60 mL total!) and fully bled it. Success! Clearly that's the way to do it.

In the longer term, it needs a new rear master cylinder. The seal is a bit crap at the bottom by the pushrod, which itself is rusty from water retained by the gaiter meant to keep water out from the seal (classic thing on many bikes, not just seen on Ducatis - people just don't notice as they don't peel the gaiters back). Brembo don't like to supply rebuild kits, so for $80 I've sourced a new rear caliper out of the UK and will put that on when it arrives.

 

I know there's been some comments on the Monster forums about these master cylinders and lack of seal kits. I might look into a kit as I like having spares in the shed, but a replacement will be good.

That said, it's the best it has ever felt, even when new. It is definitely sucking air around the pushrod seal too, when you pull a vacuum with my bleeder you can get it to suck brake fluid up from the pushrod area. Also checked if it was leaking around the piston seals but they seemed fine.

 

I've never seen one aspirate back through the seal. Could be possible it's cause it's 1 way, though the pushrod is also pretty manky so wouldn't put it past it being dodgy too.

In any case, my other option was to put a second left hand lever on, as I have a 13mm Magura radial master cylinder for the LHS I incorrectly bought, haha.

Good to have options but .

 

Always important to give them their first ride on a cool bike.



Bought nephew his first helmet for his birthday and took him for a quick ride. He had fun.

 

Serviced, registered, time for a blat and a front tyre tomorrow AM.

 

Man the full floating discs are sexy.

Cheers to Brett for looking after me with the tyre (and the rear pads I needed; yay for awesome Brembos).

 

*sploosh*

 

Nice! Bet you're wallet didn't like that particular sploosh much

 

Not even mine. Someone else's from an aborted project, and I've kindly been provided them on a permanent loan.

 

Herein lies a tale of how I spent 30 minutes this afternoon doing some much-needed maintenance to my bike... we shall call it...

Replacing a Ducati dry clutch
Introduction
Ducati dry clutches are renowned for two things: a) their rattle (clunka-clunk in neutral with clutch lever released, tingatingatinga in gear or neutral with lever pulled in) and b) their lack of longevity.

The rattle I don't care about. Certainly not a deal breaker for me - hence I bought an S2R1k new . The rattle is worst as the clutch stack gets low, which happens as the friction materials wear. This brings me to their lack of longevity - this isn't anything inherent in a multiplate dry clutch, just the fact that Ducati use pretty thin metals and friction discs, so they just don't last long. Couple that with relatively tall first gears on most of the bikes, and an engine that encourages you to slip the clutch on downshifts so you don't lock up the back, and you've got a recipe for clutches that are here for a good time, not a long time.

This is, in fact, my second clutch replacement. My first set took me to about 30,000 km according to my records; this set has added another 26,000 km to that, give or take a bit. Both of these are on the short side: the first set were done because prior to it being tuned, the bike was a pig under 3krpm and consequently carpark work involved lots of slipping the clutch so it didn't carry on.

This time, the reason is simple: I've done a heap of trackdays with this bike (30+) and especially into slow corners, I slip the clutch on downshifts a lot as my own left-hand-controlled slipper clutch. It's really nice to do and you can get some really nice little slides into corners with it and also not lock the back up, but, it also kills clutch life. I also tend to treat the commute as a great place to practise race starts, again, not hugely kind on clutches.

I knew this one was going when I took a former work colleague for a pillion ride and it slipped in 5th and 6th on the higher speed runs in a couple of spots at the Cotter. Classic clutch (or springs) worn out time.

Previously, I had replaced the clutch with OEM frictions and metals; this time, mostly in honour of Courtney Barnett's Grammy nomination, I went for Barnett plates and some different stainless steel springs. I had replaced the springs and factory pressure plate before with some fancy-pants items but with stainless steel springs you don't know if they've snapped as stainless is more brittle than regular spring steel. They're cheap and spares make excellent pencil holders in the shed anyway.

Barnett plates are not meant to last quite as long as the OEM ones, however, it's not like mine have lasted a long time anyway and they were under half the price of OEM.

The repair - stuff you'll need, getting access to the clutch

Really, really simple to do a clutch on a Ducati. You'll need your new plates (+ springs if you want - I like to do them at the same time as I do plates no matter the bike), some brake cleaner to rid the area of clutch dust, 5mm and 4mm allen sockets and ratchets to suit, some sanding paper to clean up any dags on the basket or clutch push rod, some rags, and, because this is 2015, internet mechanics have to wear non-latex gloves. In a show of non-conformity, I'm rocking Ansell purple ones because black is for tattoo artists and hipsters. I'm neither.


Easier to see what's ahead with my open clutch cover and vented pressure place, but it's not difficult even with an OEM closed cover. You don't even need to undo every screw around the clutch cover on a Ducati!


Some screws do need undoing as they seat onto the cover itself


... and some clearly don't. This is more obvious on this Ducabike cover than with an OEM cover but it's not too hard to work out either way.


I like to give it an initial burst of cleaner before popping the cover off, mostly to get the worst of the dust off the cover. Skippable step if you have an OEM cover.


Undo the necessary case bolts you identified a moment ago.


Pull that cover off.


Pressure plate revealed! The springs are what provide the load onto the clutch stack, and you work against those springs when you pull the clutch lever in. This lifts the pressure plate, separating the friction (driven by the engine) from the metal (which drives the gearbox input shaft) plates. In turn this disengages the engine from the gearbox, allowing you to do things like stopping without stalling the engine or letting you change gears. (Not that you have to use the clutch to change gears on a motorbike, but that's another topic).


The spring bolts are not tight. I mean, they aren't in there finger tight, but they ain't gorilla on an impact wrench tight either. If you are struggling, strike the end of the ratchet handle with your hand; this shock acts a bit like an impact tool and helps to release it. Remember that initially you are working against the preload of the clutch springs, which is trying to pull up on the head of the bolt. That makes it tighter to undo initially than a normal bolt.


Once you've released the bolt a few turns, you can use your hands to push down on the springs which releases the cup from the base of the bolts. This isn't essential but does make undoing it with just a bare socket or an allen key possible.


Undo the bolts in a criss-cross pattern. This helps keep the pressure plate nice and square onto the plates until it's all undone. Also saves side-loading the little bits the bolts go into in the clutch basket - snapping them off is a bad day.


All of the springs off the pressure plate.


Now you can pull the pressure plate up. This step often requires a bit of wriggling, mostly because...


... the clutch release pushrod gets stuck in the bearing in the centre of the pressure plate. (Ducatis have the slave cylinder that actuates the clutch down on the left-hand side of the motor, and this rod goes allll the way through the engine to push on the pressure plate to disengage the clutch. Sometimes, if you are swapping clutch baskets, slave cylinders to a non-OEM one, or pressure plates, you will have to shorten or lengthen this rod according to the application. Something to remember when you wonder why your clutch no longer works after swapping something out).


This is the top plate - it is a metal plate, that is, one of the plates that drives the gearbox input shaft. Yeah, it's rusty - one of the perils of using an open cover. It's also only surface rust and it goes away pretty much as soon as you use the clutch. The last time I rode this bike, before I went to San Fran, it poured with rain and I put it away wet.

Pull off that metal plate, then...


... pull off the friction plate underneath it.

I like to keep the plates in order and in the direction they came out of the motor. I do this by stacking the plates, whatever face was facing 'out' from the motor', face down on a towel.

Keep going pulling out metal then friction then metal plates.


This is a handy hint for how to get out pesky plates once you get deeper into the stack. A couple of small allen keys work perfectly as hooks into the back of the plates to pull them off straight and evenly. Really speeds it up.


After the last plate is out (on a Ducati that is an extra-thick metal plate OR two standard thickness plates. Mine was 2 standard thickness metal plates) then you'll have the bare outer and inner clutch components visible. The outer is the basket, the inner is the hub. The outer is driven by the primary gear off the crankshaft, and the inner is what drives the input shaft of the gearbox (via a nifty collar and bearing arrangement at the back of the clutch).

You'll note the pushrod is already back in the engine. I clean it up and make it all nice before putting it back into the slave cylinder mostly so I don't forget and then wonder why my clutch doesn't work after reassembly.

Now, my basket is close to rooted. See the deep chunks out of the side of the basket? Yeah, they're not ideal. They cause a super grabby clutch. Apparently my Monster should have had a steel basket from the factory but this one is aluminium. Great for lightness and coolness, but not so much for commuting longevity. It'll see out these plates with a small tidy up and then I'll probably throw in a slipper clutch as that's lineball with an OEM basket anyway.

 

Some reassembly details, tips and tricks

See that extra thick plate? That's the first metal plate that goes into the clutch.

It depends what clutch kit you get as to this plate being extra thick or just two normal metals. Either way, extra thick plate first in this particular application.

I use my old clutch plates as a memory for where I'm up to. Each time I have put a new plate into the clutch I pull the corresponding plate off my old stack and put it elsewhere, sitting with the outer facing face now facing up. Helps me keep track of where I am up to; especially important if you get interrupted in the job.

It's all pretty simple, metal followed by friction by metal... rinse and repeat.

Barnett have a little trick though, they include an 'anti-rattle' spring. I have no idea if this does anything, but I'll give it a go. The anti rattle spring goes in after the 3rd friction plate has gone in, though it sits above the metal plate for this 3rd friction disc.


The anti-rattle setup has a thicker friction disc, and a flat base plate inner circle that sits inside it.


Then you put in a cup-shaped anti rattle spring, which has a white dot on it so you know which way goes out. The idea here is to add some load so that when the clutch lever is pulled, only 3 or 4 metals can rattle against each other. That should limit the tambourine sound of the clutch, though does nothing for the clunkaclunka sound (that results from smacking the friction teeth into the clutch basket, resulting in exactly the wear you see in my clutch basket).

OEM Ducati clutches don't bother with this anti-rattle spring, so in that case it's just simple metal-friction-metal-friction.... assembly.


Once you're done going metal-friction-metal and have added the correct number of plates, the pressure plate then goes on. Be careful seating the push rod, you don't want to tear the seal in the slave cylinder, the clutch basket collar, or bugger up the release bearing.

There are alignment marks on the pressure plate (a dot for one of the holes, corresponds to the post on the clutch hub with a cutout on it), though no-one seems to die if you forget to follow this careful alignment scheme.


Time to put those springs, cups and bolts on to hold the pressure plate on. Do them up a little at a time, and in a criss-cross pattern. Do them up, then chuck the clutch cover back on


With everything all done, it's virtually invisible to the naked eye. Eagle eyed people can spot it as the clutch drive plates are now right at the top of the basket, as opposed to before where they were about 3mm recessed into the clutch area. That's roughly how much wear you get - 8 plates, about 0.3-0.4mm worn off each friction disc (or 0.2mm off each disc, both metal and friction) and the clutch has totally been rooted.


In a clutch repair it's good to have some bits left over... putting back in all the old plates along with your new ones isn't a good strategy.