My youngest and I did the cambelts last weekend, Me and the boy spent a good afternoon fitting the belts, I had a VW head stripped on the bench so I could explain the valve gear and cams and how it all works.
All went back together apart from when I was just about to try and start it and I spotted the spark plugs still on the bench. Doh! Had to lift the tank again to fit top plug.
Fitted the plugs and hit the starter, not firing, little blast of easy start and it came to life - ish. Misfiring, popping banging something terrible.
When I started it on the old belts with three cams out it fired up straight away and run fine if a bit subdued. Now the combustion is much better as testified by the noise from the termis. But it's misfiring terrible. I'm wondering if it could be one of the following...
New spark plugs, fairly standard champions supplied in the service kit, the ones taken out were fancy iridiums
Quick shifter not connected to battery, maybe that would cause the misfire?
Oh and even with another rectifier, it still wasn't charging, i couldn't measure the output direct from the coils, but testing both rectifiers with a multimeter and they test ok, and the charging coils are all about 4R each with no shorts to earth so should be fine...
Armed with a bit of info from the Ducati forum I dropped the fuel pump assembly out of the tank, and found this
That is the high pressure feed to the injector rail. All those years sat in fuel have not helped, I think it was fine when I got the bike but it decided it had had enough the same time that I changed the belts, talk about bad timing, made me wonder if the cam timing was out for a reason?
I bought some proper in-tank pipe and replumbed it all with a fresh filter.
Well, what a transformation!
Battery on and fired straight up, idling at a shade over 2000rpm, check the fast idle button...nope. Check the idle stop and the throttle linkage is clear and not hitting the stop, but the adjuster is wound out on the throttle cable at the twistgrip, wind it back in and the idle drops to a sensible setting. My guess is that one of the previous owners messed up the cam timing, then adjusted the idle to cover the problem slightly, or at least get it to idle.
I think the previous, previous owner then mothballed it for a bit and then flogged it, next owner bought it, probably rode it a bit, decided it was a bit rubbish so just brought it into the house to look at. I think prospective buyers had been going to view it and knew it wasn't right and ran away. The seller had dropped 3K from his originally selling price.
Now, It's idling smooth, picking up cleanly and eagerly (unlike when it first arrived when it was lazy and horrible) and all the proper Ducati noises are present and correct.
Sounds absolutely spot on. A low mileage bike picked up cheap because it obviously had running problems and buyers were walking away. Simple enough fix...happy with that!
Now I need to look at charging side, the cheap used reg/rectifier picked up as 'definitely working' from eBay - definitely isn't working, I have 26v ac coming from the coils, and about 0.8V dc out of the rectifier unit. Bought another one, brand new £30. Chinese shit.
Had a bit of a game with people selling used rectifiers on eBay, most people say if it works in the advert, some don't, so I asked "Does this work" - some of the replies were fine, some a bit odd, one bloke got all arsey, "Mate, I haven't got time to test it, I don't do refunds, you either want it or you don't, if you are that worried don't buy it"
All went back together apart from when I was just about to try and start it and I spotted the spark plugs still on the bench. Doh! Had to lift the tank again to fit top plug.
Fitted the plugs and hit the starter, not firing, little blast of easy start and it came to life - ish. Misfiring, popping banging something terrible.
When I started it on the old belts with three cams out it fired up straight away and run fine if a bit subdued. Now the combustion is much better as testified by the noise from the termis. But it's misfiring terrible. I'm wondering if it could be one of the following...
New spark plugs, fairly standard champions supplied in the service kit, the ones taken out were fancy iridiums
Quick shifter not connected to battery, maybe that would cause the misfire?
Oh and even with another rectifier, it still wasn't charging, i couldn't measure the output direct from the coils, but testing both rectifiers with a multimeter and they test ok, and the charging coils are all about 4R each with no shorts to earth so should be fine...
Armed with a bit of info from the Ducati forum I dropped the fuel pump assembly out of the tank, and found this
That is the high pressure feed to the injector rail. All those years sat in fuel have not helped, I think it was fine when I got the bike but it decided it had had enough the same time that I changed the belts, talk about bad timing, made me wonder if the cam timing was out for a reason?
I bought some proper in-tank pipe and replumbed it all with a fresh filter.
Well, what a transformation!
Battery on and fired straight up, idling at a shade over 2000rpm, check the fast idle button...nope. Check the idle stop and the throttle linkage is clear and not hitting the stop, but the adjuster is wound out on the throttle cable at the twistgrip, wind it back in and the idle drops to a sensible setting. My guess is that one of the previous owners messed up the cam timing, then adjusted the idle to cover the problem slightly, or at least get it to idle.
I think the previous, previous owner then mothballed it for a bit and then flogged it, next owner bought it, probably rode it a bit, decided it was a bit rubbish so just brought it into the house to look at. I think prospective buyers had been going to view it and knew it wasn't right and ran away. The seller had dropped 3K from his originally selling price.
Now, It's idling smooth, picking up cleanly and eagerly (unlike when it first arrived when it was lazy and horrible) and all the proper Ducati noises are present and correct.
Sounds absolutely spot on. A low mileage bike picked up cheap because it obviously had running problems and buyers were walking away. Simple enough fix...happy with that!
Now I need to look at charging side, the cheap used reg/rectifier picked up as 'definitely working' from eBay - definitely isn't working, I have 26v ac coming from the coils, and about 0.8V dc out of the rectifier unit. Bought another one, brand new £30. Chinese shit.
Had a bit of a game with people selling used rectifiers on eBay, most people say if it works in the advert, some don't, so I asked "Does this work" - some of the replies were fine, some a bit odd, one bloke got all arsey, "Mate, I haven't got time to test it, I don't do refunds, you either want it or you don't, if you are that worried don't buy it"
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