A Mexican Ducati rescue and rebuild

AW:

Nice. You needed something to do while all your $$ is over in Germany. If you decide to move back to the US, can you bring a Mexican bike here? How does that work? If you ever find a Darmah sitting around let me know. Bucket list bike.

Tom

Sure, I'll let you know. It'll be something along the lines of: "Hey Tom. I just bought a Darmah. Ha."

As for bringing this puppy back to the states I can actually ride it all the way to Seattle with Mexican plates on it if I felt so inclined. Registering it in Washington is the only hurdle, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

It's a metric speedo, not miles. You can tell because the larger numbers are Kilometers, and the smaller are a reference in miles.

I've seen them the other way around when they read miles.

You'll know pretty quickly once the bike is running by seeing how far it goes in a a minute at 60. Also, 60 k per hour is only about 40mph, you'll know!

As an aside, since metric speedos read kilometers, what do you call the distance travelled since it can't be mileage? kilage?

That's what I thought, but Precis said above that the metric ones only had km/h - no miles at all. You're right though, as soon as I get it ridable it'll be pretty easy to tell.

What's the consensus on cleaning up the cases? I see that some of the covers appear to have been chromed in the past and it's flaking off quite badly - there's more of it gone than there is remaining. I was just planning on stripping what's left off and polishing up the aluminum. Any reason not to do this? Also, is there any way of protecting the aluminum well once it's been polished? I've never owned a bike that I've felt compelled to keep pretty. They've all been transportation tools. Two wheeled tractors. This bike however, I actually feel obligated to make it look good and keep it looking good. Any suggestions on how best to do that would be appreciated as it's sort of outside my areas of experience.

Ah, polishing!
Check my lick below
vvvvvv

Eastwood has a clear product that they sell for polished wheels. it should work on cases also. I have not tried it.

My favorite engine coatings on the two Duc 900s I owned was easy and durable. One of those rare "good, quick, and cheap" solutions:

I lightly sand blasted all the crankcase parts and covers (since then I acquired a soda blaster too and prefer it where it will take off corrosion) Just be gentle with the sand blaster - I found a few small porosities I didn't expect. :eek1

Paint with Duplicolor 500 Degree Ceramic Engine Enamel ; p/n DE1650 Cast Coat Aluminum color. Allow parts to air cure for two weeks or more before reassembly to make the coating really chip resistant. I never used/needed primer for that paint on bare clean aluminum and its looks so natural it takes a second look to tell its painted.

Same paint in Semi Gloss Black DE1635 looks good and is holding up well on my R80 cylinder barrels.

I've never had as good a results trying to speed up the paint cure by baking - always seemed more durable just waiting 2 weeks or so.

Nice find, BTW!

Man-o-man...

You get all the kool stuff!

How about stripping the chrome off of that frame and then painting it? That shouldn't be too expensive and it isn't my $$$ anyway.

I would love to have a Duc as a project bike! I'd be broke but love always hits you in the pocket, one way or another.

I'll be watching!

Or go to a chrome powder coat, not as shiny as real chrome but pretty good. Infact you could pay for a home powder coat system on this one bike.

Yep, that's the plan for the frame. I'll probably go with satin black. None of the nicer chassis paints like POR15 are available here, so it might just get Krylon engine enamel. (:eek1) I'm not a big fan of chrome either.

IMHO People who chrome aluminum engine covers should be kicked squarely in the nads.


from my website:
I didn't blast the case halves, there was too much to mask. For them I relied on wheel cleaner. Spray it on, hit the castings with a wire brush (by hand) and rinse. Repeat as needed. Carb cleaner can come in handy here too. I also used this method on the hubs,







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FWIW I am very leery of bead blasting engine related parts. Absolutely do not sandblast them. I know people will disagree but it's freakin aluminum for cripe sakes, you do not need to use an aggressive media on it. And i've seen a jaguar engine ruined by bead blasting. If the surface sees oil, don't spray abrasives at it. Just a little rule I follow...

Oh, and don't hit the polished parts with a steel brush!

I didn't polish the case at all after cleaning by the way. I also didn't treat it with anything. I'll let it age naturally (though there seems to be a mist of oil everywhere that protects it too!) I did however polish the sidecovers, bit not to a mirror finish.

Yeah, chroming aluminum should just be banned. I'm hoping they didn't chrome the inside of the cover where it let loose and filled the engine with chrome flakes and that's why this thing got parked after 8000 km. :eek1 Let the dismantling begin... this weekend. I pulled the forward carb apart yesterday and was really encouraged by what I found. They're basically usable as-is with just a good cleaning. Not much grunge at all, the accelerator pump diaphragms were still soft, pliable and crack free, none of the jets or passageways were really clogged up to speak of. The outside could use some cleaning up, but functionally they're good to go. Woo.

Damn, makes me wanna go kick my project bike. You must have gone thru a few wire brushes.

roy

Some of the Ducati's covers would have been "chromed" (if you can call what the Italians did 30-odd years ago 'chrome') at the factory.
If you've got Money with a capital M, you can get stuff ceramic coated. It's microns thick but very durable (except for brake-fluid - just don't ask and we'll stay friends, okay?) and helps with heat dissapation, oil windage, etc, etc - and it's available in a variety of hip 'n cheesey colours. I did this once, I think the credit-card will be paid off sometime in 2029. High Performance Coatings is the imaginative name of the company that did it.
There's also a great treatment called GunKote - it's used in naval cannons, so should work well on a Ducati; trouble is, I think it only comes in a charcoally-browny-anthracite colour, which isn't very sexy.

Alternatively, you could try anodising back to "natural" - though not all aluminiums take anodising - and as someone previously mentioned, beware of sudden and random porosity in Italian castings.
I always like sending off cruddy parts and getting back shiny new-looking ones, wherever possible exchanging $$$ for elbow grease. These days, it's more of the elbow grease, less of the $$$.

Been there, done that... twice. Not long after refurbing the stock carbs on my GT I found a pair of 32's and decided to rebuild the engine to Sport specs...

You have no idea... though to be fair I did bead blast the cylinders and heads. And I put the cases in a hot tank (glorified dishwasher) too, but it only took off the oil, not the corrosion.

FWIW I used scothbrite pads on the head/cylinder of my 160. Worked pretty well. Put the cylinder in a lathe and let it spin while holding a folded sheet of scothbrite between the fins. (No hot tank or bead blaster on this one)

That's funny. I made a comment on Italian chrome in my original reply but then deleted it before posting. For as much as I love Ducatis, they used some of the worst chrome I've ever seen...

Did you use steel or brass brushes for that? I'm experimenting with what to use on the smooth stuff, but brushes seem to be the way to go on the rougher sand cast stuff. I can't find etching wheel cleaner down here so I might just go with diluted phosphoric acid. That's the active ingredient in etching wheel cleaner, isn't it? For the smooth stuff I'm getting reasonable results starting with scotchbrite pads and then following with aluminum polish. I'll need to blast them anyway to get rid of the remaining chrome that hasn't flaked off, but finding someone around here with a blaster I can use is going to be tough. Would soda take off the remaining chrome, or do I need to use sand or beads? Walnut shell is unheard of down here.

There's a way to remove chrome from aluminum, but don't recall how at the moment. Google it - but I think it was soaking in vinegar or something like that. Can you get phosphoric acid there???

I've never tried , but , have heard of Walnut shell blasting. I have seen Walnut shell media for sale somewhere.
It's hard enough to clean off rust and corosion without being able to damage joint faces.
A bonous is that if you don't get 100% of it cleaned out of your parts it 's just a non-abraisivive sludge that's left.

Oh I know. Believe me, I'd love to use walnut shell media, but it's just absolutely not available in Mexico, or at least where I am. I guess I could go buy a big bag of walnuts and make my own. Nah.