Home Brew Ducati Rebuild

Alrite folks, as most of you know I've got a 02 yellow Ducati 748. My pride and joy, she looks good at 12 paces. Get any closer than that and the imperfections start to show. There are nice shiney new fairings hiding a multitude of sins below them! Well I'm here to unearth the truth, put myself to shame and show you all my girl naked! Hopefully that'll motivate me to sort her out before the riding season starts!

Anyway here's the pictures

This is how she stands with her clothes on


A few of the extras include, Translogic Dash, billet levers and double bubble screen


Carbon clutch cover with uprated springs and red caps


JHP Air filter


Other stuff not pictured is Marchesini wheels and full polished exhaust system.

Well thats her with her clothes on and looking respectable. Here she is with her clothes off, warts an' all!



Rust on the frame


Dented Radiator, its seen better days


Badly Pitted and dented forks



Plenty of corrosion, rust and dirt






Well thats the pictures! Now heres the plan, over the next few months I'll be stripping her right down, refurbing and replacing parts where needed. I'm waiting on a cash injection.... Once that arrives I'll be buying a few more parts. But the main plan is to tidy her up, get her looking respectable and ready for the summer. I'll post up on here as I complete jobs. Any help, advice and tips are welcome!

Hope you enjoy it!

Oh for forks sake!
It looks like the damage the forks is the worst, that and the rad, the rest is just surface corrosion, easy fixed. Does that fancy bling clutch work yet?

Yea the forks have seen better days, my plan is to pick up a set off a 996/998, the TiN coated ones, then get radial bottoms for them. As for the radiator I've been looking at a replacement OEM or nice shiny alloy one, the latter being slightly more expensive.....

I'm not to fussed about the corrosion as my long term plan is to powder coat/spray the frame, also I want to either buy new nuts and bolts or get the existing ones plated, not sure of anywhere local to get that done though? As for the other bits and pieces I'll be cleaning or replacing them as needed!

Ok quick update, I've stripped the alarm off the bike as it does my tits in, never had much luck with bikes and alarms anyway! They always feck up and leave up sh*t creek without a paddle. So its in the bin. Saved a few lbs as well because it actually weighed a ton!

Other stuff I've done is clean the engine, getting all the years of road crud off, Ive also tidied the wiring loom a little, it had been butchered in the past so I got the soldering iron out and replace some wires and made better joins on the others. Then gave it a quick covering in leccy tape, nothing fancy!

I'm still considering dropping the engine out and getting the frame powder coated? Think that would be to time comsuming though? I'm hoping to have it on the road looking good by mid may, dropping the engine out will push that deadline further away.... I'll wait and see how I get on

So does anyone know somewhere local to get a shock rebuilt?

Leave the frame til next year mate, it's playtime soon..

Yes I do believe your right mate! Ah well, roll on the winter....

Ok got a bit done this past week. I had the soldering iron out last night, got the loom for the translogic dash sorted properly and wrapped in pukka loom tape. I also soldered where I removed the alarm, then completely recovered the loom in the heat resistant loom tape. few pictures here








This morning I got her out the backdoor and gave her a good scrub over, getting rid of and old road crud. I also had the wire brush out getting rid of the little bits of corrosion and rust. She's looking better all ready!

All soaped up




Next I set about cleaning the exhausts, I've never liked the blue "titanium" look silencers, so I decided to remove it with some elbow grease.

Tools I used


Before


During


After


And fitted! Looks good if you ask me!


More things in the pipeline....

Those looms look professional... Nice.
You've made a good job of those cans too. I didn't realise you could just buff off the blue 'heat treated' colouring. I thought it would be right through the metal, obviously not. Was it more like it had been painted on?

Thanks, I've always been ok at soldering and I knew I wanted something better looking than leccy tape to cover them, turns out there is plenty loom tape on ebay! Bonus!

Yea the cans had a sort of blue plating, I just roughed it up with the wire brush then used then sanding block to smooth the finish, took about an hour to do both cans. Not bad if you ask me?

Postman pat loved me this week! Lots of heavy parcels arrived while I was out the country. I bought 998 TiN coated fork, and ohlins shock, ally front clock subframe and a few other bits and bobs. The plan is to get it all fitted during the week. I still need to pick up a new radiator, get the belts, valves and service done then MOT her, then she's sorted for the summer!

Pictures to follow later tonight

You're going to be busy!

Yes once this hangover does one!

Ok here's an update on all the parts I bought. They're still sitting on my dining room table.... haha well not all of them

Look thats them!



First up is the forks, I got newer 998 forks off a early 2003 model, these are the most recent forks you can get for this series of bike, Note the gold TiN (Titanium Nitrate) coating on the stantion. Also note lack of dents like my ones....




Next up is the shock, as you can see from the first picture below my standard showa unit was a mess.



I was either going to refurb of replace it. In the end I decided to replace it with a nice shiney used Ohlins number from a 748R.


At first I thought it was an original shock that had been annodised and then an ohlins sticker was thrown on.... Then I spotted this...

Its real! I still think I'm going to replace the sticker with a more standard looking one!

Next up is the ally clock unit, its currently fitted to the bike and I never took a picture before fitting so the image from ebay will have to do.
By fitting this it means I don't have to chop up the headlight bucket to fit the race nose cone, with means I can swap them over and run headlights for trips etc...


Also need to get round to fitting the clutch plates and hub! Thats a priority before the forks and shock!



And this is the hub removal tool, I think its cool as its made from carbon fibre!


Also got new oil, a steering stem removal nut, new jubilee clips for the hoses, new plugs, monoposto seat cover and carbon chain guard the latter three have still to arrive!






Anyway onto todays progress, or lack of it. As I'm suffering from a serious bout of man flu I'm unable to get the energy to get much done! But I did manage to get the front subframe fitted, drilled the race nose cone and fitted the sreen. She's looking menacing and purposfull! Hopefully tommorow I'll be feeling alot better and I can crack on and get more things done!

6 months have past....
You missed the summer... we all did though!
Make sure you get a heater in that new man cave of yours.. And keep some room for a bandit to visit occasionally!!

Heater in place! And plenty space mate, just need to move the wine making equipment out the way! lol

Heater! That is probably the most essential piece of equipment!

After I've had all my bits coated, painted and plated you'll have a better idea where to get your parts done..

Maybe you could just turn it into something like this instead...

Its going NAKED. And black.....

Copy Cat!

But It'll look better than yours! haha. Not sure about the black bit! Still want my red frame

Black N Red = Cool..
Dae it!

I'll need a little help........ lol

I'll lend you my blue tubs when they're empty!