Ducati SuperSport 1000 (1000ss) Project: Part One

Decided to waste no time, and dive right into the project. As soon as I rolled the bike into the garage I started taking the bodywork off. This is done for two reasons, one to gain access to the motor for service, and two to give everything a deep cleaning. The other factor is that I do not have any parts right now, so might as well poke around and get to know the bike.

Tasteful nude

Tasteful nude

SO much mechanical beauty is exposed with the plastics off. Good signs that there is no evidence of mouse damage, or leaking fluids. Take a look at those HUGE bar risers. They are terrible, and I can not wait to change them. Since I intend to use this bike in a sporty fashion I want the lower bars for control. Also the current bars do not fit very well. The front fairing had to be raised a bit to clean, and the bars get scary close to the tank on full lock

While the plastics are off, I removed the belt covers to get to the timing belts. For some reason Ducati wants users to change the belts all the time. IT is mildly insane that Honda can have a high RPM motor last 100,000 miles on a timing belt, but in that same time Ducati would ask for 10-15 belt changes. They even spec out a date to change them, as most of these bikes do not see tones of miles. We can save the age old Ducati belt change interval debate for another time.

In this case I was happy that I inspected the belts before trying to start the bike. Actually I had not intended this to be the case. Had the battery not been dead, I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT would have tried to start it, and might have even taken it out for a ride. While the belts were not dry or cracked, they were very loose. Not sure why as the tensionor appears to be tight on the mount. Belt has the red label markings, indicating it is not the original belt. The belts are so loose, I fear they could have walked off the gears, or messed up the engine timing.

I need to pull the plugs and spin the engine at some point. I do not actually fear that the engine is damaged, just want to do this as soon as possible for peace of mind.

Hopefully the OEM parts get here by the weekend so I can start crossing things off of the list. Looking forward to progress on this bike. The weather is getting nicer out, and I want to play with my new toy.