Been busy over the past few months restoring my 04 749, it's a poverty spec bip owned from new and only done 5k miles, has a full termi system and a mono seat conversion (genuine parts). It's been a little bit neglected since before covid and following divorce lived in a mates garage for a few years as I had nowhere else keep her. Since getting the bike back I decided she's a keeper and deserved some TLC, originally I planned to strip everything including the engine, repaint etc but when it came to doing the do I decided that my tiny garage was not adequate to embark such a task so it was a strip down to engine and frame job instead. The fork outer tubes and rear shock were riddled with corrosion and the engine paint was doing the standard flakey thing. Same with the radiators! So found new replacement suspension from Italy costing less than a strip and rebuild of the existing items and minus the corrosion! Stripped and repainted the radiators and lavished the cooling system with a set of samco's. Lots of corroded and rusted nuts and bolts (par for the course), a few snapped off just for good measure including a cylinder head bolt, these were either cleaned or replaced. Full service was also much needed including belts, all fluids and filters (dp air filters, fuel filter) and new tires. Also replaced the usual headlight and ignition relays and dealt with some broken wiring for the coil... and with a significant amount of research found the correct pins for the connector as I was not buying a new coil unless absolutely necessary! Found some really colour accurate metallic silver paint from RS Paints for the headlight bracket and wheels to touch up but I think over winter these will get a full respray along with a few other jobs I'd like to do including new brake seals and lines and proper tune and valve clearances. Anyway just wanted to share, it's been a great experience, enjoyed the process massively and I've learned a lot. I'm pretty proud of the condition I've got the bike back too, was a shit tonne of cleaning but looks almost as good as new, can't believe she'll be 21 years old next month! Ducati Manchester were awesome too, sorted me with a few parts and top advice as well as fixing the electrical short on the ECU that decided to make itself known on the way to the MOT (which I would have never have found on my own). Back on the road now and almost ready to get back on track too!
Lovely bike. How did you address the flaking engine paint? I miss my 999 a LOT. Great sounding bike that was. Way better than the current V4 I am currently using.
In all honesty I was back and forth in my head about dropping the engine and respraying it with as close a match as I could. In the end (and with summer calling) I decide to remove as much of the flakey bits as possible and leave the bare aluminium as is. I'm glad I did because I feel I'm being faithful to bike and when fully dressed you can't see much of it anyway. When winter comes around I might very well strip and repaint the engine but for now I'm content.
