A little more info. I spoke to the dealer this morning. Apparently the bike used to be his personal bike. He sold it a couple of years ago to a friend and that friend returned it to him for a Desmo service and then shipping to Spain. The dealer knew the battery was flat when he collected it and he didn’t look that closely at it. He called me and I duly collected it. On the surface it looks ok, lots of expensive bling but underneath, OMG. We have now agreed I’m going to leave the front wheel and he will sort it out (thank goodness for that). Quite how he’ll sort it I’ve no idea but that’s his issue. I strongly suspect he’ll buy another front wheel (2nd hand), fit a new tyre (it needs one), swap over the brake rotors to the new wheel and get a new axle & spacer, that’s what I’d do. He can sort all that out with his customer. I’ll just refit the current wheel and forks so we have a rolling chassis. At least I can get it out of my workshop and get with others in the queue. I’ll get compensated for the extra time spent dismantling the bike over and above the 7hrs it takes to do a full Desmo service on these.
Amazing how bad a bike can get in two years! Glad it’s worked out for you though. I bet you can’t wait to see it out the door.
Aye Paul, but with the rear tank mounting bolt , and several others, of a salt encrusted 1200 Multistrada. Relief came in the shape of an angle grinder, dremmel and belt sander to remove the heads and allow the dismantling, access then available for the repair with a copious supply of Copaslip to hand.
Ooh, now we’re going to go off into a grease discussion . Copaslip/coppergrease should only be used where there is a ferrous metal to ferrous metal interface. Eg steel bolts into a steel frame. If used where there is a ferrous metal to aluminium alloy interface eg steel bolts into engine cases or alloy frames it will actually accelerate the process of galvanic corrosion. Where it is steel to alloy one should use aluslip. Sorry to be pedantic.
WCP is an expert at removing corroded items from Ducati motorcycles, it's this reputation that got him the Diavel job. His speciality though is sprockets, from memory that thread is at least 12 pages long......
Grease knowledge has been forced upon my due to the shite condition some things arrive in and me not wanting to be in the same position next year. It’s actually just me being selfish so my job is easier in the future when the bike comes back for its next service. It’s also me being thoughtful for the next person who has to lay their hands on it should it not be me. As is using blue thread lock rather then red - not everything needs to be red thread lock despite that’s all they seem to use in Bologna
Well Paul, I've been using Copaslip on all external threads since the early '60's without any differentiation regarding material when it was introduced to me by one of the North Sea oil exploration engineers and still have the bikes, no sign of any galvanic corrosion but I understand your comment.
Copaslip has a poor grease base purely to hold copper particles when lubricating threads in high temperature areas. Was designed for fastenings on steam and gas turbines, exhaust manifolds and the like.
Yeah - ive been saying this for years....this is the quality of fixings that Ducati think is unacceptable on a premium priced bike....Ktm are just as bad. The best thing to do is go over the whole bike and replace whatever you can with stainless or Ti. Any spacers that were corroded (for me - i had then machined out of stainless or bought aftermarket replacements)
So just to open up a completely new can of worms, what is your view on copaslip/copper grease on the back of brake pads? Does it contaminate the pads, I have a bike mechanic friend who will not use it on brake pads for this reason?
I can't see how it can do if it's kept to a minimum on the pack of the pads. Obviously if it gets on the braking surface it will affect the braking performance.
My 3 pennyworth, it’s all about quantity. A ‘smear’ means the vaguest of the copper colour being visible. Not sure if it’s still the case but one of the mechanics who serviced my bikes, used a low adhesion, spray adhesive on the back of the pad so when the caliper piston released, the pad didn’t constantly rub the disc. Andy
I hope you greased all those Ti and s/steel fixings so they don’t galvanically corrode with the metal they’re interfacing with. The whole debacle with the front wheel axle could have been avoided if whomsoever changed the tyre last simply applied some grease to the front axle before sliding it into place and to the inside of the spacer. I’ve had an ungreased front axle corrode to a bearing race before which eventually knocked out but this is a first where it’s corroded to the LHS spacer.
I don’t use coppergrease on the back of brake pads, I’m fed up of removing too many and finding knobbly surfaces on the rear pads where the grease carrying element has burnt away leaving the copper particles to fuse themselves to the rear of the pad. I use ceramic brake grease, doesn’t melt and doesn’t leave a load of knobbly particles over the back of the pad. In our damp climate if one used nothing I guarantee the pad would rust and corrode and stick to the piston - seen it loads of times.
I've recently moved to specific Ceramic brake grease having used Copparslip on the back of pads for decades. However I was always confident that applying it sparingly like I was shown, whilst understanding what it was doing, shouldn't cause any issues. I've seen it spread on 1mm thick all over the whole back of the pad when it of course only needs to be where the piston or caliper body touches it. I'm sure the fact that it's available in spray cans doesn't help as people tend to turn the pads upside down and spray it all over liberally. But, now that the Ceramic grease is far more readily available it makes sense to use the best you can when working with brakes. My exception to using grease is when replacing pads with a pre-applied anti-squeal material, like the Genuine Land Rover ones I've brought recently. They are obviously cleaner and quicker to use on an assembly line. Note that's not the same as an Anti-squeal shim made of thin sheet steel, I still apply a small amount of grease to those.
Certainly need to watch out with Ti fasteners into aluminium alloy. The chart shows they almost couldn't be much further apart on the scale (= bad)!!
