Yeah, go steady replacing the sump plug. As nelly says 14nm tops. The sump wall is about as thick as tinfoil. Tap it with a fingernail to get a sense of fragility. A world of pain awaits those who over do it
Yeah I 'nipped' it up but ordered the crowfoot and adaptor for my torque wrench last night so should be all good. I'm pretty good at abiding by the torques, got 3 that cover 2NM up to 300NM. Actually hate when you see people doing a wheel up as tight as they can with a breaker bar, no understanding at all! Update on the oil, I was at the lower mark so added a bit extra in tonight and will then do a final top up tomorrow morning and all sorted. Next time will be slick and calculated!
Or, https://www.norbar.com/Home/Torque-Wrench-Extension-Calculator There is an app there, which works it out too.
@nelly Hiya Nelly, wondering if I can pick your brains again?! Ive just done another oil change, up on front and rear paddock stands, sump plug and filter out and has been left to drain for almost 24 hours. Inside a warm building and I didn’t run it to temp beforehand, hasn’t been started for weeks so everything should have settled. I weighed my catch tub before as empty, and after it was ‘full’ which is the first 2 photos, roughly 1820g difference. I then weighed out 1820g of fresh oil (I did zero the scales so this doesn’t include the jug itself don’t worry, and the scales are calibrated every 6 months). However this only amounts to 2.1L of oil. I checked the level prior to draining and it was about half way between min and max on the sight glass. Does this seem right, any chance you could share the weight of oil on one of your typical changes?!
Sounds a little light tbh. It’s only a guide we use to try and help the bikes thru the shop, but ultimately we still wait for the level. If you were only half way up the sight glass, then it’s going to need more anyhow. Another route is to fill the to the upper limit on the sight glass, no more, then start the bike and run it to temp. Then leave it to settle. Weighing the oil or filling to the upper limit, is only a guideline at the end of the day.
@JoePeps, might be a silly question but did you empty the oil in the oil filter into your catch tray ? Andy
Just emptied out the old stuff to measure, weights and volume seem about right so it all tallies up. The sight glass was just about minimum so I’ve ran it for a minute to fill up the new filter and will top up tomorrow morning. Don’t suppose anyone knows the volume difference between max and min on the sight glass markers?
Yes mate, and left the filter on the tub to drain all night too so apart from what was actually soaked into it as much was in the tub as possible. Not a single drop coming from the filter housing or sump drain this morning so I guess it was just low on oil?!
IIRC I take ~2800ml out including filter contents. So I put 2800ml back in. Leave to settle for 12 hours or so and it's usually bang on. If you don't have 12 hours to spare you'll still be good to go with 2.8- 3.0 litres I usually let it drain overnight. It drips for fekin ages....
Put another 700ml in tonight and it was almost perfect so I’ve left it to settle then maybe another little top up tomorrow then it’s done and I’ve got a perfect benchmark, finally!
Another tip is to make sure your bike itself is truly level when filling/checking the oil level. My rear stand (FG Gubellini) was causing the bike to lean to right (away from the sight glass). When I modified the stand to correct this, I was probably 2-3 mm above the high level mark. One question, what would happen if say you’re overfilled maybe by 500 ml (when bike sat overnight the sight glass was completely filled)? I did the weighing trick and was still off. I probably did 50 mi easy riding (less than 7k rpm) with it like this. This thing is a trick SOB to get right.
Seems crazy to me that Ducati are OK with a fifth of the oil (3500mls -2800mls = 700mls) not getting replaced every service. I suppose we can all guarantee that the used, second hand oil gets replaced next change, can't we?! Signed Potential Purchaser
I don’t understand this? I put about 2800ml in at each change which gets me pretty much bang on. I’ve never seen 3500ml listed anywhere?
Given the rather narrow margin for error in terms of overfilling the engine if based on volume, Nelly seems to have suggested the most reliable method (as have others) of purely going by weight (including any drained out of the filter). I accept that there will always be some left in the engine (caught up in some of the oilways/galleries/pump/baffles) but at least the replacement level will be there or thereabouts and if not it's easy enough to top it up to the mark in small increments.
