St4s - The Great Experiment!

I’ve come to a decision regarding my 2002 ST4s.

I’ve had it for 8 years now, and put more than 50k miles on it.

At 37k miles, I had to change the big end bearings due to an incorrectly fitted seal that starved them of oil. At that stage, the crank end float was reset and the whole bottom end thing sorted with whatever was needed.

At 43k miles I incorrectly tensioned the belts and the horizontal cylinder hopped a tooth and bent an exhaust valve.

I had the heads rebuilt and found that all inlet closers were badly worn and so a head rebuild, with all new belt bearings too, has now ensured the top end is all good too.

But, cosmetically there are a few issues.

It is the matte titanium grey, and the paint has lifted in a few key spots. Also, the gene cover has bad surface corrosion and the finish is shot.

However, it started making an odd noise, and I took it to an independent specialist who used to run a main dealer workshop. He knows the bike well and I was happy to pay an hour’s labour to be told that the bike is not only sound but a very lively example of the type (K&N filter, DP open airbox and cans with custom mapped PCIII). He reckoned the odd noise was probably a combination of age and wear, but nothing to worry about.

So, the decision I have come to is: to do nothing.

As a 2002 bike with 62k miles in total, it is not worth much anyway. So, I’ve made the decision to merely keep it up with consumables and basic servicing (fluids and filters) and ride it till it stops.

If anything major goes wrong with it now, I’m not going to fix it as it is worth more in parts than as a whole bike. As the 4s shares as much with the Monster S4r as it does with the other ST bikes, there’s plenty to be made by parting it out.

So, I’ll document the experiment to see how long a well-used, nearly 14-year-old Ducati goes before a major problem occurs.

Let the fate tempting begin!



A

 

That's a good point!
I hadn't figured on me being the limiting factor

 

@Desmoboy: To be honest, anything that costs more than a couple of hundred euros to fix.
If anything goes wrong that I can't fix in the shed, or costs more than a set of tyres.

@900streetfighter: Guy who had the bike before me said a mate in Oz ran an ST4 (916) version to 100k miles without major surgery, just fairly routine servicing. Though not much in the way of Irish winters out there

 

It is indeed, and grumpy as ever

After he checked it out he said 'just ride the f*cking thing'.

Sound advice.

How are things?

 

Minor update here.

I've chased various electrical gremlins over the years and had some success with the usual suspects.

However, there is one issue in particular that seems to elude me.

At speed (120kph), with the dipped beam on, using the pass switch to flash the main beam often causes the bike to lose the vertical cylinder. This requires knocking off the lights altogether, throttling off, throttling on a again and back on with the lights.

This is not good when lashing along in the rain and the dark on an unlit section of motorway.

I thought it might be an earthing issue as when the lights come on the rev counter needle dips a bit. When the full beam comes on it dips a lot. And when either of these things happens, the temperature read out on the dash jumps by 3-5 degrees. When the fan comes on too, when in slow traffic, it can jump by 8 degrees.

So, I wired in a direct earth for each headlight circuit, but it does not seem to have made a great deal of difference.

But, more critically, when I was doing all of this, I noticed a weep from the rear shock down the main rod. I had it rebuilt before but that was at about 30k miles, or about 30k miles ago.

When I am back to work and commuting next week, I'll see if there is any electrical improvement, but the shock is now of more concern.

 

Well, all of the above concerns took a back seat this week.

I was coming home the other evening in some pretty unpleasant weather and my left boot felt a bit slippy on the peg.
I looked down to see it covered in fluid. Just then I noticed a bit of what looked like steam too.

Luckily I was not far from home and managed to get her into the shed.

A cursory examination showed that the hose clamp on the radiator lower left side had actually corroded all the way through and was now swinging about freely. Thankfully the hose itself had remained in place.

So, it was not until this weekend that I got to strip it and tackle that, as well as few other corrosion related issues.

After ensuring the cooling system was now sealed, I went to start the bike and it did the dreaded one lung cough!

You know the one where it tries to fire on the vertical cylinder and then just turns and turns with nothing? Well, that!
I left it to charge overnight and tried again today - no joy!

So, I set about a bit of trouble shooting and I pulled the two plugs. Both were the expected brownish colour and looked very healthy, except, being iridium plugs, the steel electrode was well worn and consequently, the gap was huge!

Having done a spark test, I established there was a spark on each cylinder. I cleaned the plugs, set the gap properly and she fired up first stab of the button!

I was greatly relieved

 

Got new boots on yesterday.

Got a great deal on a new set of Pirelli Angel ST tyres. Having had a few sets of Diablo Stradas, I was happy to go the Pirelli route again.

This morning was very frosty here, but immediately, the Angels felt a lot closer to the Pilot Power IIs on my ZXR-R in terms of profile and turn in.

Looking forward to a bit of dry weather run in now, but so far, very happy with the feel of them.

 

NGK iridium plugs had done 17k miles So, can't complain there really.

I've been very careful with the loom, and cleaned and greased all connectors, but I've not replaced anything as it's good and in continuous use.

I do tend to get through starter relays, but that's par for the course. Never replaced the Reg/rec either, as all tests have shown it is working well within the expected range.