Hi guys & girls, I thought it would be worth me putting together a project thread for my 748 SP, I like looking back at the progress & hopefully some of my discoveries will help other 748 owners Back in May this year I decided it was finally time to start looking for a 748, I've always loved the look of the 748/916 and owning one was on that list of life goals that I wanted to tick off... What most will find strange to hear is that I come from a back ground of rev-happy Japanese sports bikes (250cc two strokes/ 600cc 4 strokes) so moving to a V twin could have been a sour move which I discovered last year when purchasing an Aprilia RSV-R (great bike just a very lazy torque filled engine) but after reading reviews the 748 sounded right up my street with its rev happy engine and its demand to be ridden hard! I never set out to purchase an SP model but when this one came up locally and I could resist going to see it, now she was a little dusty/tired looking having sat for 3 years whilst the owner worked on various other projects but i could see the potential, the question was how much was it going to cost me to set it right on top of purchasing. (Picture from previous owner) What really appealed to me with this bike in particular is the fact that it had been owned by the same gentleman for 19 years and had covered a host of European road trips! (Picture from previous owner) I made the hero/high risk/ potentially stupid decision to ride it almost 90 miles having not moved in 3 years to the MOT center, the tyres made for a terrifying ride and had gone brittle and were heavily squared off, but the trusty old girl made it all the way there without missing a beat. Now it did fail the MOT (which i expected) butttt only on a front tyre being below the minimum tread depth other than that the MOT tester said everything else was spot on - Result With the Ducati back home it was time to start the deep clean (Yes I know Ducati's & water are not a great combination lol) With a good few hours spent with various home made cleaning cocktails she was looking back in top form! It was now onto the maintenance, having read the horror stories of Italian electrics I went in with my eyes open expecting the worst. The loom did need some work and the cambelt was looking very aged (Lucky she held out for the 90 mile trip home) So it sat on my work bench looking sorry for it's self for about a week whilst my monster order of parts arrived to get everything running 100% perfect First to arrive were the brand new tyres, for me spending the most you can is money well spent as at the end of the day there the only thing keeping you in contact with the tarmac! Next up, Genuine Ducati cambelt, spark plugs, oil filter, sump washer & Fuchs fully synthetic engine oil. R&G tail tidy with the orange lens cover to try and keep it all in theme with the age whilst clearing up the rear end. Slowly going back together, spent an entire evening just tinkering in the garage, one happy boy (simple things in life hey!) I must say the cambelt replacement was so much easier than I expected, how garages charge what they do for this service is beyond me! The finished item, with hours of cleaning & maintenance complete it was looking and sounding spot on, having a throttle body balancer to hand allowed me to get the idle perfect and the throttle response razor sharp.
The next thing that was winding me up were the cloudy headlights, I was budgeting for a replacement set but thankfully I found some info whilst googling away that they can be restored, simple home made cleaning bud and some WD40 transformed the appearance With the looks done I decided to proceed with the suspension adjustments that can be found online - transformed the handling although does burn the wrists when riding through town/ low speed. With only 80 miles on the new tyres it was safe to say she was handling perfectly! One thing that had been annoying me almost as much as the cloudy headlights were the marks left from the luggage rack the previous owner had fitted, again this was something I did think I would need to repaint but a few hours with the machine polisher and 3M cutting compounds had it looking 95% perfect Before : After : Treated the rest of the bike to a very mild cutting compound That's pretty much it for this summer but I do plan to remove the exhaust system and have it chemically cleaned to bring that back to it's former glory but with recently discovering it's fitted with the genuine 50mm Termi silencers I'm not keen on risking any damage to them! A recent blast out with my friends Ducati 1199 Panigale And for those interested who don't own a 748 SP I put together a small video reviewing the noise/ package. I'm not a professional editor so apologies that it's not amazing shoot but I had fun making it and hopefully a few enjoy watching it Thoughts & comments welcome.
Love seeing old bikes brought back to their former glory. Cracking job, nice video and nobody nicked the roadside camera! Job jobbed.
Thanks And yes I did ride away tense in the fear a passer by or cyclist would have the camera away lol
Nice bike mate,just a thought on your exhaust stay away from chemicals and just get it polished by professional metal polisher they come up great.
Great story, nicely done. One thing....the belts appear to be not quite wide enough for the pulleys...are you sure you have the correct ones? Otherwise - nice job!
That's what I was thinking, any idea what a polishing service like that would cost? could be tempted to have a go myself first but as previously mentioned I would dread making a mess of them!
Yep the belts are 100% correct width/ length, any wider and the belts wouldn't fit through the idler/tensioner tracks - I also provided the VIN number to my local Ducati dealer when ordering all the parts just to be extra safe lol.
Belt looks too close together at the tensioner and idler pully, did you turn the tensioner the right way, as it will tension the belt in either direction, but one is wrong and puts the belt too close. Just an observation it might be the angle the photo was taken.
I had my pipes polished at AM Polishing A M Metal Polishing They did a fantastic job and It only cost 60 quid for a full system, including springs and brackets.
Had my exhaust done by Steve Jordan polishers was a bit than Rickys @ £100 but the results are fantastic.
Nice write up and pics, did you change the fuel filter after all that time sitting unused? they have been known to clog up inside when left standing for long periods of time and then cause fuel starvation although you seem to have done a few miles now with no ill effects.
big thanks to the OP because i am yet to ride mine despite it sitting in the garage... really cant wait and fantastic video really well made and good commentary!
I enjoyed that, bike looks very tidy, I also agree the belt does look very close, they should be tensioned anti clockwise, it could just be the angle the pic was taken. Steve
Thanks again for the comments guys Interesting one with the Cambelts as I did think there's not a great deal of room between them and the reason I stuck with it was Ducati Proteam limited in Kent did the previous change and it was the same angle on the tensioner, I've got a picture of the previous belt fitting for reference, will upload it when I'm back on the desk top computer
