Lucretia - 1991 900ss Rebuild Story

Hi all

I've posted on here a few times over the last eighteen months or so for help and advice as I rebuilt my 900SS, but decided not to do a complete as-it-went thread - Wolfram-style - on here during the rebuild. Instead I had a Facebook group page for the build that I shared with a few bikey mates.

I actually finished the rebuild and got the bike running, MoTed and back on the road around the end of March this year, but a busy life has meant it’s taken me some time to get round to putting this post together, but I did want to share with you some of the lows, highs and lows along the way. Partly as an inspiration to anyone contemplating doing something similar, and partly to share the story for those that helped me along the way

The long story is that I agreed to buy the bike off a mate in Cumbria, following some idle chit chat during 2016 NEC Bike Show. He was experiencing a pre-Christmas cash crunch and needed to liquidise some assets to avoid what was described as a “Dickensian Christmas”. I'd been looking around for a project, having rebuilt my old DT200WR trailie, and just about finished a very early and original 1982 DT125LC. I'd previously had a 600 Monster Dark which I'd loved before moving up to a Multistrada 1000DS for touring purposes (and now got the 1200ABS). I'd always liked the early Supersport and lusted after the white frame models when first launched in the early 90s, though owning such an expensive beast was never a realistic proposition (I bought a used FZR600 instead, but that’s another story).

The bike is a half-faired 900SS and was built in 1991, but registered in 1992. It apparently had a white frame originally (but black when it came to me), but the wheels are black, not white as they should have been for a 1991 model. I guess it's possible that the dealer resprayed the wheels to shift it off the showroom floor as a 92 model. Who knows?

My mate had bought the bike used from a local dealer in Cumbria in 2001, and she'd already passed through four previous owners. The history after that is a little bit hazy, although he swears the bike is cursed and had christened her "Lucretia", as in Lucretia Borgia, on account of her being a cantankerous Italian b*tch. The past MoTs suggest that the bike last ran around 2010. It all went wrong when he over-revved her one morning on a cold engine and heard an ominous "doink" from the engine, followed by a pool of oil - yep, she'd snapped two cylinder head studs on the vertical cylinder. These were the original stainless steel studs which I understand were incorrectly specified by Ducati, back in the day. Interestingly, the horizontal head had already had the replacement studs fitted (stamped with an O on the end), so presumably a previous owner had already suffered a similar experience. Of those that had just snapped, one was snapped about 2" above the level of the casing and thus fairly easy to get hold of and remove, but the other had snapped beneath the level of the casing.

So, the bike was stripped and the engine went off to his local Ducati dealer/service centre for the studs to be drilled out. Long story short, the stud above the level of the case was removed OK, but after a half-hearted stab at it, the mechanic dealing with it gave up and apparently disappeared, along with the vertical cylinder piston, which he'd removed to get access to the stud. Neither the mechanic nor the piston was ever seen again.

Meantime, my mate had had the frame powder coated in satin black and also various other jobs like having the tank and pipes vapour blasted and getting the carbs cleaned and forks serviced. But pretty much the bike stayed as a pile of bits. My mate also got divorced at some point and the bike moved house with him, in bits, about 6 times!

I confess that when he first mentioned it to me, my first thought was "cafe racer!". But, having done some research on the model and when I finally saw the bike I decided the only decent thing was to put her back to her original, white-framed glory.

So, accepting that I was taking a risk on the engine ever running again, we agreed a price which was based on what he thought the value of the bike would be as it was in bits, less the cost of a pair of new JE Pistons (£300) and a replacement shock (£250 – he’d been told by the same Ducati dealer that it was seized - it wasn't, just very stiff). I coughed up for the bike before Christmas 2016, and the Dickensian scenario was averted, but didn't take possession until Feb 2017, when he dropped the bike off with me in Derbyshire.

Here she is, being dropped off in the dead of night, wrapped in white sheeting, like a dead body – I wonder what the neighbours were thinking?


Bits piled up everywhere. The cat is like “WTF?!”.




The process of sorting out and cleaning up begins. The face says “What have I done?!!”


The first job was to get the stud out, as if that wasn’t going to be possible then the project was dead in the water. I took the engine to SEP in Kegworth who told me they could mill it out no bother, and if they couldn’t, they also had the kit needed to spark-erode the stud out. SEP is an old-school engine workshop run by three old boys. Mark64 on this forum had used them a for a similar problem, which ended up being a spark erosion job, so at least I knew they had the kit. If you read the online reviews on SEP they’re quite variable, but a common theme was they take their time. Those reviews weren’t wrong as it took something like 11 weeks until she took her place on the bench. Happily, they managed to mill the stud out. They didn’t say much about it other than it was all “fine”. Closer inspection once home revealed that they had in fact had to helicoil the hole, so it can’t have been that fine, and even worse, the helicoil was on the p*ss, so the stud, once inserted was at an angle compared to the rest (Mark64 had the same experience apparently). Thankfully there is enough tolerance in the head for it not to be an issue, but it was a bit annoying to say the least. On the plus side, the job only cost £60 plus VAT. (I’ve since found out from a local car workshop that there’s a bloke called “Dave the Stud” (haha) who does mobile stud extraction round these parts for around £50 a pop. Next time, eh?)


Meantime I’d bought a set of California Cycleworks heavy duty studs from Exige here on the forum to go in.

It also turned out that both exhaust valve guides were worn – joy, and an unexpected expense. I had lined up a local bike specialist (who I won’t name as he likes his privacy) in my town to do the engine rebuild work. I know that the engines are fairly simple, and, yes, I could have done it myself, but the news on the valve guides was a job too far for me, and I decided to give it to someone who knew what they were doing. The hourly labour costs were very reasonable, but the hours were long, and the bill of course turned out way more than I’d budgeted, but I still think it was the right decision.

Having decided who was going to do the work, I then ran into an issue where the chosen man was tied up on a six-month rebuild of a classic bike for a client, so Lucretia’s lump had to take its place in the queue. In the meantime I ordered up a set of JE high compression pistons from MDI Performance in the US. They came in at just under £300, but I got stung £38 import duty by Fedex a few weeks later. I was half expecting it so wasn’t surprised.


I also got busy in the meantime cleaning up the engine and repainting it. I took the horizontal head off, masked off everything and got stuck in with the rotary wire brush. This was in the bare alloy with a lacquer coat, which had yellowed and cracked. Some came off easily but some was well baked on. I had to make a choice on what to do with the block. Some people leave it bare and give it a coat of ACF50, others paint. I decided to paint, though I’m not convinced it will last (with the words “paint it once, paint it forever” ringing in my ears). I gave it a couple of coats of etch primer, then went with Hycote VHT Silver-Grey, which I had hoped would be a tasteful gunmetal grey. To my disappointment, it came out looking very similar to the etch primer, and no what I had in mind at all. It then decided to try a can of Simoniz Engine Enamel “Aluminium” which I’d bought for the DT200WR, but not used. I was a bit brighter than I was looking for, but I decided I could live with it.


I stripped the clutch and generator covers back to bare metal while they were off (had to buy Sinstrip off eBay to get it shifted – Nitromors just wasn’t having any impact. It’s nasty stuff and you’ve got to be careful not to strip your lungs while you’re at it). I then painted them with some PJ “Fast Black” black satin high temperature engine enamel which again, I’d bought for a previous project. I was hoping for a satin sheen similar to the original, but the finish was nothing like it, almost a crackle effect. I’ve no idea if it was my technique or what, but not what I had in mind. Again, I decided to live with it, and ended up lacquering it anyway, so they came out gloss in the end! Prior to lacquering I picked out the Ducati logos in good old Humbrol modellers’ silver enamel. They came out OK and I was pleased with the result (although bits some got damaged by the parts washer during the engine rebuild and had to be repainted).



I also got the tank and bodywork resprayed. The tank had already been stripped back to bare metal by a vapour blaster when I got hold of it. I had planned to get just the tank painted to keep the costs down. A friend recommended FB Imagery in Sutton in Ashfield (just round the back of Cornerspeed). When I took the bodywork round there, Steve convinced me fairly quickly that I should get the whole lot painted, otherwise it would look odd. To my mind, the bodywork was in fair condition, with the usual patina and a few minor knocks and chips, but he was right of course. The respray was an expense I hadn’t planned on (the single largest cost), but I don’t regret it though, they did a great job.


I sourced replica decals from The Image Works which were a very reasonable £30 for the complete set and are excellent quality. One of the decals (the nose “Ducati”) was very much larger than the original, but they replaced it without problem, but not until not one but two of these got lost in the post. Bizarre.

I also had the frame powder coated back to white by a local powder coater. They went over the top of the satin black coat, which I regret agreeing to. If I could turn back time I’d do that differently. The colour was “Traffic White” (RAL 9016) as recommended by Wolfram here on the thread. It’s a lovely creamy off-white and looks really good. I also had the spring re-coated in yellow. Costs were very reasonable at £40 for the frame and £10 for the spring. If I had had the frame stripped back it would have been more due to the time needed to strip off the existing powder coat, I know.


I sent the shock away to MCT for a rebuild, which came in at about £121. It was F stiff before (hence perhaps the reason why my mate was told it was seized), came back just as F stiff after, but rides fine if a little harsh, so happy enough with that.


Meanwhile, back at the engine rebuilding workshop, the classic was finally finished and out of the way and so the engine went in for its rebuild. I checked the oil gallery plugs before it went. The two accessible plugs were OK and the one you can’t get at looked to be in place. I didn’t want to go to the expense of splitting the cases to check it, plus I have heard it said that, if it’s going to move, it does so fairly early on in the life of the engine, so I figured I’d take the risk.


I had a few gaskets and a set of belts that came with the bike, plus I spent a small fortune on bits and bobs from Cornerspeed. The engine rebuild went fine, mostly. The two exhaust valve guides were replaced, the inlets were OK. There was a bit of buggering about with shims, which were ordered and came all the way from Ducati in Italy just before Christmas 2017. However, when the mechanic went to fit them, it turned out that one of the bags contained completely the wrong shim, despite having the right reference number on the label. Typically, this happened just before Christmas, and took a few weeks to get sorted, including Ducati being shut down for an extended Christmas break and then the replacement getting lost in the post for 11 days between the dealer and here. Aargh.

Meantime I also took a look at the chain adjuster bolts on the swingarm, both of which were rusted and seized. I got them moving with a combination of heat, penetrating oil and swearing. One came out OK after several days of gentle teasing out. The other was moving OK at first but then seized up worse, and then sheared off without warning. “Oh, fiddlesticks” I said. Or something like that.


I ended up taking the swingarm to a local engineering shop who said, yeah, I’m a bit busy this week but I’ll do it next week, then disappeared for quite a while. Again, long story short it took 6 weeks (meantime the engine came back - hooray) but he got it out in the end. Interestingly, it turns out that both had been helicoiled, so this may have been an upgrade from the early model which I understand had weedy M6 bolts which were prone to bending. I replaced the bolts with 70mm stainless steel items from Westfield Fasteners.


The tyres fitted when I got the bike were ancient Michelin M89s – a truly horrible 1990s tyre – had them on my FZR – and rock hard to boot, so I shelled out for a pair of Bridgestone BT023s. These are a dual compound sports touring tyre and I used them on both my old 600 Monster and my Multistrada 1000DS. I find them very stable and predictable and great in the wet, with good wear (6000 miles out of a rear) so was happy to go with them again here.

Finally, with the engine back and the swingarm back I was ready to go! I took the Thursday and Friday off work and ensured I had a clear weekend ahead so that I could get stuck in without interruption.

For the rebuild I had arranged some joist hangers in my workshop and hung a couple of lengths of 3x2 cross-wise. The frame was suspended from the “joists” using tie down straps and the engine was wheeled in underneath on a dolly (£10 from Aldi!).


I then dropped the frame onto the engine and bolted it up, then raised the frame and engine back up, to enable the steering head and swingarm to be fitted.


From there it was fairly straightforward to put in forks and wheels.


Once on its wheels, things became much easier to deal with. I fitted the wiring loom (with a bit of trial and error), clip-ons, front sub-frame and headlight, and so on. All that took about a day and this is what it looked like at the end of the first day.


I spent the rest of the weekend bolting up the rest of it: carbs, airbox (what a PITA that was) and control cables, pipes and silencers (carbon Microns that came in the pile of bits), tank, rear mudguard/light assembly, rear panels, seat, fit and bleed new clutch slave (Oberon – it seemed daft to stick with the stock slave cylinder). All in all it was about 90% there at the end of the weekend. I’d ordered a new Motobatt battery online, but when it arrived it had been dropped on a corner. Though it wasn’t split the plastic looked stressed and I didn’t fancy risking it splitting in use, so I sent it back. It took about 10 days for the replacement to arrive, which was frustrating when I was so close to getting it finished. The other major outstanding item was the brakes, as the calipers needed a rebuild and would have to wait.

Here she is at the end of the weekend:


I did run the engine with the plugs out and no headers to get some oil circulated in advance of firing it up. I went for a cheap (Motul 5000) semi-synthetic 10W-40 and HiFlo filter set from M&P for running in purposes. Cost was about £28 for both. There was a bit of a heart stopping moment when I found a bit of plastic bag sticking out of the horizontal exhaust port, pulled it out and found that the bag contained a shim. That would have been a disaster if I hadn’t spotted that before bolting the pipes up. If it had been shoved into an inlet it would have ended up inside the engine – eek!

After that it was mostly plain sailing. I had the calipers rebuilt by the same guy that did the engine (not trusting myself not to sheer a bolt or round out an Allen socket splitting them). The seals were genuine Brembo which I’d bought some time previous from an eBay seller who imports Brembo seal kits from Italy (through a slightly dodgy-sounding route). The fronts were fine but the rears weren’t right at all. I think maybe it was because I’d told the seller that it was a ’92 bike, whereas in fact it is really a ’91. Powerhouse were able to sort me out the right sizes without fuss.

Further disaster occurred while trying the bleed the brakes. I couldn’t shift an air bubble at the top, so decided to crack the banjo bolt. Or rather try. No way was it moving and ended up shearing off. Oh, fiddlesticks I said again. After an attempt at drilling/stud extractor I gave up and had to scrap it. Happily I managed to source a nearly new 16mm master cylinder and lever from Desmoquattro right here on the Forum for not unreasonable money (cheers Desmo) which solved the issue, albeit for more unplanned expenditure.

Finally, I reckoned she was ready for a test firing. I sloshed a bit of Super Unleaded in the tank, checked all over, turned her on, the fuel pumped primed… and then fuel pissing started out of the Y-piece in the fuel line. Aargh!! I figured the Y-piece had perished (they do, apparently) and, furthermore are pretty much unavailable. I spent a week or so looking for a replacement, before going back and taking a long hard look at the Y-piece itself, which actually looked OK. I did a leak test on it and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Hmm. I then looked at the clip-on fuel line clamps and decided that they might be the problem. I ordered some screw-type clamps from the ‘Bay and when they came, replaced the clamps which solved the problem.

Then came the day. One snowy March evening, I checked her over again, got the fire extinguisher on standby, turned the ignition on, limbered up the ol’ thumb… and pressed the starter. After about 30 seconds of churning over she coughed, then fired! Yeah, baby! The running was a bit erratic (well it had been about 8 years since she’d last run) but at least there was life in there: the gamble had paid off.




Following that success I finished getting her together, got the MoT no problem and then put 500 miles on her in fairly sort order. I changed the oil and filter and found quite a bit of black grit stuck to the magnetic sump plug and on the mesh filter, along with a few bright silver flakes in the oil. Where did they come from? Swarf from the stud removal maybe, or something more sinister? I’m not sure but will keep an eye on it. I went with Motul 5100 10W-40 semi-synthetic this time, and a genuine Ducati filter, which was a b*stard to get to stop weeping oil. What is it with Ducati oil filters?

There were and are still a few niggles: tickover was a bit slow, sorted with some cable adjustments. She runs a bit rich. The rear shock is a bit harsh and I probably need to spend time setting the suspension up. The oil cooler looks tatty and is in a stupid place, right behind the front wheel. I’ll probably move that at some point. The original sidestand switch got knackered during the work but I was able to get a NOS replacement, which I have since somehow managed to break as well. Aargh. There was a slight weep from the generator cover. At the first oil change I took it off and fitted a paper gasket in place of the instant gasket that was on there. It cured that leak, but there’s still another slight weep that I haven’t managed to trace yet. After a few hundred miles I also found what looked like thick, black treacly oil coming out of the bottom of the clutch cover, which turned out to be a small seal on the end of the clutch pushrod which was easy and cheap to fix (once I’d invested in a clutch holding tool).

But, on the plus side she pulls like a train (no pinking from the high comp pistons, though I do use super unleaded), goes round corners likes she’s on rails, looks gorgeous and makes me smile every time I ride her. She gets admiring looks and I’ve even taken her to a couple of local shows, the tart.

Overall the cost turned out to be fairly hideous, and far more than I’d (probably naively) budgeted. The big variations were caused by the cost of the respray being about 50% more than I’d estimated, and the valve guides being shot, which pushed up the cost of parts and labour on the rebuild.

In all truth, I could have got a perfectly decent 900SS runner in reasonable condition on eBay for less than the all up cost of the rebuild, but that wouldn’t be the point.

The time factor was also a pain. I’d always said I wasn’t in a hurry to get the job finished, and it’s a good job too. The waiting time for the stud extraction, engine rebuild and even the snapped bolt in the swingarm, plus days spent waiting for parts to turn up in the post all turned this into a year-plus project, when in fact the actual time I spent on it overall was probably only really a week or two over all that time.

In all though, it was a fantastic project and I’m very happy with the outcome. She’s a keeper and will be ridden rather than locked away. Thanks again to all those on the forum, friends and suppliers that helped along the way.


Cheers!

James

 

Haha!! Touche. I don't think anyone's got through Ulysses - I tried and failed too. But clearly JJ's writing style has rubbed off... ;-)

 

Very nice, and a genuine 1991 half-faired? Unlike mine which is a 91 dressed as a 92...

 

Cheers Mark, yeah amazing isn't it? You're welcome to pop over and see it sometime (when the weather improves).