Perhaps you should have asked if I was competent to rebuild a bike! In my frustratration at still failing to get any oil pressure I took the clutch cover off and inspected the insides again..... and there, stuck in the oil way was this tissue plug I put in there when I had the side off and in storage. So no oil was getting to the pump at all. What an idiot!!!!!!!! At least I have a nice new, updated pressure switch with decent connectors on it. Duh!
Hey, we all make mistakes, glad youve got it sorted, I do the same, using garage toweling to plug parts I dont want contaminated. I am not far off getting my own engine finished, so I am paying particular attention to threads like this!
Listen I'd be the last one to talk about competence, I've done worse and more stupid lots of times. Fair play to own up and help others, a lot would just have made up some pathetic excuse. Great you found it and you got oil pressure...............I'm stripping a Guzzi right now because of low pressure (hoping the cause is not something stupid I've done) Enjoy and just in time for summer ;o)
Ah the old anti FOD tissue trick, the last time I did that was about 6 weeks ago, rebuilt a Villiers 8e 197cc and remembered I’d put a kitchen towel in the intake just as I kicked it over , decided to brave it out, got the engine started and it runs like a dream , I figured it would probably cope/spit out just one sheet, thankfully it did!, anyway the lessons learnt for the OP and me is never fully stuff the towel in, always leave plenty visible!
For me at least, the moral is that even a few days may be too long to leave the engine after draining oil, before refilling. For various reasons I left the oil to drain over night, but then did not get around to the refill of my 900SSie until a few days later. I was alarmed when the oil pressure light did not go out after start-up, and after checking obvious things like oil level and wiring to the switch (which I did not think had failed, as there had been no oddities before the oil change), I resorted to searching on forums. I was disappointed when I found that although I could get the pressure switch orifice to accept some oil, it made no difference ( I was spinning the engine over on the starter with plugs out). Maybe I should have tried a more vigorous pumping-in of oil? However, the diagram in the manual suggests to me that the oil pump sends first to the cooler, before the filter, and then the pressure switch. Then I read a very useful thread here: https://www.ducatimonster.org/threads/1994-m900-no-oil-pressure-solved.169235/ The pump can be primed without resorting to removing it and filling with oil (the manual does recommend that for an engine build), but instead by disconnecting the oil cooler input hose and testing for output there (none in my case) and then by filling with oil from there (those nice Castrol 1 litre bottles with long thin spouts work a treat for pouring a thin stream). As soon as I'd done that oil came spewing out of the hose as soon as I had the engine turning over on the starter. What a relief.
