I broke a 20mm section out of the oil control ring when refitting the barrels on the superlight I'm refurbing. The rings are only 4000klms old as the motor was re-ringed when it broke a stud a while back.(previous owner and paperwork/receipts). I'm trying to make everything look pretty! I priced a set of rings locally(Oz) at $410 a set of three!!!!! Anyway after a bit of detective work the oil control ring is available individually off eBay and local suppliers. I found out the original manufacturer that Ducati uses is " Caber Sri Italy" and these rings are from the same manufacturer. You need the cast iron ring not Chrome moly. Cost around $10-16us each. I hope I'm not covering ground that is common knowledge but I'm pretty new to Ducati's and all the forum stuff I read were in the same boat as me, a broken oil control ring on assembly. The good news is that I'm not the only wally that's done this!!
I've had my Ducati 900 for 8 years and have had the engine apart twice. Never knew this, thanks for the info!
I took the cylinder off and half the oil control ring just dropped out. Could explain a little oil burning. I was removing to replace the base gasket which was leaking. How would I go about ordering the correct one? Did you just take the ring into local supplier to match up? Cheers.
We did have a local supplier for the "CABER-SRI" oil control used in the 900ss/monster but he didn't carry the narrow width version I needed. So I ordered the correct oil control ring from an eBay seller in Greece. Details below. I hope this helps. dandrikop (43409 ) Product Description This listing with variations is about brand new top-quality Double-Bevelled Oil Control Piston Rings with Spring Coil of various dimensions, and diameters 89 - 93.5 mm (3.504 - 3.681 in) made by CABER Srl (Italy). Just pick up the Piston Ring size (Diameter x Thickness) you need from the above drop-down list, and specify the quantity.
Sorry to redirect this thread, but it is relevant to the base gasket change I did last year. I’ve moved on to other cosmetics around the bike, but ended up circling back to this. The leak from Base gasket has been fixed, but I’m now worried that there is no oil getting to the head and cams etc. I’ve attached two images, one before and one after a 3 minute run of the engine and I can see no difference. Would you expect oil to be ‘pooling’ anywhere in the head. I'm worried that one of the oil Passageways may be blocked. No oil pressure warning etc, just want to be sure as I’m getting close to the end of the build and want to get her on a shakedown ASAP. thanks in advance for your replies.
I am guessing you are aware that better pictures could have helped more Jonathan, but from what i can see, you are totally right, there should be evidence of oil there by now. Can you remember anything unusual when assembling up and fitting "O" rings? were they original equipment/Viton-type?
Hi and thanks for the reply. Yes, the images aren’t the best, I was just hoping to demonstrate that I couldn’t see any oil pooling. Which I would have expected. All the o-rings were all original parts, direct from Ducati dealer. There’s a small hole in the base gasket, I’ve arrowed it on an image I stole from the www. Is this an oil return or feed? thanks
I’m afraid my memory is quite hazy now, I would have to research this but I know there were subtle differences between gaskets, the simple thing to do is to always compare the new gasket with the one you replaced it with, did you do this?
I did. They were identical and weren’t blocking any galleys or features. With the ID of that passage being so small, there could be a chance that the gasket sealer could have caused a blockage when the head and cylinder was torqued down. It could have been ‘squished’ into the passageway. That’s why I wondered if that small hole in gasket was for an oil feed or drain/return. I have found this diagram of the oil path. But I can’t get my head around it at the moment. Too tired.
you are right, as it has a "dry" belt drive there is a pure oil return route. I have to ask:- you did put the reducing sleeve in didn't you? (item 7). Also important - have you checked oil supply for vertical cylinder?/have you removed oil pump/changed oil filter recently? If you have external oil feeds with flexible pipe as per parts diagram, it is worth removing one to help track down how far and where oil is travelling.
I can confirm the reducing sleeve was replaced with a brand new genuine part. not checked vertical cylinder. That was my next call. I hope the inspection panel can be accessed without too much bother. It’s very easy on the horizontal cylinder. When I first reassembled, the genuine Ducati oil filter leaked, so I had to drain and replace with a K&N filter… which did not leak. The oil pump has not been removed. Good shout on the removing of oil pipes. Could get messy but a great way to confirm how far oil is flowing. Cheers
In addition to removing one of the external oil lines to check flow/supply you could try pouring oil down one of the oil cooler lines to prime the oil pump. Was the oil filter filled with oil before you fitted it? Take the plugs out and just crank the engine over. Pour/squirt some oil over the valve gear and down the cylinders beforehand. I don't want to beat you up here but why did you use sealant? It's totally unnecessary on a base gasket or head gasket. Put them up dry.
Thanks for your reply. I’ll try priming. I didn’t fill the oil filter before fitting, no. The manual called for sealant on base gasket and with it leaking, I figured I’d follow the guidelines in Haynes. Head is lapped, so wouldn’t require any sealant. Thanks.
Fair play about the manual but if you've got a flat gasket face and a new gasket there should be no requirement for sealant. And as you say there's a risk it's blocked an oilway but that remains an unknown. The fact that the bike has been standing since last year possibly points to the oil pump as the culprit. Hopefully not though, as if the case it means you've run your engine dry for three minutes.. Again I don't want to give you a hard time but your 'before' picture is a concern. There's no evidence of oil anywhere. With reassembly everything needs to be thoroughly coated; preferably with a mix of black moly and engine oil but at the very least with oil.
I don't use Threebond/sealant on the base gaskets if I can avoid it, but I know factory did at some point, and specialists on here have described how they've used it,so as long as it's used sparingly and it's not something like Hylomar or similar then you would be really unlucky to block an oil way. I think you posted that oil pressure light extinguished on first start up, so unlikely to be a priming issue now, but it's a nice practice. Out of interest, roughly how much starter churning before oil light extinguished? As you have already removed the external oil feed lines then there is a small chance that you have an air leak if copper washers haven't re-seated 100%.
re: the oil control rings: I see the seller still lists the variety of sizes. Do you recall which specific size you ordered for the standard 92mm piston? I was all hot to order, then realized I could make a mistake by not ordering by the barrel bore measurement instead. Thanks for the help. Today turned out to be quite a bummer thanks to the snapped oil control ring.
Update - regarding the original thread topic. I took a chance and ordered from the seller originally mentioned at the beginning of the thread. The listing offers eleven-teen dozen different sizes of this ring. However- I simply chose 92mm (for the 900ss standard bore) x 3mm for the thickness of the factory oil control ring that I broke last week. (92x3) https://www.ebay.com/itm/401326776924?var=670937384671 My order was placed on 07 Sep., given to post in Greece on 08 Sep, and arrived in Pennsylvania, USA at noon on the 13th. This is possibly the fastest service I've ever experienced from an international seller. I was quite impressed. The 92x3 size checked out EXACTLY to the thickness and radial width of the OEM factory ring. End gap was sufficient per Hanyes manual upon test-fitting into a tapered ring compressor. My tremendous thanks to "bikemad" for having posted this oil ring source back in 2019.
