Slow Monster rebuild

[350TSS]

I had a thoroughly frustrating couple of days, failing to make up the penultimate male 5 pin connector to the instrument panel, 2 hours on Thursday and 3 on Friday for one bloody connector and it is still not made. In the end on both days, I just had to leave it and do something else or I would not have had any hair left.
When all else fails there is always filling and sanding of the molds, I know I am always saying this but this time I think it is true, one last fill and rub down cycle should see them all ready for primer resin, so 2 hours on Thursday and 2 hours on Friday were well spent.
I also managed to modify the mold for the ignitech box to take the reversed M900 regulator (now hanging from a titanium bar through the steering head below and behind the steering head).
Finally, I worked out the design for the attachment of the carbon fibre air scoops and for the loom supports to be brazed on the inside of the frame rails. I have plenty of 3mm steel flat in both 20mm and 25mm widths but I wanted 2mm to be able to use rubber cable grommets to insulate the panels and the loom from vibration/shocks. The only 2mm steel I had readily available was 2mm wall box section tube which would have meant a lot of cutting and some not very uniform looking brackets (I have a congenital inability to cut a straight /square line with a hacksaw). I need 8 brackets for the 4 air scoops and 4 for attaching the loom to the frame. Fortunately, I found some zinc plated strengthening pieces and enlarged the holes and made a reasonable fist of making them all approximately the same, picture below taken before final filing and trimming. The plan is to braze the to the inside of the frame parallel to the axis of the frame tube and fit the grommets, for the CF scoops a 5mm socket cap screw will go through an integral bracket on the scoop and a nylon P clip will hold the loom parallel to the relevant frame rail, for the loom brackets a cable tie will pass through the grommet and around another suitably sized split grommet wrapped around the loom. Should work I think.

[350TSS]

I recognise that I will have to dip the above brackets in acid before attempting to braze them to remove the zinc plating

[350TSS]

6 inches of snow on ground today and my cold that just will not die meant no time in the actual garage. I managed however, to make myself unpopular with SWMBO by stripping and re-building carburettors on the kitchen table where it was at least reasonably warm.
About a year ago I found some new Mikunis on a forum for £80, originally, I intended them for my 750SS which has the same problem as the M900, namely a seized and sheared slow running jet in one of the pair. The little rubber protective bung goes AWOL and the crud gets in and when you try to adjust them they are seized solid and the brass flats on the jet shear off.
The carbs I acquired I think are for a 750 as they have both electric heaters and the four tapped holes in the float bowl for the oil pipe heaters. One of the electric heaters is missing a terminal post which is probably why I got them cheap.
My M900 has a dynajet kit which I wanted to retain so I stripped down the old carbs measuring float heights and recording jet sizes as I went.
I then moved onto the “new” (750?) carbs, and immediately hit a problem with the float bowl screws on one carb which had obviously never been off before, the heads on 3 of the screws were made of cheese and the cross heads were very quickly and amorphous shapeless dent. I now have 2 sets of carburettors that are useless.
I gingerly tried an impact driver but was very conscious that the force was being transmitted to carburettor metal and I did not want to distort the diaphragm seating flange on the other side of the carb. One came out with the impact driver, one with a small pair of mole grips and one after I cut a slot in the head with a hacksaw and it finally gave way.
My measurement of float heights was consistent across both sets of carbs but I am not sure if I am doing it right. My technique was to invert the carburettor and measure from the face of the float bowl to the lowest point at the bottom of the float – at this point the float is resting on the needle valve but not shutting it. I then pushed the float down until the needle valve was just shut and measured again.
The M900 measured as follows:
LH resting 13.8mm RH resting 13.2mm
LH shut 9.8mm RH shut 7.8mm
The “new” carbs came out as follows – these would appear to be factory settings as they have not been open before
LH resting 11.6mm RH resting 11.7mm
LH shut 7.7mm RH shut 7.8mm.
I only managed to find 3 jets with that had screwdriver slots to remove them, a short one about 10mm round which had the number 70 on it (both sets of carbs) the threaded portion held down a clip which had another jet with an O ring on it (with 150 on it for the M900 and 132.5 for the 750 carbs) and a thin conical jet with 40 on it for both sets of carbs. The 750 set also had jets which fed the underside of the diaphragm but I could not get the equivalent M900 ones out.
The question now is what do I do about carb icing, as I see it I have 4 options
1. install the oil heater pipes and the electric heaters, if I can get a new one to replace the broken one
2. Install only the oil pipes
3. Install only the electric heaters
4. Leave both out altogether
Any option involving the oil pipes will be messy aesthetically, but if I do not fit them I will have to find some way of bunging up the holes in the float bowls.
The electric option is dependent upon getting hold of a heater (no idea how difficult that is going to be) and it would be good to know before I button up the loom in the next day or so.
Leaving out both is an option because judging by comments on here neither is positively viewed as a solution and my usage will definitely be on warmer days.
What would you do?

[350TSS]

Today still too bloody cold for garage stuff so in the kitchen again I knocked up a tester for my wiring, using the tired battery off the S4 I bought and an indicator that failed MOT on my ZX9R (too pale). Note the use of the brackets cut down for the loom supports and the inevitable battery strap made from cycle inner tube.

[Albie]

Oops on the carbs. I do see a pair on ebay I have been watching in case my were poorly. They are advertised 600/750/900 so presume just jetting different.

[Darren69]

You should be able to just swap the float bowls from a set without the heater fittings/oil lines. Neither are much use and you will still get carb icing and have a load of extra pipework as well.

[Albie]

Just get M10 x 1.25 bolts presuming 10mm fittings unless they are 8mm of course.

[utopia]

I have the electric heaters on my 750 and they don't do much if anything .. I still get quite bad icing, but its hard to know if it would be worse without the heaters or not.
But they are unobtrusive and simple so I would use them if you have the option.
Don't think I'd bother with the messy oil fed heaters, but maybe you could retain a retrofit option on those.

My (Honda) Dommie has an electric heater and it never ices.
I dunno how powerful its heating element is, but maybe its a hotter one ?
Which begs the question, could you obtain a hotter element for the monster carbs ? .. since you'll be buying some anyway, and Ducati's prices are likely to be high while an aftermarket hotter element may be cheaper anyway.

But there is another difference on the Dommie.
On the monster the heaters are controlled by a temp sensor fitted under the instrument cluster somewhere.
The Dommie has no such controller that I can find (and I've just pretty much rewired it, so I've seen everything electrical).
This has had me wondering whether the Ducati system would work better if the sensor is removed.
I know that mine is working on the bench, as are the heaters, but I'm less convinced that its working effectively on the road.
Quite often, I get icing on damp but not terribly cold days (not surprisingly) and I wonder whether a remote, temperature-based controller is the most appropriate device.
I can't see any significant downside to leaving the heaters on full time .. at least the Dommie doesn't seem to mind (and its the winter bike).
... notwithstanding that a cold charge is always desirable.

Me, I bought some FCRs (before the post-brexit price explosion).
They don't ice, apparently.
(but for now they're still in the box)

You might consider fitting the std elements (to avoid risk of overkill from fitting hotter ones) and adding a manual switch instead of the controller .....?
Then you could switch the heaters off in the summer.
The oil fed heaters have no controller and are manually selected in a similar way and they don't seem to suffer.

[Mr Gazza]

Yes we had this conversation about carb heaters before.
I had oil heaters on my last carbie 900 Monster. They worked to cure icing but only if I switched them on.
It's not that easy to predict the conditions that cause carb icing, so I would nearly always only switch on the warmers once icing had occurred... Hence why I know that they work in icing conditions.
Experiments with oil temperature on my current Monster have convinced me that they would be much more effective when the oil cooler is masked from the air blast.

We also discussed that a temperature switch for the electric warmers is inappropriate, as the icing phenomenon is heavily influenced by humidity as well as temperature, a switch sensitive to exactly the right conditions would probably be very complicated?... Better to just have a manual switch like the oil version.

You were going to rig a repeater light Jeff, to see when the heaters came on. I wagered that they were not switching on when you actually iced up.

[utopia]

Originally Posted by Mr Gazza

You were going to rig a repeater light Jeff, to see when the heaters came on. I wagered that they were not switching on when you actually iced up.

Ah, yes. That rings a bell now.
I think there's a spare module in the idiot light panel, which should be simple to wire in.
I'll try and get round to doing that before I forget about it again.
I might do the light AND the manual switch actually.
I probably said all that at the time, didn't I ?

[Darren69]

The electric heaters maybe better but I couldn't say for certain since I never tried those, it was just purely annecdotal from what others have said that they were no better. and I have no reason to doubt it as I had the oil heaters and I tried other stuff too, like blanking off the oil cooler partially and putting deflector plate in front of the carb manifolds and even with Pro FST too it would still do it.

The only real cure I found was to stop and have a fag break and leave the bike for 10mins until the engine heat had warmed everything and then start again. :/

[Mr Gazza]

Originally Posted by utopia

I probably said all that at the time, didn't I ?

I think so.

[350TSS]

I have done my research on electric carb heaters, 2nd hand ones from USA are £25 each, with no guarantee whatsoever they will work, Stein Dinse do not have any in stock but want Euro 41.70 each when they do, Discount bike spares have what looks like a very similar gizmo for a GSF Bandit for £31.30 each.
I have already discounted the use of the oil pipe heaters, because of the messiness of the plumbing so the upshot of all this is that my M900 will be unadorned with any means whatsoever of preventing/ mitigating carb icing. A decision I might come to regret at 11.00pm on a misty chilling late September evening, coming back from the pub.
I have bought 300mm of aluminium hexagon bar for £7 and will make some float bowl blanking bolts and for the electric heater now being removed.

[350TSS]

On Mondays I can only snatch an hour at most in the garage, not wanting to get immersed in finishing the wiring loom and have to break off half way I went looking for a job that I could complete and I found one. Before and after pictures of the clutch pressure plate after 25 mins in the blast cabinet. The bearing was shot anyway and a new one has already been delivered by Simply Bearings.

[350TSS]

I shall paint the outside not sure whether before or after a new bearing has been fitted, first with etching primer then a gloss or satin black.
I find it odd that the spring recesses break into the inner face on both sides, I am pretty sure it was made that way