Slow Monster rebuild

[350TSS]

My ace plan did not work for two reasons, first, my ½” drive allen key holder would not fit the best fit allen key for the mullered socket head.
I decided to weld an allen key into the mullered head anyway.
The second reason was that the British made, finest steel allen key, during the welding process obviously imported some Italian cheese ions from the Brembo bolt because when I tried to undo the first bastard bolt it first bent then almost immediately sheared, leaving a perfectly welded 8 mm stub and a very secure, unmoved caliper casting connection bolt.
This left me in a bit of a quandary I could either drill it (say 3mm) out from the other side. I judged that I had two chances of drilling a 3mm hole in a high tensile(?) 40mm bolt concentric and parallel to the shank of the bolt i.e. - slim and none.
So I resorted to type and got the hammer out – Darkness’s Plan B was looming so I had nothing to lose anyway.
With the aid of a chisel, it worked on the three recalcitrant bolts out of the 8 bolts holding the two calipers together and the caliper castings, whilst suffering some bruising in the process, will be perfectly serviceable after a light dressing with a file and a couple of coats of satin black.
All this took a long time so nothing else got done today.
Sorry no pictures my computer of its own free will decided that it would no longer download pictures – no warning or alerts, no means of finding out why and worse no means of making it do what it is supposed to do - that is why I will always prefer carburettor bikes.

[350TSS]

For no apparent reason my downloading capability is back so here are the gory details







The cut throat razor in the last picture was bequeathed to me about 30 years ago and I have never used it (too frightened to shave with it) but finally found a use for it in trimming masking tape off the face of the caliper castings wher I do not want the paint to end up.

[350TSS]

Only grabbed a couple of hours in the garage today and I almost wish I hadn’t. Task was to modify 6 x 8mm x 30mm high tensile bolts to hold the rear disc to the rear wheel. I machined the bolt heads down by 2mm to clear the brake hanger and managed to get them very close to each other dimensionally.
I am not a huge fan of Loctite as I am never sure a) if I have the right grade; and b) if I have used too much or too little; and c) if re-using an old bolt whether I have got the thread free enough of oil/grease that the stuff will work.
Where dissimilar metals are involved I prefer copperslip grease and wiring as the means of stopping bolts undoing. Besides it looks nicer and it visually obvious that the bolt is secured.
I tried my drill jig for wiring bolts (see above), the drilling is designed to go through the angle of two flats of the hexagon head and the jig takes a 1.5mm drill. The first attempt resulted in a) a broken drill and b) a hole that had migrated so far towards the junction of the two flats that it broke through the angle i.e. not permitting any wire to be retained within the bolt head. Not a good start.
After the second attempt with the same result (only a fool makes the same mistake twice) I realised that a 1.5 mm drill is not stiff enough to attack high tensile steel at an angle of 60 degrees without bending and skidding down the slope. The drill jig does not and will not work, it might do if you were able to centre punch the spot to be drilled first but the chance of getting the centre punch hole to align with the spot where the drill emerges is quite small as there is no visibility when the bolt head is in the jig and no way of accurately knowing where on the in the depth of the bolt head the hole will be made.
The only alternative was to centre punch in the middle of one hexagon flat and drill right across the diameter of the head between two flats - 13mm of high tensile steel.
It appears that the outer 1mm of the hexagon is tougher than the core probably caused by the force used to form the bolt head. A new drill was sharp enough to cut through this outer harder layer and make its way 12mm across the bolt head, but by the time it got to the opposing harder layer it was blunt. Consequently it snagged and broke flush with the entry point. At this point I have machined 6 bolts and broken 3 x 1.5mm drills and not yet got an acceptable wiring hole in any bolt, worse I will have to machine 3 more bolts to replace the 2 with partial hole across the corner of two flats and one with a broken drill stuck fast within the head.
The technique now is to use a new drill for 12mm of the drilling and put a fresh drill in to accomplish the breakthrough. This drill can then be used for the next bolt for 12mm, an expensive way to carry on, one hole = 1 drill bit but it worked on the last 3 bolts
I budgeted 30 hours to drill and plate bolts as part of the build, this may need upward revision.

[Darkness]

I went with some of these:

https://raceboltuk.com/product/ducat...x-15mm-long-2/

It may be cheaper than buying the drill bits!

[350TSS]

^^^^^^ Nice, but I cannot use titanium for the rear disc as I need steel to allow the hall effect (the magnetism) for the speedo sensor

[Darkness]

I don’t know if these are ferritic or austenitic?

https://raceboltuk.com/product/ducat...h-x-15mm-long/

[Capo]

Use a 1.5mm slot drill milling cutter, it will drill an angled surface

[350TSS]

^^^^ thanks for the advice Capo, got three on order, drilling through the angle of the flats looks a lot better than across the flats of the bolt head.

[350TSS]

I could not face another day with fibre-glassing, itchy hands and acetone fumes so I wasted a bit of time today looking for my LH rear chain adjuster, the one converted into a carrier for the drive chain oiler pipe. I knew I had to open the spindle hole out from 17mm to 25mm to take the larger S4 rear spindle. It has vanished off the face of the earth, either that or I put it somewhere “safe”. I suspect the latter as the roll of plastic delivery tube which was handily placed with the oiler pipe has also disappeared.
After an hour I decided I may as well make another, rationalising the decision on the basis that in any case I could not think of an easy way to open accurately a 17mm hole to 25mm hole.
Here is the Mk2 – not as elegant as the Mk1 but I had no more 10mm tube. An old clothes horse lost a curved corner in the process.

Next I set about cleaning and masking up the calliper halves (how do you spell that, one “l” shows as a mis-spelling, but it just looks wrong with two?)

Four coats of satin black and they look like this.
image hosting for ebay

I am still undecided as to whether to scrape/sand off the paint on the Brembo logos. On the basis that: a) they do not make it easy/cheap to overhaul the callipers/master cylinders so why should I advertise for them; and, b) I have better than an even chance I will make a complete Horlicks of it, I am inclining towards not bothering.
During a sleepless night I managed to order 2 sq metres of closed cell black rubber foam in 12mm and 6mm thickness for the seat (closed cell so that water does not penetrate it hopefully) and also some black Ambla to cover it with. Ambla because it is two way stretch unlike ordinary vinyl and therefore is a lot easier to end up with a half decent looking cover. The seat cover will have some sharpish corners where the hump comes forward to the seat pad so I also bought some black piping to finish the edge and to follow the change in contour from side of the seat to seat pad.
From Gumtree I bought locally a second hand sewing machine for £35 complete with manuals and handy hints (c£200 new used only a couple of times) How hard can it be to learn how to use a sewing machine? I shall probably end up buying more ambla when I bugger up the first and second attempts.
Tomorrow back to the fibre glass with may be a bit of light relief machining 4 x 13mm aluminium hexagon bar to make blanking plugs for the “not to be fitted” carburettor heater pipes.

[350TSS]

I didn’t have a 10mm x 1mm die so the machining of the blanking plugs stalled until next week when it should arrive.
I thought I would get on with my case saver instead.
Some while ago I ordered some 2mm SS sheet sufficient to make 4 case savers (1 x M900, 2 x S4 and 1 x 750SS –my Ducati fleet). I looked up old threads on here and found a drawing but one critical dimension was missing – overall length. I wanted to provide maximum protection so using some masking tape worked out the total length ( xxmm) then cut the sheet with a 1mm cutting disc in an angle grinder at 46.5mm wide, 30mm for the saver and 15mm for the 2 attachment tabs (allowing 1.5mm for the bending of the tabs).
With rare insight I marked the cut sheet with a Sharpie pen corresponding to 2 reference points on the crankcase where I judged the curve part should start and finish. This proved invaluable later when trying to adjust the radius of the curve.
The first bend was made by putting the sheet in the vice and bending manually advancing the sheet about 3mm at a time until the required c125 degree bend was made. This method gives you one chance to get it right because the workpiece once bent will not go back in the vice. I didn’t really expect to get it right first time and I was not disappointed.
The bend required a radius of c 52mm and I had nothing that big to act as a former. First I tried adjusting the radius of the bend around two 10mm bolts projecting about 50mm through some 8mm steel flat about 50mm apart all held in a vice but this ended up with threepenny bit bends.
This is what gave the best results:

The hammers are hard rubber, shot filled and one of my favourite tools as they give a dead blow and do not damage what you hit – highly recommended.
It took about 2 hours of adjustment to get the curve to match the crankcase as closely as possible and maximise the clearance for the chain. All that remains now is to mark out where the tabs are needed, angle grind off the material not needed and to bend and drill the tabs.
I will not use the 2mm stainless for the other bikes it is just too difficult to work and getting the clearance for the chain is a real challenge, I will buy some 1.5mm instead

[350TSS]

"xxmm" above is 370mm which allows for about a 15mm reverse curve to be added to follow the crankcase casting and protect the rear engine mounting bolt lug, the first point of contact a broken chain could impact

[350TSS]

Got on with a few things today, on the case saver I have got as far as I can without the alternator cover being fitted. I thought about having 3 fixings, including the 10mm lug at the bottom of the rear of the crankcase. Trouble is this hole is drilled 10mm and not threaded, I will have a ponder whether or not it is worth drilling and tapping the crankcase 12mm making a threaded plug with a 6mm tapped hole through the middle.


Obviously the case saver mounting lugs need tidying up and drilling.
I put the front and rear calipers back together with titanium bolts, banjo bolts and new seals. I will have to see if I can find/source some titanium bleed nipples, failing that it is into the acid bath and a dip in the electrolyte to zinc plate them.

I also spent some time attaching the mould dividers to the patterns for the flyscreen, the rear hugger and the Ignitech enclosure. The patterns have all had at least 5 coats of release agent. To attach the dividers one has to hot melt glue some rigid foam to the divider and to the pattern itself. This took a long time as the glue was very reluctant to grip the release agent and the contour of the pattern meant that the foam only really fitted where it touched. Any gaps between the divider and the pattern then have to be filled with wax so that the gel coat for the mould doesn’t migrate under the divider. When the wax is at the right temperature it works very easily i.e. after you have softened it up by rolling it between your fingers. When however it has been on the pattern a few minutes it hardens up and when you try to make the edges very distinct vertical or horizontal planes the it snags and tears and then pulls away from where you want it. Tomorrow will see moulding gel coat resin applied to the patterns

[350TSS]

Up and down day today, I gel coated one half of the fly-screen, rear hugger, Ignitech enclosure and the front half of the chain oiler reservoir. This will need to cure overnight then another coat before laying down first 100g mat then 4 coats of 300g mat, then, I will have to do the same with the other side of each mould.
I then tried to separate the moulds from the patterns that I glassed up last week.
The sprocket guard came out easily with nice, sharp detail in the mould, the headlamp inner ring and the rear of the chain oiler reservoir also detached relatively easily.


Then my luck ran out, both of the belt covers, the tool tray, headlamp shell and both the infill panels, in all cases, the pattern separated from the backing plate and the pattern remained stuck firmly within the mould.

As expected the battery box mould could only be separated by destroying the wooden pattern with a chisel, fortunately with only slight damage to the mould.
I thought about how to get those stuck patterns out of the moulds and came up with building a small bridge across the face of the mould and using 2 x 1¼” by 12 woodscrews into the pattern effectively pulling it out. It did not work as the screws just pulled out of the plywood pattern. I will have to have a ponder as to the best way to get them out (??????????????)

[350TSS]

Not usually allowed on a Saturday but I “stole” a couple of hours in the garage today and I managed to get the second gel coat on.
More importantly, I also managed to separate the headlamp pattern from the mould (not too difficult) and am very pleased with the quality of the mould.
The tool tray was a different story and a right PITA.I think the pattern had been trapped in the mould as there was a slight gap between the polypropylene base and the pattern and even though the gel coat was very viscous it got between and set.
I used a chisel and carefully cut right across the width of the pattern at one end. The pattern was made of 18mm particle board topped with 6mm plywood. It had to come out one excruciating layer at a time. Eventually, after about an hour, it released and fortunately I managed to get it out without any damage to the flat surface although the edges of the mould suffered some chipping from the chisel, which I think I will be able to rub out with wet and dry.

[350TSS]

I did a bit more fibre glass moulding today with 2 layers of 100g mat on one half of the split mould for the rear hugger, fly-screen, Ignitech enclosure and chain oiler reservoir.
I also spent some time trying to release the patterns from the front infill panels, chiselling out the wooden pattern from the mould. All the patterns had 5 coats of release agent but these just would not release from the mould. After a frustrating hour I set them aside as the job requires patience and a delicate touch (with a hammer and chisel?) and I only have about 40 minutes’ worth on a good day.
I am definitely not looking forward to trying to get the belt cover patterns out as I do not think they will come out with a chisel. I might try carefully splitting the mould with a dremel but I have a feeling this will only create more downstream work.
All this, of course, is adding to the hours to completion of the bike without actually making a lot of forward progress. Desperate to have something positive to show for the day I machined up 4 x carburettor heater blanking plugs from some 13mm aluminium hexagon bar and was quite pleased with the results, satisfyingly only 8g for all 4, before the edges were tidied up