Oh the woes of the ducati desmoquattro valve adjustment

So the 748 has been due for a valve adjustment for about the last 300 miles. I finally got down and well, frankly, spent the money to buy all the tools I would need to complete the job. Biggest purchase were the MBP collets and shim kit, but both are one time costs for sure that will set me up for later adjustments with no issues hopefully!

So here's the bike all torn down:


Had to take all the plastics off, fuel tank, seat, airbox, throttle bodies, and eventually will take the radiator off too to make things easier:



Belts had to come off with the adjustment pulley removed, new lock nuts ready to go:



Got new belts ready to go too, old and new here:


So I start on the vertical head because frankly, it's both the harder and easier head to work on depending on which side we're talking about, intake or exhaust.

I got my first look into the head of a desmoquattro:



And once you get the opening rockers off and the cam pulled, you can get really easy access to the valve shim stacks:



Access to take measurements isn't exactly easy depending on which head and which side, but I was able to at least get to them...

Here's the first reason why I decided to replace the half rings with MBP collets, those are supposed to be in TWO pieces, not three! And I found two valves with half rings in at least 3 pieces or more:



To get the closers off (and to get at those half rings, you push on the back of the closer rocker and things slide down pretty good:



Good shot of the shim stack with the opener shims removed:


Good shot of the OEM half rings and the MBP collets, check out the beefiness and the sheer better engineering:



Unfortunately, the VERY first problem I ended up with is that I lost one of the MBP collets down an oil passageway!!!!!!!! ARGGH. I'm almost certain now that it is in fact in the engine somewhere. I don't quite know what to do, but I will be flushing the engine with a couple of gallons of cheap dino oil to see if the collet will come out on its own. hopefully it does...

That was day 1, 9 hours of work, only 2 valves got adjusted.... ='(

Day 2, 9 hours of work again, but all closers were adjusted. BUT, I found the biggest kicker... All the opener rockers having flaking chrome!!!!! ARGH. The desmoquattro was well known for this issue as Ducati outsourced the coating process on the rockers. The outsourced company did not do the final heat treatment to relieve the stress in the chrome and after some hard wailing on the bike, the chrome starts to flake, your valves go WAY out of adjustment and your cams start to get damaged if you don't catch it.

Luckily, I think I caught it in time. I will have to look at the cams again though to verify. The problem though is that this bike already had the rockers replaced once! Unfortunately, the rockers were replaced with OEM rockers which have the same problem! tell me the logic in that!

So, unfortunately, I was not able to adjust the opener shims as I had to pull all the opening rockers to send off to california cycleworks for an aftermarket megacycles chrome plating...

here's the damage:





So now it looks like I will have to wait at least 2 more weeks to have all this back to me, probably more like 3, plus another 700 bucks!! OUCH...

AND on top of all that, i STILL have a collet probably in my engine that I need to get out! ...

someone buy me a beer... =(

2008 Hill Country Trip Day 3

Ok, getting back, I know it's been a while, but I should probably finish the update!

Day 3 was our first FULL day of riding and when I mean full, I mean FULL! We started kickstands up at 9AM and didn't get back into koyote ranch until like 6 or 7PM!

What a gorgeous day to ride though! Here's how the day started!





Our little friend was ready to go too ;)



After a bit of riding



we ran into our first bit of trouble on highway 337:
hmmm, someone smell burning brakes???


Ron's 1098S unfortunately burned up a rear brake caliper so eventually after some work on the ground:

we decided to rip the sucker off so he could continue riding for the rest of the day, rear brake? who needs em! =P (apparently not ron!)

We soon hit the nice roads going uphill into the twisties on our way to Leakey:



unfortunately, somebody thought it would be a great idea to tear the road up completely for 10 miles into Leakey!!! WTH!!??

right before that though, we had another bike go down with a non functioning clutch... pull the clutch in and it wouldn't let go...

luckily, after some time on the ground, I was able to get the bike going enough to get into Leakey for some fooood:



Back on the road again after lunch:





Why can't we have roads like this in Houston!!??



check out the pugglepod in action!


Had to stop to see how everyone was doing on gas, too bad we had to go find a gas station!


Duke's hiding out at 90mph!


Found a gas station that had been there for literally generations! I believe the people running the joint were 4 or 5th gen family!



and weird enough, peacocks?



so we end the day getting back without any more issues...

BUT, so at some point when we get back, Bryant let's me take the 'white unicorn' as we call it out:



So after saying no once, I decide, what the heck am I thinking??! hahaha, so i take her out and am hanging off the bike after the second turn! That thing just BEGS to be thrown into the turns!

Unfortunately, on the way back, I'm full lean, off the side of the bike, and in the middle of the turn, there's a cop going the other way!!!! I can't even think of what the cop was thinking as I'm flying through the turn...

So I have to make a decision, and FAST. My decision? I can't say it was the smartest conclusion in the world, but I decided that it would take that cop a bit of time to turn around and make it through those turns... so I decided that if I just BLASTED through the last set of turns as fast as I could, I could avoid seeing him again!

................ ... well, it worked =X made it back to camp, flew through camp, parked the bike, hopped off, went inside as fast I could, and grabbed a beer! =X

The rest of the night was beeer, ribss, and hot tub/pool. good times.

Who's your biggest cheerleader?

So I've been thinking about this lately and figured it'd be some good blog content. (sorry for the slight detour from the hill country trip, it's been a busy week)

In any case, I have a few friends whom I am absolutely one of their biggest cheerleaders/supporters. I mean, if they've got an idea for something they want to do, or build, or pretty much any pie in the sky dream, I am 100% in support of it. I'm not being facetious or have some alterior motive at all either, I truly believe these people can do whatever it is that they put their hearts and minds to. Heck, if they wanted to rope the moon and bring it down to the ground, I'd believe they could do it and support them.

But it's not like that with me for everyone. I started thinking about that in these last couple of days. Why? Why am I not fully supportive of all my friends' wishes and dreams, small daily tasks and accomplishments, hell, just whatever they feel they want to tell me? If they feel like it's something worth mentioning, then why can't I just understand that they're trying to share something with me that's important to them?
I have no reason to rain on anyone's parade unless they're going to physically harm themselves or put themselves in a hole that they cannot come out of. But also, how am I all of a sudden so smart to know how deep a hole they CAN'T get out of? Or why even think they're gonna put themselves IN a hole? There's that negativity...

I am NOT that smart. I don't have that kind of insight. I can't read minds.

Why do I feel like I am so critical with some people? I don't need to be that way. I know, I KNOW, that I don't mean to be critical and I am DEFINITELY not trying to be condescending. I don't want to come off that way. What's that old golden rule? exactly.

So from now on I am going to try to think about my first gut reaction to anything someone's trying to share with me. I'm going to think about it before opening my mouth and try to figure out what the appropriate thing say should be; even if it's nothing at all.
Are they truly seeking advice or just a shoulder? Are they truly looking for a reaction or just want someone to listen and cheer them on?

I want to be supportive and do everything in my power to help my friends be what they want; more than they could ever think they could be. I want my friends to be happy, because what more can any of us strive for than to be happy and reach the goals that feel like they're out of our reach?

The moon can feel a little bit smaller, a little bit closer, maybe together, we can put a rope around it.

Ducati Hill Country ride weekend, day 2

So day two started a little late since we had a few the night before ;) But we had that same beautiful view of downtown Austin to wake up to!

We took care of cleaning the place up, buying some nice gifts for the owners, and then had breakfast at Whole Foods (since it was walking distance anyways and we needed to get some supplies). Picked up a bunch of stuff for my special hill country bbq sauce (which is my own special jalepeno cilantro chutney infused bbq sauce, good stuff!) and had some lobster bisque and ciabatta bread for breakfast =D

Once we got going, we headed down to a great little microbrewery in Boerne called the Dodging Duck. We even had a Ducati flag posted out to mark the place!



It was literally in the middle of a neighborhood, so we just parked in front of someone's house =X



I had some tasty spicy salmon dip on fresh pita chips and a couple of good brews, then we headed out!

Koyote Ranch, if you haven't been there before, is a great little place right off Medina, Tx. Grab a cabin for relatively cheap and call it a weekend, whether you're riding around (since they're motorcycle friendly), or just there to soak in the hill country views!

Us unloading:



That'salottabikes!




We were able to get a great little warming ride in before the sun went down and then proceeded to break out the goods!

One of our San Antonio crew happens to be a beer brewer (hardly amateur, but that's what he says!) He proceeded to supply our entire group of 17 (plus whoever we ran into on the camp grounds!) with 35 GALLONS of 7 different VARIETIES of home brew!!! I mean, this was absolutely stunning stuff! Some had been aged for months, some had just been made a week ago! He brought his own CO2 bottle AND provided custom beer glasses for everyone!





I of course had to throw my leg around bryant's brand spanking new 848! what a gorgeous bike!


(I would get a chance to take that baby out for a killer ride later in the trip =P)

Once the sun set, we got to drinking! (because we did NOT want to be on the roads when the deer come out!)

One of the other members of the DFW crew ends up working for a restaurant supplier and even though he didn't make it on the trip, he sent 40 POUNDS (that's 16 racks) of australian baby back ribs and 10 POUNDS of beer battered pollock! wow!

So I got the frying oil ready to go, started a batch of my bbq sauce, and dipped all 10 POUNDS of pollock in fresh lime juice before frying...

After the pollock got fried, i had an ingenious idea, what if you deep fried the ribs?... results my friends, speak for themselves!







believe it or not, the coolest thing THEN showed up! The Pugglepod 9000!! One of the DFW crew made the entire thing from scratch!



with working lights and everything!


And this little guy enjoyed the hell out of it!


end day 2