Hello - I have recently joined DOC, and have a number of bikes including a 888,916, 900SS and a US imported 250 single. As per the normal US bikes, the 250 has no stamped frame number, but used to carry a label identifying the VIN number to be the same as the engine number. The label can easily be replaced as necessary.
Does this lack of a hard stamped number pose any difficulty when ageing these bikes, and getting a certificate from DOC?
Im afraid I cant be of too much help, but yes the frame number was on a foil sticker. Obviously your aware you can still buy the sticker.
I thought the usual way was to supply any info you have and pictures, get someone from the club to confirm what it is and see about getting an age related plate. You should get a rough idea of a date from the engine number? Perhaps narrow it down by model specific changes?
Try contacting Pete Ward, details in ‘Club Officials’ in ‘Desmo’, he might be able to help.
Ok - thanks, will do. Looking forward to my first issue dropping through the letterbox.
Hi Mike,
Welcome to the forum.
My 239 MkIII has a foil sticker, the others have stamped numbers.
Which model have you got and which part of the country are you in?
There are a few of us in the club running (and racing) singles.
Cheers,
Roger
Hi Roger - I’m in central Scotland and it’s a 250 Monza, although I’m planning on giving it a cafe-racer makeover. First priority is to get it running and registered though…
The story is slowly unfolding here: http://hindsight.it/monza
I think I’ve managed to satisfy in my own mind that this isn’t going to be a problem. Through a remarkable stroke of luck I’ve managed to trace the last place of registration in the US, and they’re going to send me through details of the registration. Hopefully, in combination with an attached label, there should be no doubt to the history and therefore age of the machine.
Regards,
Mike
I’ve just been having a read. It looks OK from what I can see - a great base for a cafe racer project.
Does the engine number start DM or MD?
Don’t worry about a right foot gear change - it’ll become natural in no time. I can swap between my singles with right foot change (200GT on the road and 250 racer on the track) and my twin with left foot change (900 Darmah SSD) with no problem - so long as I don’t think about it. Thinking is always a bad thing to do!
A quick shameless plug for my race sponsors:
For Ducati bits try Clasic Ducati http://www.classicducati.com/. Contact Barry for bits as he’s got far more than he shows on the website.
For cafe racer parts try Disco Volante Moto http://www.discovolantemoto.co.uk/. Howard does all sorts of stuff, but he’s a Ducati man at heart.
Cheers,
Roger
Engine number begins “DM” - what does the “MD” prefix signify?
Thanks for the contacts… I’ll check them out in due course.
So far as I’m aware (and everyone please correct me if I’m wrong) DM is Italian built Ducati.
MD is Mototrans Ducati built in Spain.
The Mototrans factory built Ducati’s under license. When Ducati changed from narrow case to wide case Mototrans continued with the narrow case type engine but developed it in their own way so that bore and stoke differed from the Italian built engines. They even put starter motors on some of the later models.
I’m sure that those who are better on the history will be able to fill in more details (and correct any mistakes I’ve made).
Cheers,
Roger
Does anyone have any other contact details for Pete ward (telephone number preferrably). I’ve sent a few emails to various members of docgb recently and I’m not convinced that any of them are being recieved.
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Pete is currently working away from home during the week, have you emailed him recently? I’ll send him an email to see if he’s heard from you … please c an you send me a PM with your email address? Thanks.
As far as I know, my docgb emails are ok … 