I thought I’d post my progress on my ongoing involvement with my 1974 Mach 3 350, in case I come across anything anyone else might find useful and I thought it would be good to keep a record of progress (if any).
I’ve owned the bike since 1989 when I swapped a Bultaco Sherpa and some cash for it with a mate of mine in Brighton. I brought the bike home on a trailer as a non-runner and stored it away in the shed (well several in the end), not wanting to touch it until I was ready to take on a full resto and, that’s as far as it got until a few months ago. Having been offered a free classic bike insurance cover with my new insurers (ebikes) earlier this year, I thought I might as well use it on the Ducati. Of course once it sunk in that it was insured I started to think it would be a nice idea to see if I could get it running and MOT’d and actually see what it was like to ride before I pulled it apart for a rebuild. So for the Golden Jubilee weekend I convinced myself that it would be a good way of showing my respect, by setting myself the goal of starting the bike up for the first time in 26 years (it was last taxed in 1986).
I stripped down the carb, an Amal concentric Mk 2 and cleaned it in my Dad’s ultrasonic tank (he’s a watch and clock repairer), fitted new fuel hoses and filters, rinsed out the fuel tank, drained and filled the oil, cleaned the filter, new spark plug, kicked it over many times and finally had it running! You can see it running for the first time at youtube.com/watch?v=GUPTSksX … ata_player
After that I found a problem with the float and float needle being incorrect so ordered a rebuild kit from Amal (you can see the jet sizes I needed in my other thread thanks to Nigel Lacey). I also proceeded to go through the bike and sort anything that wasn’t working properly, remarkably most of it was functional! I needed to replace the rear bulb, buy a battery and I’ve just ordered a new silencer (stubby reverse cone megaphone for the time being) and some other bits and pieces.
The plan is to get an MOT on it and run it for a couple of months before embarking on a complete rebuild over the winter of 2012/2013. I’m not looking to return it to original and I’ll explain why in my next post, I just hope I don’t wind too many of you up on here because of that! 