Further to my last post and thanks for the advice about my old Hailwood replica which I want to move on. I spoke with John at Made In Italy and gave the carbs a clean, put in fresh oil, checked for spark, put 2 new plugs in and tried to start the old girl after filling the petrol feed pipes with fresh go juice. The tank and taps are gummed up.
I have scrap knees but the better of the two is my left so I was trying, obviously, to kick start the old girl with a technique free leg with no joy!
I decided to risk the weak knee and after 6 decent swings she roared into life through 2 rusty contis. What a noise? I had forgotten what a fabulous racket this thing makes.
It lives!! She was not dead but sleeping, Truly wonderful. 2 Petrol taps to ungum and a tank to clean out but I have no idea how I’m going to do that?
I’ll never be fit enough to use this cracking old bike but it’ll be very hard to let her go now.
Grant,
For tank cleaning try LB Restoration services, they do a kit to seal a leaking tank and part of it is a tank cleaner that is very good but you need to make sure it doesn’t get on the paintwork!
I am sure it is available on it’s own without the need to buy the whole kit.
Now you have got it running there really is no hope, a Bevel is not just for Christmas…
Regards,
Colin.
The possible problem* with bikes that have been left standing for so long, is that the internals can rust above the oil level in the sump…
Even if you put fresh oil in the motor the rust soon forms into something akin to grinding paste and can wreck a motor pretty quickly, which was why I said that it’d need the motor stripping/refreshing in the other thread.
Many a Ducati has died a premature death after a long lay up because of this well known problem, the main bearings or the bigends are usually the 1st to go.
Steve, I take your point about the oil level and you’re probably right the chances are there will be corrosion somewhere internally. The old girl was stored with the plugs out
so that I could squirt a taste of oil down the plug holes but mainly so I could turn the engine over easily with the kickstart which I did “religiously” every now and then and
probably not often enough to be fair.
Anyway, I’m going to rattle some nut and bolts around the inside of the tank for a bit to knock any big bits loose and have a look at the tank sealant sites mentioned. I might
pull the heads and barrels off to see if there’s any corrosion is visible, or run the engine until warm, drop the engine oil to see how much contamination is evident?
We’ll see what develops, but I need someone without busted knees to start her which is why I will more than likely, say an emotional farewell to her. Christ I’ve had this old
bike longer than the wife!! [when her indoors moved in with me I should have seen the signs when the Duke got moved out of the living room]