[DesmoDog]

Ah yes, the infamous "max" oil line. Funny thing. If you look at different 900ss's you'll see different oil level stickers on the side covers. This one has the "Max" line where the "Min" line is on others.

Trust me, it's supposed to have more oil in it than that Max line would indicate. This one is a bit over filled now but the engine hasn't been turned over yet either, I'll drop a bit once it has.

In the end if you get it right around the level of the two holes in the plate behind the glass you should be good. But don't do this with it on the sidestand.

I also put the tank back on, just so I could feel like I was making progress.

 

[Farmer_John]

Ah yes, the infamous "max" oil line. Funny thing. If you look at different 900ss's you'll see different oil level stickers on the side covers. This one has the "Max" line where the "Min" line is on others.

LOVED vented covers on those clutches! But I also liked the airbox sound with the "mod" (no lid, zip tied in filter, I'm a noise junky.

Trust me, it's supposed to have more oil in it than that Max line would indicate. This one is a bit over filled now but the engine hasn't been turned over yet either, I'll drop a bit once it has.

In the end if you get it right around the level of the two holes in the plate behind the glass you should be good. But don't do this with it on the sidestand.

I also put the tank back on, just so I could feel like I was making progress.

 

[DesmoDog]

LOVED vented covers on those clutches! But I also liked the airbox sound with the "mod" (no lid, zip tied in filter, I'm a noise junky.

When people ask why the bike is so noisy I tell them they make about 3hp more with the oil a quart low so all the cool kids run them like that.

With no airbox lid there is a certain rpm that gets literally painful for me, especially if tucked in. My ears already ring 24/7, no reason to make it worse.

If you like noise you'd love this bike, even the front brakes rattle on it. I should post a video on what true "free floating" rotors look/sound like. Hmm... in fact I'm not doing anything important right now, hang on...

This doesn't show how horrible it sounds when you take a bike with these rotors and roll it backwards. Or how they rattle when you turn the bars just sitting there. "Refined" is not a word you'll see used to describe Super Sports from this era.

 

[jaguar]

Floating rotors freaked me out the first time I had a bike with them.

 

[DesmoDog]

Floating rotors freaked me out the first time I had a bike with them.

It never fails that each spring, the first time I move a bike that has them I get freaked out. They make noises that "normal" bikes just don't make. I wonder how many SPs have been overlooked because "dude, those brakes are trashed!"?

 

[dirkchecken]

d, ever use dynojet or kn jetting kits in a carb ss? putting my 750 back together, which didnt come with stock airbox, thanks

 

[DesmoDog]

d, ever use dynojet or kn jetting kits in a carb ss? putting my 750 back together, which didnt come with stock airbox, thanks

I used a Dynojet kit in my SP a lot of years back. Worked fine, though you likely also have to replace the emulsion tubes which aren't included in the kit.

This is a common issue with the stock carbs and gets overlooked a lot. The one on the right is used. The bike fouled plugs regularly, the PO thought it was just one of things Ducatis do.

Edit: D'oh! I lied. It was a Factory Pro kit I used, not Dynojet.

 

[DesmoDog]

Shiny things! More shiny things!

The aftermarket slave cylinder deserved a new braided line, so I got one from Galfer. Came with the bolts and washers, gotta like that. I've used Galfer stuff before and have been happy with them, including when I sent a new line back to them for mods (for a non-standard application). They did it fast for a very fair price.

Installing the slave cylinder was a bit of a pain. All three bolts holding the old one on were stuck and had to be drilled out. That wasn't too bad. But then I put the new one on without the included spacer. They say you don't need it if the rod in the engine sticks out 30mm. I did a rough measurement, did the conversion in my head and thought "yeah, that'll work". In my defense, it's easier to add it if you need it than to remove it if you don't, so I bolted it on (new bolts were included) and started bleeding it.

I've done these before, there's a trick to it. The bleeder is down on the cylinder, much lower than the master cylinder. No worries, one of my SSs didn't have any bleeder on the clutch line. Anywhos... Pretty soon it became obvious things weren't right, so I pulled it off and measured the rod stick out more accurately. oops. 26mm. No biggie, slip the spacer in there and reinstall. BUT WAIT - the cylinder is full of fluid now, I need to make sure the master isn't full because when I slowly push the cylinder on, it will force fluid back up into the reservior.

Let me back up a little. This bike has the integral rectangular reserviors. I hate them. There are two ports in the floor, one of them shoots fluid up whenever the lever is pulled. Pull it fast with the cover off and it shoots fluid up and out. I did own one bike that had a little deflector mounted, but this one doesn't So yeah, pull the lever slow, watch out for geysers. But back to the slave cylinder install. I put the cylinder in place, and started to SLOWLY press it into position.

Stiction. Static friction is greater than dynamic friction. It takes more effort to START something moving than it does to keep it moving.

"Gently" pressing on the cylinder when D'OH! In one bump it's mostly on and there's a blast of fluid launched out of the master. Fack me.

I HATE the feel of brake fluid. Despise the stuff really. Cleaning it up isn't fun, the good news is, the stream was aimed away from the bike so no harm there. Still though, nasty stuff.

Ok, so clean up is done, cylinder is bolted fully inplace, back to bleeding and it feels much more better. But still not right. It still needs the secret step. Take the bike off the front and rear stands. Lean it to the side so the outlet of the master is lower than the body. Slowly squeeze the lever... and you can hear the air bubbles rushing out of the master. Pull the lever once or twice more. Done. Fully bled. Clutch is nice and smooth, and easier than stock.

I'm already dealing with this nasty stuff so why not replace the 20 year old fluid in the brakes too. The rear one went without incident. To the front then. Take the screws out of the reservoir lid. It's stuck on there. Smack it with the handle of a screwdriver, no joy. Pry on it with my fingers and... POOF! It breaks loose and the expanding rubber gasket thingie splashes fluid all over me. Son of a bitch! I hate brake fluid. Glad I wear glasses. Swear a bit, fast forward a bit. Clean up number two done, shirt changed, brakes bled without further incident. No need to lean the bike this time since there was no air in it to begin with. Fill the reservior, put the lid back on, and realize I need to pull the front wheel still. Which means I'll be bumping the pads apart to make it easier to get the caliper off and on. Which means I'll be forcing fluid up into the reservior. The one I just filled.

Off comes the cover, Mityvac the level down, back on with the cover... and done working for the day since this all took a lot longer than it should have.

Back the next day to put on the chain. Cut it to length. Slipped the master link in place and started on the rivets. I'll spare you the details on this one, short story is I broke one of the smaller pins for pushing the links apart when I tried to use it to peen the rivet (I thought I had changed it out but must have removed and reinstalled it). That figured out I peened both rivets... and noticed one of them had cracked where the material moved. I'm 95% sure it'd be ok... dag nabbit. Ordered a new master link and a replacement pin for the chain tool. I'll break the chain again next week and do it right this time.

And the final chapter in this episode - I've been trying to come up with a hold down for the EarthX battery that uses the stock battery straps. I took three versions to get there but I think this one will work.

I've had the printer for almost two years. This is the first useful thing I've printed, for myself anyway. Tons of ideas for thigns, but this is the first thing I drew up and printed that serves a purpose. There is one more screw up I could share but I'll save that until the battery cables are being hooked up.

They say we are our own worst critics. I've screwed up so many things the past few days I took today off and went for a ride instead. The V2 Streetfigher has had it's first service so no more rpm limit. Woo hoo!

 

[DesmoDog]

At some point yesterday evening I started thinking about the license plate mount. The stock one is much larger than a Michigan plate so I was trying to see if there was a way to trim it down and reweld it to get something more appropriate.

I tried a couple things but didn't find any easy way to put the plate in the position I wanted. So why not another 3D printing project? I took a few measurements and drew something up. When I was done I almost printed it with some magenta filament (to use it up. I thought magenta was more maroon than pink... oops) because the first one is really just a prototype to check fit and function. When I was setting it up to print (slicing it) I made some choices in the name of speed rather than quality. But the printer had black filament in it and it was getting late so I just went with it.

Don't mind the surface finish, like I said this was intended as a proof of concept, not a finished part.

Hmm.. this stuff fits better than I expected. What the heck, try it on the bike.

And with a plate.

It looks a lot nicer than the oversized stock bracket, and fits just fine. What the heck, I'm going to run it as is. I'll find some fasteners that are the correct length and put the correct plate on there but other than that, it's done!

It was also 5am at this point. Retirement has it's perks.

 

[DesmoDog]

I upgraded the battery cables and wanted to see how well it turns over.

The battery is fresh out fo the box. Spark plugs are in, it's set to go except the fuel pump is discconected so it won't start .

 

[DesmoDog]

I didn't think to do this when I had the rear wheel stripped. Here's a front wheel off of a 900ss/cr which is the same as the SP as far as I know. Forgive the paint scheme - it came with my track bike project.

Here's the Superlight wheel. Not exactly SUPER lighter IMHO

I knew I should have had some bobbins welded onto the swingarm. This is where the stand ended up today. It started out right around where the wheel adjuster part is welded to the swingarm. This isn't the first time that's happened.

I put new grips on and found that the grip hung up the throttle if the flange was pressing against the throttle housing. I know there are washers/shims that can go there but it's missing if it ever had one. I also saw that the tube is too short. That doesn't make the throttle hang but I still didn't like it.

I'll probably end up ordering a new throttle tube but in the mean time I broke out the 3D printer again. A shim to the grip's flange from pressing against the housing, and a little tube to keep the end of the grip from overhanging onto the clip on. That printer has come in handy the past few days!

 

[DesmoDog]

The throttle fixes worked great. I don't know why but a nice "snap" when the throttle returns makes me smile. I'm not a big fan of the new grips I put on but that's an easy change. (Apparently there's a reason I've had these in the cabinet for 25 years).

What else did I do... I put a petcock in the fuel line since I've heard these carbs could use one. It has one from the factory, but you need to lift the tank to get to it, which means removing the tail section. I can reach this through the fairing.

I replaced the fuel filter and found that sourcing submersible 7mm fuel line locally is a pain. In fact finding ANY submersible fuel line locally is a pain. Not sure what the issue is but the only stuff I found in an internet search was about $25 per foot and the wrong size.

I'm also having trouble finding hose clamps like this one. I can find silver ones all day long but nothing to match the nice brown lacquered clamps that were in there.

I can't recall what all I've done in the past day or two. The gist of it is... this morning I rolled it outside and dumped some gas in it.

So yeah, it's "run" for the first time in about 20 years. But what you don't see are the first 30 seconds of the video which showed me dumping gas down the carbs to get it to fire. The fuel pump isn't working. It has power going to it, but it won't run. I could steal the pump out of the track bike, but I decided against that. I'll order a new one and do it once.


I should have checked the pump when I was replacing the fuel filter. Lesson learned. FWIW one of the most frustrating parts of this whole thing has been getting the dang rubber grommet back on around the gas cap. Not even funny how long it took to get everything in place.

I was hoping to post a first ride video this weekend, but that isn't going to happen. SO close!

 

[DesmoDog]

I ordered a new fuel pump from Desmotimes on Saturday afternoon, July 2nd. Yesterday was the 4th so no mail, but it showed up today on the 5th. Can't complain about that!

Replacing the pump wasn't a horrible experience but let's say I'm not a huge fan of having everything stuffed inside a tank I can barely fit my hand into. And I'm getting good at replacing the PITA rubber grommet. I did it twice this afternoon thanks to forgetting to hook up a drain line to the cap. The good news is I realized it while finishing up the cap install, before dumping any gas back in.

Hit the button, heard the pump, good to go, let's try this again.

I've never had a bike with FCRs before but I'm guessing that chirp isn't normal?

I HAVE had 900ss's before, and that didn't sound right. It sounded more like a 450SS, hence grabbing the pipe. Yep, only running on one cylinder. I could see a ton of gas getting blown around in the carb/airbox (holy reversion Batman!) so I know they were both getting that. I can look down the bores of the intake manifolds so I know they're both getting air. So I pulled the plugs and nope, no spark on the front cylinder.

I haven't even begun to start checking out why, I was done for the day.

Getting closer, maybe the third time will be the charm!

 

[DesmoDog]

And after some poking around I've been able to make every component in the system work... except the pickup coil or ignition sensor or whatever you choose to call it. And my handy meter shows that as an open circuit.

Dag nabbit. Buying new ones doesn't seem trivial either. The dealers here want around $300 for a set. If I go international it's closer to $200. Electrex has them available seperately for a lot less but I'm not sure about getting a new wire fed into the old harness.

I also have a couple here on (the remains of) a spare engine that measure ok, but the wiring is trash so I'd have to splice the replacement into the original harness. I'm not sure how realistic that is, I'll have to take a closer look tomorrow.

So I know what the problem is now anyway. That's a start.

 

[DesmoDog]

I have an engine with the sidecover pulled off that still has the pickup coils. The resistance checked out on them, so I took a closer look to see how hard it would be to switch one out.

I didn't see any way I'd be able to pull the wiring for the stock part let alone feed wiring from a new one back in. It was all or nothing if I wanted to replace anything outside of the cases. That means $200-$300 and who knows how long of a wait.

But looking at the used one, I thought if the right side was the bad one I'd have room to splice it inside the case and not have to disturb the wiring running through the case seal. If it was the other one, things would get more crowded. But, as luck would have it, the bad one was the easier pickup to change out. Woo Hoo! I was about due for a win.

No reason not to give it a shot, it's not like the stock part would be any more non-working if I screwed it up even more.

So I pulled off the sidecover. I hate going backwards this late in the game but I had no choice.

Notice the brown gasket on the sidecover. I'm not sure how it was attached to the cover but if the goal was to weld paper to aluminum, they did it. What a PITA to clean off. But anyway, that's how it looked before I started pulling the pickup out.

And here's how it looked after the splicing in the "new" one.

No different? That was the goal, I was happy with how it worked out. I checked to see if there was spark on that cylinder now. Vertical cylinder - spark. Horizontal cylinder - No spark. Son of a bitch. I thought I should check the resistance at the ignitor connector and remembered I never plugged it back in. Oops. Resistance was 99.5 ohms. Perfect. Plugged it in, turned the crank, Tah dah! Spark on horizontal cylinder.

Time to put it all back together and try again. Sidenote - I really need to get a bike lift. I'm getting too old to be working on these things at ground level.

Anyway, everything back on, oil back in, back outside.

That sounds MUCH better. I had to crank it more than shown to get it to fire but I deleted that part. Also, I never did get it to idle. If the throttle is held open even just a little but it will idle, but even with the idle speed screw all the way in it'll die if I let go of the grip. Another issue for another day.

 

[DesmoDog]

This was probably one of the last Superlights in the US to still have the foam on the fairings, but it was too far gone and had to go. No worries, I'm guessing it was only there for sound level tests anyway. So what are guys using to clean off the crap left over when the foam is pulled off?

There comes a time when you just have to ride the dang thing and see what works and what doesn't. I think I'm there but it's raining now so maybe tomorrow.

 

[Classic250]

There's some stuff called adhesive remover, sticker off, or something similar. Even though it is generally for sticker residue, might be worth a try.

 

[TrialsRider]

Goo Gone adhesive remover.

 

[DesmoDog]

On Saturday I moved this from my walkout basement to my garage. I had it running, in gear at low rpm and slipping the clutch to help get it up the hill, no issues. Ran fine.

Time for the first ride. I put my gear on, fired it back up, took off, and it wouldn't pull past about 3000 rpm. Then died. Wait, I know what this is. Been there, done that. Once again I had forgotten to turn on the gas. Turned that on, fired it back up. Took off again... and it still wouldn't pull cleanly past about 3000-3500 rpm. Returned home. Put .5 miles on it, never got out of 1st gear.

I thought there was a very slight chance that it just didn't have enough gas in the tank. So today I put a couple gallons in and tried again.

TURNED ON THE GAS this time. I'm slow but I get there eventually.

Opened the throttle 4 times to get some gas in the intake. Hit the button, the bike started instantly. Not quickly, instantly. Like WTF? Seriously fast. Wow, that was a surprise.

Then another surprise. It sat there idling at 1000rpm. No hand on the throttle, steady 1000rpm. Or as steady as these things get at idle anyway. That was weird, but, ok, I'll take it.

Hit the street. Low rpm, fine. Open the throttle much at all and it struggled to gain revs. Buzzed around at low rpm a little to see if warming it up would help.

Nope. I could get it to rev to about 6000rpm but not cleanly and I don't think I ever had it over half throttle.

Rode about one mile, no change in throttle response. Got back to the driveway, and now it idles at 900rpm. Checked the idle speed screw and it's turned all the way in/fastest idle, yet still chugging along at 900rpm.

I slowly opened the throttle sitting there in neutral and it struggled to rev then too. Wasn't running cleanly. I thought maybe it was running on one cylinder again but both downpipes were hot.

I let go of the throttle and it died. Fired it back up, and it would idle at 900rpm but rev it at all and release the throttle and it would die.

It's not the first time I've rebuilt carbs or changed jetting. Sure, the jetting isn't spot on but it should be closer than how this is running.

Right now it's set up like this:

This is different than what it was when I got it. I pulled the plugs back then and they were both black/rich, so I changed things... but not by THAT much. I got these initial settings from something Brad Black has on his site BTW, so it wasn't just a wild guess... but can I blame him for everything since it didn't run perfectly right off the bat? Yeah, that's it.. it's all Brad's fault!

It's been a while since I've messed with carbs, but looking at another handy internet find it would seem the needles are the likely suspect here? But this is the most common size used in this application. Again I find it hard to believe they're that far off.

Which all points to me screwing something up when I rebuilt the carbs I suppose.

I'm not sure what my next step is. Pull the plugs and see if they're already fouled? Years ago I had a Honda Hawk I was screwing with and I managed to get the jetting VERY wrong to start with. It quickly fouled the plugs, but it still ran worlds better than this is. While it ran.

I should probably also check the timing just to be sure that isn't jacked somehow... I can't help but think there's something I'm still missing and it's not that I'm way off on the carb settings.

 

[DesmoDog]

There's been some work done on this since I last posted, but I did take abotu a month off of screwing with it for various reasons. Strangely enoguh, it did not fix itself while I was gone even though I told it to sit there and think about what it wanted out of life.

Someone on another forum mentioned the timing being fully advanced. A picture I posted of splicing in the new lead reveals it's secrets... When I replaced the ignition lead, I checked the clearance but not the timing. Because you know, I assumed it ran fine when parked, and I didn't change the setting, so it should still be good, right? And I couldn't find the bolt that holds the turning tool/degree wheel to the crank. And I was sick of kneeling on a concrete floor working on it. So I buttoned it up and put the oil back in.

Sigh...

Basically I've known for a while that the timing is probably wrong, I just didn't get around to checking it until today when I finally got off my lazy butt and dug up my timing light. I haven't used that thing in years but it was right in the same toolbox I left it in last time. So I had that going for me.

Put the bike on a rearstand. Fired it up - it didn't start instantly today but it wasn't far off. The thing it DID do is settle down into an idle right away. Which it never did before. Whatever.

Pulled the trigger on the light at idle (roughly 1000rpm) and had to adjust the advance on the light to get the dots to line up. The TDC mark was about 5 degrees off. The firing mark at idle was about 10 degrees off... which tells me the timing is advanced 10 degrees past stock settings? Is there that much adjustment in the mount? I guess I'll find out.

I screwed around a little more but point of the story is it seems to confirm the timing needs to be dialed back. Guess who's kicking himself now that he trusted previous work when he had it apart and could have easily checked/reset it?

So I have a plan. Back into the shop and drain the oil (again) and pull the sidecover (again) and screw with the timing (again, sort of).

Since I'll have the cover off, and I bought a new bolt for my engine turing/degree wheel tool, I may as well dial the timing in as best I can. Just like I should have done when I had the cover off last time!