Sticker removal

I removed all of the after-market stickers the previous owner had on the bike. I really don't like stickers, I'll leave that to MotoGP star Valentino Rossi who has a pre-race ritual of putting stickers on his bike. I personally like a very stock look. It took a very long time to remove them all. If you are going to sell your bike - don't put stickers all over it!

De-stickered and looking better every day.

Cam belts - a big stretch

Mileage: 9247
My bike had the original cam belts on it. Ducati recommends that they be changed every 6000 miles so I was a bout 3K overdue. I have read so many articles about changing these but it was not really as hard as every one stated. The only difficult part was getting the belts over the end plates. I later found out that most everybody removes these end plates the first time they change the belts. This would have saved me a bunch of time since I had to really push them over the end plates. Oh well, next time...

Good for another 6000 miles.

Fuel filter and filler neck gasket

Mileage: 9247
I was worried that my tank might have debris in it so I decided to change the fuel filter. I pulled the fuel cap and inlet neck off and looked inside. Much to my dismay I saw a great deal of rust inside. This is quite common of Ducs of this vintage, I cleaned out all of the rust and it is clear that I must seal the inside of the tank. There is a company called POR-15 that sells a kit for just this very problem. I will do it as soon as I get the materials from the company.

Another common problem is that the gasket under the fuel inlet rots out. Mine of course was bad so I swapped it out. This is not as easy as it looks! The gasket needs to be stretched just right to make a nice seal. After a few tries I came up with a technique of getting the inlet almost all the way seated and then putting the gasket on from the top. It looks great but I will be taking it out again soon to do the tank sealing.

Didn't ride, just cranked her up to be sure she runs.

Inserting the fuel pump with a new filter. Ugh, rust...

New fuel inlet gasket - not as easy at it looks.

New kickstand

Mileage: 9156
When I bought the bike it had this kickstand that was two pieces welded together. I decided to change this and found a clean used one a guy on the Ducati.ms forum. The forum has been such an awesome resource. The greatest thing is that the kickstand included a Nichols kickstand bolt so that the stand won't automatically retract when the weight is taken off of the stand. I was worried that somebody would sit on my bike while parked and not know the stand had folded up and it would drop on its side. This fixes that problem. Looks much nicer too.

Went for a longer ride and getting more comfortable with the bike. Really enjoying being a motorcyclist again.

New kickstand with a Nichols bolt.