Hi all.
This is my Ducati Monster M696, 2009, non ABS. It is one of my, if not my favourite bike of all time. Not the fastest, nor the best handling, but so much usable power and such fun. I am the third owner, the previous two kept it fairly clean and so have I but it has been used, in all weather, for all of it’s life.
Coming up to its 10th birthday I decided to give it a clean and replace a few corroded parts. This is the diary of that process.
Being my first major clean I got many things wrong. In no order they were:
– starting a deep clean when you have there months of good weather left.
– starting a deep clean without setting a budget.
– starting a deep clean with tools and not a torch, parts manual, and notebook to hand to write down all the bits you’ll be changing so that you don’t…
– start the deep clean by throwing away stuff you don’t have new bits for.
This list well get updated as I remember more things. Also the list of when I did things may be out of order a bit, I’m getting old.
First job was off with the panels.
An hour later all the panels were off, wrapped in bubble wrap, and the screws placed into labelled bags.
I’d decided to be logical and start at the front and work backwards, an approach that fell apart fairly quickly as I needed to order and wait for parts. But I made a good effort to stay logical
First off were the front callipers. I used tie wraps to support them out of the way and not damage the hoses which I wanted to re use.
Then the brake and clutch master cylinders were emptied and the levers removed for cleaning.
The next major job (which I’d been dreading but I was in a removing stuff mood) was to get the tank off, something I’d never done. After draining the almost full tank into a load of plastic containers to feed the mower I disconnected everything I could find and off it came. Simple.
This gave me a really good look at the air box and all the gubbins I’d never seen. Not too clean in there and I’d need to spend some hours with WD40 and a brush. Not a problem.
The front callipers went on the bench to be taken apart and cleaned.
A complete strip down with new seals took place, and it was at this point everything started to go wrong. You see I couldn’t bring myself to put the old spring plate and R clips and pins back on. The calliper looked so shiny (although in this photo it still looks dirty for some reason) that it would be too much of a shame.
So I ordered some titanium.
New pins, clips, plate, pads, seals, and while I here titanium mounting bolts from Pro Bolt. Lovely.