Introduction:
The customer of this significant MHR came to me quite some time ago to get his set into a proper state. He did not want to have it fully rebuilt or restored, but wanted it to keep the slight edges and traces that time and use had left on the bike. He has had it in his posession since the mid 80’s as his first Ducati, and rode it on a daily basis during his time as a student. When I got it, It had not run for over 30 years (last state inspection dated back to 1987) because it’s electrical installation caught fire at some point in the past, which caused quite some damage. After that it was partly scavenged to keep some other Ducatis running. Due to that, many things were missing or in a „not-so-good“ shape. The MHR of the year 1981 has a 900cc engine and had already undergone most of the developement steps that Ducati had made with the Bevel-twins. It is one of the last one that only came with a kick-start instead of an electric starter motor.
Getting this MHR back on the road was quite an endeavour! But I am very happy that I had the opportunity of working on it, especially since it has a very certain value to its owner and has not seen action in over 30 years.
Summary of the things that have been done:
- Accumulator carrying plate weld back into the frame (it was once cut out to make clear the rear frame-triangle)
- I put the original rims back on, equipped with new tires
- carburetor overhaul (obviously after 30 years)
- I changed the ingnition unit to a modern one with adjustable ingnition timing (the old one was gone and an original one as expensive as this one)
- general overhaul of the electrical system, since the old one was damaged by fire and partly gone, due to extensive salvaging.
- manufacturing of an license-plate and tail-light holder
- manufacturing of the fairings fixation
- proper fixation of the NCR- long range race tank and the fitting rear fairing
- new indicators, and rear mirrors, as well as small things like fuel-hoses, brake lines, fluids, spark plugs (…) etc.
- manufacturing of a clutch-lever to lower the necessary force you’d need for the clutch.
- equipped with a aftermarked clutch hand-lever for additional hand-force minimization
- painting the front fairing as well as the rear and front fender.
- chopping the rear fender to better fit the overall design.
Rebuild execution and anecdotes:
When I got the bike, it’s state was very much as described above. The customers aim was: 1st.: get it back up and running, 2nd.: give it a bit of an long distance racers appearance and 3rd.: don’t let it lose the traces of time it had so far collected in its life, but still make it look nice.
Besides, I planned to do something about the necessary hand forces one needs to properly use and older Ducatis clutch! They are quite something to be reconed with, especially compared with nowadays motorcycles.
I started with setting the electrical installations back into a place to be able to run the engine- the primary ingnition box was missing and many wire-isolations had gone bad due to the heat the fire had radiated. I got very nice support from the Ducati Kämna team, that sells interesting performance parts, even for the older ones, and are very informative when it comes to technical questions and tips!
Afterwards I cleaned and rebuilt the carburettors, since only cleaning them would not have done the trick. The membrances from the accelerator pumps e.g. and several other things had gone bad over the years and needed a workover or to be replaced. Now I was able to run the motor (of course after at least changing the oil and having a quick look to prevent further damage) and make sure that it didn’t need further work itself.
Chassis overhaul:
The chassis itself had several minor parts missing and I didn’t trust any of the bolts on it, since it was scavenged so much to keep other bikes running that I had to check or replace most of them. The first things I did with the chassis was welding the original battery-holder back into the frame(Image 3). It had once been cut out, which is and was fashionable at that time as it is today, for a „clean“ rear frame triangle. Next thing on the list was to remount the original rims (equipped with new tires), that actually have quite a bad reputation, since back some of them broke in stress-situations. But since this bike is most likely not ever going to see a racetrack again they will do a proper job here.
The original full-enclosure fairing as well as the fueltank had gone missing, which is why the customer wanted old NCR-endurance parts to be fitted onto the bike. The fueltank itself was easy here, since it fits quite well to the standard mounting spots. The rear fairing however was more of a hustle, since I had to manufacture mounts.
The glass fibre half-enclosure front fairing was bought and painted. The mounts were manufactured from standard aluminium profiles and fit quite well into the overall picture (3D-printed parts would not have fitted the scene and ones made of steel tubes e.g. seemed a bit to profane) (Image 4) (TO BE CONTINUED….. (october 2020))
