Rainy weekend

Pissing down again, so thought I would change the chain on the Ducati and while I'm at it its the only bike in the garage without fresh oil in the forks.

The chain for reference has 102 pins and is a 530 pitch,  fitted with a quick change link, so it took me about 5 mins to thread the new one onto the old one and pull it through. A quick fiddle with the link and then adjust it to the appropriate tension. The rear axle move in a good centimeter so the old one was really knackered. 

Changing the fork oil was not really any more difficult, although goodness knows what size the allen key is for the fork caps. I had to use a smaller size and stick some thin sheet metal in to build it out. They weren't too tight fortunately.  The Ducati forks have drain plugs! After propping the bike up under the engine with some wooden blocks,  I released the drain plugs and let out approx. 230 ccs of grubby 10 sae fork oil, which was replaced with some Motul racing fork oil. Difficult to measure the actual fork level with the forks off the ground, so I simply added back 230 in each leg. The Ducati forks are 38mm Marzocchis, but the fork springs look like they came from oversize watch springs or maybe from a biro, they are about 20mm max outside diameter and these ones were 462mms long. I searched far and wide on the internet and in the workshop manual, but  couldn't find the free length of the springs, anyway I think a good upgrade would be some racetech emulators or different springs, anyway job done! Libby helped screw up the caps while I pushed against the springs thank goodness for helping hands.

I am going to fit 34mm carbs to the RG so I will stripping the engine to send of the top engine case to get it machined to get full benefit from the carbs. I am also getting bigger diameter rotary disks fitted which will really help it breath. Due to the extra width of the carbs I will need to go back to a standard fairing, with a seperate belly pan and side panels. I have already bought replacement bits from Poly26. The quality is ok, but I will need to get them painted up, so in the next few weeks I will need to decide on a new (or not) colour scheme. Suggestions are welcome! I have already got the carbs - second hand so I took them apart to make sure they were clean and ready to use. They are fitted with 240 mains and 25 pilots, probably a good starting point.They look new inside, but I will need to think about if I can use the standard thottle cables and choke mechanisms or not.

I am getting the engine work done by a guy in Nantes who seems to have a good bit of experience let's hope so!