I agree with Flattop, one more feather of experience for your cap. In the category of similar but not the same. My buddy was going to tig weld some aluminum for me with his beautiful Miller Syncrowave 250. Couldn't get it to work. Turned on, everything seemed fine, just wouldn't weld. Checking all over hours of work. Finally another friend goes to the ground cable at the machine, seemed tight till you gave it a good yank. Loose ground! I went home and was thinking about how crappy my mig welder was working. Guess what? Loose ground cable, again where is seemed tight! Sometimes the obvious escapes us. In your case, not so obvious. Glad to hear you found success! Now everyone, go check your ground cables. Lou

Well, it was running fine by the end of September, and I was chomping at the bit. Then the rains set in Oct 3rd and it was really wet (almost everyone was packing up by 2 PM) at The Ridge in WA, and then the track day scheduled for Oct 10th at Portland was cancelled because of rain. This bike does not like being ridden with trepidation on slow, decreasing-radius, down-hill turns —- in the rain (Turn 13 at The Ridge) --- or at least I don't like doing it. A few changes: trimmed the windscreen some and it looks more like the late versions; replaced the more-correct front fender (just too close to the tire even after I jacked it up) with one I had used on my F1 (as were the forks) for a very short while; went to the ST2 alternator (see TT2 technical section about this); and, replaced the ST3 oil lines going to the cam caps with SS/rubber/braided versions using --- yes, the dreaded hose clamps! But at least it is directly from the cool top of the oil cooler to the cams now. During all the alternator swapping and testing I also went to the larger two-wire "Shindig" regulator and replaced the small Supermono version that was well hidden under the frame; I no longer think that was the charging problem, but the wiring certainly is more accessible now, if a bit ugly. May swap back to the small one. I am just looking forward to next year now. MikeV













Well, no matter what I do I cannot make the two photos upright. They look fine till I post them. I know Microsoft is at war with Apple, and loves screwing around with my mail between the two, but this is silly. Maybe the guys in OZ can see these correctly?

Perfectly, at last pictures the right way up,,,,,,

Went through MS Edge and got the bike upright. Added a couple of photos. Is spring here yet? MikeV

She looks great Mike! What a bike! I'm sure you can't wait for the nicer weather. Hope you haven't been near any of the fires I read about. Good to see the Forum starting to move again. I have off next week so I will post some pictures. As well. Lou

Yes, you are behind on progress reports: the “Alcoa”; the DM Pantah frame; the Moretti frame; and, who knows what else. Waiting breathlessly —- MikeV

No one noticed the special edition (very rare) DUCATI Astro van. Or the little white dog.

Mike that’s a really nice bike. Marco could be tempted back to Daytona!! Boucher.

To race Gene Church on Lucifer’s Hammer?

Why do you keep that little fella behind bars?
Nice Astro van, too bad gm stopped making them!
What’s the other c class?
Nice job on the tt1 Mike it deserves to have a go at Daytona!!
Paul

Just some follow-up here. The bike runs OK, but every time I come back from a track day there is a laundry list of things to do.

Latest is that I have found the frame bracket for the front of the trailing brake rod is not beefy enough to take the torque of actual braking --- it bends the bracket badly, once only mildly, and now severely. You can see the bracket right above the swingarm pin. I have straightened it somewhat, but found that I can drop everything to below the swingarm, and with a bracket to the engine get by the rest of the year. I will deal with this again next winter --- maybe. It will require some welding to correct this. So much for trying to keep it original looking.



And, no matter how I assembled the QR calipers and brackets it was not "quite" right for 300mm rotors, even though the brackets are marked 300mm. There are many combinations of doing this. I even stood on my head once. Then I bolted them to a set of Forcella Italia forks on the TT2 with 280mm rotors, and they were easily and quickly perfect in every way! So I will save them for another project and use the very nice early versions of the CNC'd 4-puck calipers of the late 80s-early 90s. They do work really well, so they will remain. Who knows, maybe Ducati did this once just before the 748 4-valve early Superbike took over factory racing duties.





MikeV