Big Problems

On Sunday, Illinois weather reached a balmy 42 degrees, making about a 70 degree swing from the week before. So, Scott and I decided we had to go for a ride in the beautiful January weather.

The Duc ran great for about 10 minutes, I was VERY happy with the effects of the lightened flywheel. Nice, snappy throttle response. Scott and I get to a gas station to re-fuel, shut the bike down, try to leave, no go. The starter's trying to spin but nothing will happen.

I immediately suspect the ring that had cracked off on the inside of the cover before, and we get the bike back to my garage on a trailer (luckily we were only 1 mile from my house).

Start tearing into the bike and find that not only is the flywheel reluctant to come off of the shaft, but the idler gear is stuck in place as well.

Finally, with a puller, I am able to separate the flywheel from the starter driven gear and find that one of the sprags in the starter clutch is turned 90 degrees:

That sprag turned like that was preventing the "clutch" action and was spinning the gear at the same speed as the flywheel... and motor. Because that gear was spinning it picked up some serious scarring:

Since it was spinning, the idler and starter gears were spinning too. The idler gear only spins on a pin, no bearing, so it must have gotten VERY hot from the friction, then when I shut the motor down it seized itself in place. It took some serious turns on a puller to get the idler gear to come free of the pin:

Now my motor is sitting like this while I wait for parts: 

I think there's really only two possible causes of this problem. Either the flywheel is so out of balance it broke the clutch, or the clutch got damaged/installed wrong while I had it out to lighten the flywheel. Either way, I'm going to make sure the flywheel is balanced, and a new sprag is on it's way so the problem should be resolved.

My next issue is that the idler reduction pin is stuck in the case. It has some minor marring on the end of it, which makes me want to remove and replace. However, it's really really stuck. So, I'm halfway considering just lightly sanding it until it's smooth again. Theoretically the idler gear only spins for a short while, and doesn't ever get all that hot. Still deliberating.

Keihin Carbs

The mailman made me happy yesterday, when I received my brand-new Keihin FCR 41's from Ca-Cycleworks. These bad boys are one of the final pieces I think I'll be able to justify doing to the Monster, aside from suspension upgrades.

As far as installation goes, it was mostly fine. I think for $900+ there are three things that should be included in the kit you receive:

1) New rubber flanges for the air box. The OEM ones are a pain to stretch over the FCR's, AND I had to go to the hardware store to buy longer bolts to allow the clamps to reach all the way around the carb opening.
2) A ball-end 5mm allen key. In the instructions they say you need one. I have non-ball type keys and really didn't feel like buying the ball-end just for the four small bolts you have to use it on. So I ended up grinding one of mine down and doing it that way. Motion Pro includes a hex key in their throttle tube kit. Cycleworks should either include a small, cheap key, or just install the spigots while they're jetting the carbs.
3) Better instructions with some pictures and/or a better drawing than the one that's included. The instructions in the kit did include all the steps necessary for the install, but just weren't that great. For $900+, when you're telling me I need to cut out the vertical support in the air box, I'd like a picture highlighting exactly what I should be cutting out.

Beside that, everything else was positive. The only thing that really sucks is that I CAN'T RIDE RIGHT NOW! It's 12 degrees outside today and the whole left side of my motor is torn apart.

I was real glad I had Alex there to help, I would have needed to be an Octopus if he wasn't there.

Ducati IndySS

This bike is BA. It's an Analog MC build.