Members Bike - Stu's 1982 Ducati MHR 900

[jbird]

hmmmmm, not sure. love the colour, dont like side panels as they hide the left carb, but it is very nice to see the block, instead of a fairing.

[Stu_MHR]

Hi there

Just popped in for an update…

The MHR has been officially on the road with an MOT and tax disc since July, but has done maybe 50 miles since as it was running so badly. I thought it was the ignition and put lots of effort into that, but no significant change. Finally discovered last weekend that the jerk who rebuilt my carbs for me and “set them up for Contis” had stuffed main jets in that were about the same size as Paul Smart’s Imola winner… replacing them with the originals (about 4 sizes smaller) has got it feeling a lot closer to right… enough to be able to work out what else is wrong… taking out the richer needles he also put in will no doubt improve the mid range!

Oh and the sidecovers were standard on the 82, by the way, jbird. I might have thought of losing them, but the seat is different from the early one and doesn't look quite right without them.

In the meantime I took it to show on the DOC stand at Beaulieu (in a van!) and spent the weekend there. Came home on the Sunday with a Darmah in the van as well. Bought as a non runner for a smidge over a grand, it’s in pretty good, largely original nick, and turns out it’s the earliest known Darmah on the Bevelheaven database (Frame number 900117). 31 years old and just under 18000 miles on the clock!

Ripping the front head off after identifying that as the reason the engine would turn over, I found both valve heads floating round the cylinder… not too much of a mess, considering, and it should be back together with a new seat and two new valves soon. The rest of it’s pretty good… I’ve rebuilt the brakes and ignition wiring while I’m waiting for the heads to come back and found it some new footrests… and she’s about ready to go back together.

So that’s the last nine months or so… and I almost have both bevels running. Whose got another project for me?!

Stu

[final_edition]

Chris Bushell from the DSC knows of a '81 GTV that needs doing. Selling for 500 notes.
Here is his write-up

For me it is the same old story, I got a call at the begining of September from one of my friends, saying that a mate of a mate of his (who has a liking for early 70s 750/4 Honda's) had actually acquired a pair of Ducati's as a part of a job lot, would I be interested?

Now it turns out the guy lives about 30 minutes from me near Paddock Wood, so it has to be worth a pop over whilst the girlfriend is away on a course.

Anyway they were away and I was busy, so it was a couple of weeks before I got over there. There were a number of surprises, including the fact that they have a 6 acre garden and it is all imaculate and they do it all themselves!

Finally we go to the sheds at the bottom of the garden, you get in the car to do that!

It turns out that yes there are a pair of Ducati's in there and they are not in bad condition. They are 500cc parallel twins, both are full Desmo, rather than the earlier valve spring GTV model. That is to say they have been dry stored for probably at least 10 years, one of the engines is completely dis-assembled and the engine is out of the other one on the floor in one big lump.

We have taken to describing them as the red one and the white one (nothing to do with the Mayor of Bridgewaters daughter, for all of you rugby players). We have decided that we (that is my son and I) are going to restore the red one, which is a 77 500 Desmo Sport because it looks like a Darmah styling wise, it has an interestingly short wheel base and there aren't many of them about. Finally it appears to have a low enough seat height for Elizabeth to be able to ride it.

The white one is a later model, we think a GTV from about 81. We thought about doing both and have decided not to bother with this one. In part to appease the grilfriend!

Now I could break it and put it on e-bay or I thought I could offer it to the membership and see if someone else fancies doing something a bit different over the winter months.

I need to reduce the size of the photos that I have before I can post them on there, but can e-mail them round to anyone who is interested.

I am looking at a complete bike, that will need working on, but that shouldn't be that difficult to acheive. We now have all of the manuals and have located the places that we can get the parts that we need from.

If you are interested drop me a PM and i will send over some photos.

Chris