Ohlins forks and billet calipers
Hi All
I finally found the time to re-do the front end on my bike. I got hold of a set of Ohlins FG9051s (very similar to the FG9050s fitted to the 851 and 888 SP models) and some nice Brembo billet calipers and they've been sat in the garage waiting for me to get my finger out since well before Christmas!
When I built the bike last year it had pretty much a complete 916 front end apart from the yokes, which were 900SS/851/888 with the top one machined out and the bottom one shimmed down to 53mm.
The Ohlins forks are 51mm top and 53 bottom, so I had another top yoke machined out (the standard 851 is 50mm) and used the existing shims in the bottom.
I could have used a standard front wheel, but I wanted to retain the 916 style wheel because it looks more like the Marchesini mags fitted to the Corse bikes but this posed a problem; the forks take a 20mm axle but the wheel has 25mm bearings. The answer was to get a sleeve and spacer machined up to sleeve the axle up to 25mm and to space the wheel away from the right-hand fork. Steve B (duc904red) sorted me out*, thanks Steve!
The old yokes and forks have ended up on my new Darmah project...
One of the reasons for the delay in fitting the new forks was my hunt for a set of genuine Ducati bars. Standard SP bars were fairly easy to find but I couldn't lay my hands on a set of Corse bars which are different. In the end I gave up and bought a set of generic trackday bars but literally the day they turned up a pair of NOS Corse bars turned up on eBay . Naturally I snapped them up.
With that little lot sorted I fitted the Brembo billet calipers and fully floating cast iron discs (which I need to give a damned good clean!) that I had stashed. Finishing touch is the repro mudguard from QB Carbon.
Next job will either be fitting the 996 engine or doing a 'big axle' conversion on the rear, upgrading the rear caliper at the same time.
Further down the line I'm going to re-do the wiring. I wanted to fit a P8 CPU (just to make it look 'right') but that would involve some changes to the engine, so instead I'm going to put a 16M board inside a P8 box.
That's all for now, cheers
Darren
*Due to my inability to measure anything correctly the first time, the spacer that Steve B made for my was too small (NOT Steve's fault!) and because I needed to get it sorted quickly I got a local machine shop to make a bigger one for me, Sorry Steve!
