OK OK I'm SCARED! does anyone NOT have bad rockers?

I'm about to change Isabella's oil, and I'm thinking its time to give her a thorough looking at. I'm planning to ride quite a bit in the next month or two, and I guess this is a good time to check the rockers. I've only put 900 miles on since I bought her, so I figured I'd check her out now. I'm not worried about the cost of fixing the rockers, but I dont want any collateral damage...

When I got it I changed the oil, and cleaned the hell out of it. No nasty bits in the oil, no silver powder, etc, and I thought I'd wait til the 6000 mile service to check for all the bad stuff. Rethinking it now.

Anyone?

I don't have any

2002 748S (Yes the pretty grey one with red wheels )
7K miles.
3 track days.
I ride the piss out of it.
I let it warm up.
I use Motorex oil.
Just did the 6k service at 5.8k and we pulled the cams. Not a trace of a bad rocker or follower.
Guess I am lucky.
Correct me if I am wrong here....but I read somewhere, at some point, that it takes about 90 seconds for the oil to get to our cams upon initial starting. Could good oil and proper warm up significantly reduce the friction and odds of flaking?

No bad rockers, recently checked by BCM.

Bike does lots of track days and gets ridden hard. No problems!

No bad rockers here either.....and I ride the 748 hard.

I use Red Line oil. I let the bike warm up for about 30 seconds or so, then I ride very conservativley until the temp comes up.

Bad rockers are caused by a manufacturing defect. Some rockers are destined to be bad, some are not. While I suspect that quality oil, warm-up periods, etc, might help prolong the life of an engine, they are NOT going to "Fix" a bad rocker nor will they stop a rocker from going bad.

Dave,

Use good oil, change it often, warm your bike up for a couple of minutes before you take off, have valve services done and have them adjusted towards the smaller end of the specification and ride it.

Relax. There's nothing you can do, other than the above, to insure that the rockers won't flake. If they're going to flake, they're going to flake - just keep an eye on the oil filter screen so that you can catch the problem early before damage is done to the cams. No big deal.

And if they don't flake.....go buy some lotto tickets and send them to me.

Or buy a 749/999 or 998 with a testastretta motor - those rockers don't flake - different geometry.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CuStOm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Correct me if I am wrong here....but I read somewhere, at some point, that it takes about 90 seconds for the oil to get to our cams upon initial starting. Could good oil and proper warm up significantly reduce the friction and odds of flaking?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Keith,
No you are not wrong. You did read it some where (you also surprised the hell out of the rest of us with the statement that you can read ... ) try looking back throught the Sigma pages or even reprinted in "Ducati Desmoquattro Performance Handbook" by Ian Falloon

AngryDave,

I've got a '96 748 that I ride the rings out of. At every service that I do & that gets done by my mechanic, I ask for a report on the rockers (I like to keep an eye on them) & every time I'm told that there OK.

Some tips for enhanced enjoyment of your ride:

1) Warm it up for 90 seconds
2) Ride the rings out of it
3) Keep the oil & filter fresh
4) Ride the rings out of it
5) Give it a wash occasionally
6) Ride the rings out of it

getting the idea?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CuStOm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Correct me if I am wrong here....but I read somewhere, at some point, that it takes about 90 seconds for the oil to get to our cams upon initial starting. Could good oil and proper warm up significantly reduce the friction and odds of flaking?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Keith,
No you are not wrong. You did read it some where (you also surprised the hell out of the rest of us with the statement that you can read ... ) try looking back throught the Sigma pages or even reprinted in "Ducati Desmoquattro Performance Handbook" by Ian Falloon

AngryDave,

I've got a '94 748 that I ride the rings out of. At every service that I do & that gets done by my mechanic, I ask for a report on the rockers (I like to keep an eye on them) & every time I'm told that there OK.

Some tips for enhanced enjoyment of your ride:

1) Warm it up for 90 seconds
2) Ride the rings out of it
3) Keep the oil & filter fresh
4) Ride the rings out of it
5) Give it a wash occasionally
6) Ride the rings out of it

getting the idea?

'02 748, 24,000 miles and no rocker problems so far.
Bill

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DaDukeofOz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Keith,
(you also surprised the hell out of the rest of us with the statement that you can read ... ) </TD></TR></TABLE>

HuKtOnFoNiKz WuRcD FuR Mi!

Matter-of-fact I can read so well I read your post twice....

2002 998 Bip. 8500 Miles. No bad rockers, though I haven't heard of any on the Testastretta engines. Most of my miles are hard and fast. No track days, but I bought the 998 while I lived in Italy, where you can really ride a duc(and not go to prison for doing so). I firmly believe that ducs were made to ride HARD, not sit in the living room or museum and be looked at. Reference my duc; 8500 hard miles, and not a single problem. My buddies babied and quote "never molested or abused" duc with oil blowby, and some other issues he'll be happy I didn't bring up. Ride it like it was meant to be ridden... HARD
Owning a Ducati is like having a mistress. Somewhat expensive, and made to be ridden hard.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CuStOm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Matter-of-fact I can read so well I read your post twice.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Errr ...

Yeah.

Ummm ... Dave?
How did that happen?
I'm sure I only posted once ...

Rockers are good, my insurance company is bad.

One bad rocker on '02 ST4s at 6k service. 90 second warmup is mandatory in my book-takes that long for oil to get into heads.

Yeah I'm not too worried about the actual hassle of them being bad, its just that I havent checked, and I have put a few miles on the motor, and I plan to put a few more soon. The thing is, I dont want to find out at the 6k service that theyve been bad for 3k miles and I could have prevented other damage. I warm her religiously, and I use Mobile one.
Sigma said they actually took a valve cover off, and no oil came from that head til 90 seconds

At 10K miles, I figured I'd check check clearances and pull the cams on my 00' 996 SPS (I too had only put 900 miles on it since I bought it)... I had 8 rockers total that were in diffren't stages of dispair, and had I waited till 12K (normal service interval) chances are I would have lost a cam. Also, 6 sets of half rings were busted... The horizontal belt started to split between a rib, and wore the pulleys (Thanks Section 8!) All in all, It was an accident waiting to happen.

Oh, I forgot to mention... the dealer I bought it from assured me all the maint was completed through them, and the cams were pulled at the 6K service

Oh Wait! Nevermind...You asked if anyone does NOT have bad rockers

At 16,000 miles I don't have bad rockers.

I had bad ones at 8300 miles, 3 openers, 1 closer, and I Megacycle'd them all. No more rocker problems.

hmmm
I just pulled the oil screen, and other than the usual crud, it looked like a big piece of flaked metal on it. I took a couple of pics, only one looks reasonable. I'll put em up, open to opinions. I think either way, the cams are gonna come out soon.

It had a "perf-form" filter on it. Anyone ever heard of them?

These are link to the full res versions. Any thoughts?
http://www.noale.net/dave_site...0.JPG
http://www.noale.net/dave_site...1.JPG
http://www.noale.net/dave_site...5.JPG
http://www.noale.net/dave_site...6.JPG
D

Buckelew,
you megacycled all the rockers, or all the BAD rockers?
]


Modified by angrydave at 12:08 PM 5/30/2004

Dave,

That's kinda what it looked like for me. I'll be doing an article on rockers and will be stealing one of your pictures - unless you have objections.

Luckily, popping out the cams is pretty easy - compared to the I-4 bikes. That's the surest way to tell. That's a good sized chunk of metal. It doesn't look right for a oil galley plug backing out. Could just be manufacturing swarf...but it's easiest to pull the rockers and take a look.

I had all of my rockers Megacycled - openers and closers (since I had some of each bad and more going bad). I didn't want to deal with the issue again. I've got a friend who, by 32,000 miles, replaced all of this rockers as they failed.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by angrydave &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It had a "perf-form" filter on it. Anyone ever heard of them?
</TD></TR></TABLE>
My first (self) oil change, the shop sold me a couple "Perf-forms". Both, first one, then the other, leaked oil onto my rear tire . The threads were too deep into the filter. It was only grapping 1 1/2 threads and cocking the filter ever so slightly. The shop, GP, suggested it was my fault; I was not installing them correctly (a spin-on filter, mind you). Later they admitted to a bad batch. Anyway, after that, I WON'T TOUCH THEM. OEM from now on.


Modified by infoage1 at 10:55 AM 5/30/2004