The Paso Project - Page 5

Nov 5, 2006


This project just seems to be moving at a snail's pace, but it is still moving along. I started on the valve adjustments and was not surprised to find that every valve clearance was out of spec, and that I'd have to remove every shim and either sand it or replace it. To try to save some money and time in the long run, and knowing I could use it on the ST2, I bought a 2V shim kit manufactured by EMSDUC.







A minor setback to doing the valves on this Pantah engine is that to remove a shim, you have to pull off the left side cam cover, pull the rocker shaft, and remove the opening rocker and washers to be able to get at the shims. Despite the parts manual showing a configuration like my ST2 with a clip that is removed and then the rocker slid over on the shaft to access the shims, this engine was assembled with the older style rockers. Since I was going to have all the valve covers and two cam covers removed, I wanted to buy new gaskets. My local dealer told me he didn't have them and couldn't get them, so I contacted ProItalia in California ( www.proitalia.com. ) who told me that they had 20 of each or so in stock, and the valve gaskets were superceeded a couple of times, which are actually the same as the newer 2V engines. Unfortunately, I had to place a claim with UPS, as they arrived badly mangled. The packaging looked like it was used as a base in a forklift baseball game.





Doing the valves wasn't too difficult, but it was a bit time consuming. I've done the valves on my ST2 and 748 and helped a buddy with his 998 (testastretta engine), so I knew what to expect. I would tinker with it for 30 minutes here, three hours there, and it didn't seem to take too long...I guess, but I'm sure Vicki would tell you a different story. One of the valves was a PITA as the measurements never seemed to match up comparing the gap clearance measurements and the shim thickness measurements on a closing shim. The shim wasn't seating correctly with the half-rings on the valve stem, but after about eight attempts of pulling the cam cover, rocker shaft, rocker, and all the shims out to swap the shim or take a measurement, I finally got it. Within a few days had all the shims in the engine within factory specs. Unfortunately, as I was installing the last valve assembly in the head, something caught my eye. I grabbed the light and had my fear confirmed......a valve guide seal had been previously mangled with a screwdriver....but not by me, of course. I don't know why I didn't notice this before, but I now decided that if I had to replace one valve guide seal, I was going to do the job correctly and replace all four of them.





I figured I'd attack the easy to reach head, first....the vertical head, until I figured out a trick to changing out the seals. To even get to this, I had to pull the belt off the cam, remove the cam cover, pull the opener rocker shaft, pull out the opener rocker and associated washers, remove the opening shim, rotate the cam, push the closer rocker down, pull out the half rings (with the help of a magnet) and the closing shim, pull the closer rocker shaft, and remove the closing rocker and associated washers. Now, I could simply pop off the old seal and put the new one one, right?.....Nope.....The old seal came off very easily, but the new one was a total b!+ch to get on. I tried to just use my fingers, then a screwdriver with care taken to not rip it, I oiled the internal lip on the seal, I heated the seal with a hairdryer to make it more pliable, but the only thing that made it a little easier was to turn the seal inside out, slide it down the valve stem, and flip the seal back over onto the valve guide and *hope* that it caught on the lip of the guide. Here's a picture of a valve with a new seal in place.





The largest issue seemed to be with lining up all of the rocker thrust washers (shims) while trying to fight the closing rocker's pre-loaded spring. I didn't have the fancy Ducati tool for installing the closing rockers, so I fought with them. The verticle head was fairly easy and straight-forward, but the horizontal head was a pain in the butt. On the exhaust side, I'd finally gotten the rocker lined up in about an hour after fighting the four...yes...FOUR thrust washers on the one side. With the dryness of the rocker shaft and the loading of the spring, I was lightly tapping the shaft into the head while trying to line up the two other thrust washers on the other side. I thought I had them lined up correctly, when I started getting a different resistance and decided to pull the shaft back out a little bit. Turns out, the really thin washer had shift on me, and the shaft acted like a punch and took out a section of the washer. I took the whole assembly back apart and ended up having to order another shim....and, not surprisingly, the bike sat untouched for over two weeks.





Eventually, after a few days and more hours than I care to admit, all four seals were replaced and the heads were completely reassembled. I then inspected and cleaned all the timing belt tensioner bearings and pullies, removed grease/dirt/grime from the belt regions, and installed some new timing belts.





Now.....I know you aren't thinking that out of all of this, the only thing to go wrong was that I noticed a chewed up valve guide seal and screwed up a thrust washer, right? You can't expect to believe that I didn't *discover* anything else wrong with the bike, right?.....Of course I noticed something else wrong with the bike! While I was laying on the floor and working on the horizontal exhaust valve adjustment, I spotted that the left, front brake caliper was missing a mounting bolt. I first thought I'd just buy a new one and replace it, but then I quickly remembered that there is nothing *missing* from this bike without a reason. So, I reluctantly reached up behind the caliper and felt where the bolt would go. Naturally, I discovered that the mounting lug on the fork leg was broken!





So, I'm debating on welding the lug, grinding it down, and redrilling and tapping it, but....I figure with the cost of a good tap, even if I can get it welded for free, it'll probably run me about the cost of a used fork leg slider, so now I'm casually searching for a fork leg, but I may just weld it up and make due, as I think a complete fork upgrade may be in the works later on . Of course, looking over the forks, I discovered something else, too, yeppers, the fork dust covers are cracked and missing sections, so I can just imagine what kind of shape the seals are in. Whether I was wanting to rebuild the forks or not, it looks like I probably will at least clean them out, replace seals and dust covers, and change the fluid....





So, next, it looks like I will do the electrical wiring upgrade of installing a couple of relays as described on www.forums.ducatipaso.org, and then I'll just have to run some fuel line and I can see if she'll fire up and run. I wonder when I'll get around to doing that .







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