to quote CB,
So when I got home I did my old trick of running the 906 down the drive. However, we live on a pretty steep hill and what goes down must come up - which was a problem when I got to the bottom and she still hadn't fired


I gotta say , CB my heart sank when I saw your plan to use the hill , the ultimate confidence. The likelyhood of the bike starting is inversly proportional to the steepness and lenght of the hill. been there, done that , got the hernia

Yeah, McT it was a dumb idea

Just a quick update: fairings are on, just have mirrors/flashers to go. Have returned excenter to original position and have centre stand off to lengthen.

CB

So I lengthened the centre stand legs, repaired the grooved holder for the chain pad and made a new longer pad. I lengthened the legs 22mm by making some inserts out of 25mm mild steel round bar. I turned a 20mm long spiggot at each end. The diameter for the spiggots is 20.25mm but you will need to grind off the seam from the inside of the leg once cut.



You can see that I did one leg at a time so I had the foot to work off to keep it square. I bored the inside of the insert to 17mm. I tapped the foot back on with the insert in place and used the mig to weld it before cutting the other side. Below is the stand lengthened with welds ground off.



I check fitted it and found the leg still hit the chain so ground 2mm off the inside for some clearance. I bronzed up the damaged groove for the chain pad and gave it a coat of paint.



As suspected, the chain does not contact the pad with me sitting on it and clears it by about 15 - 20mm. I intended to lengthen the side stand next but the hex on the retaining bolt is rounded off so it will have to wait until after it is legal.

CB

With the stand back on I finished assembling and refitting the mirrors/flashers, and fitted the number plate etc. Unfortunately today's weather was wet and cold and I wasn't tempted to test ride it under those conditions. I did however wheel it out of the shed between showers for some photos so you can see for yourselves how the Paso looks with a pair of Dunlops fitted.









My 906 is booked in for a WoF on Thursday afternoon (yes, I know, April Fool's Day), but I'm sure I will get to ride it after work one day before then.

Cheers, CB

It was dry when I got home tonight, so I took the 906 on my usual test circuit to a local watering hole and back

When I reached the end of my drive I once again encountered that reluctance to turn at slow speed. Coupled with a torquey motor eager to go I am coming to realise I will need to have my wits about me when manoeuvring at slow speed. However, once under way she performed flawlessly. I consciously 'reverse-steered' it into the bends and she immediately responded by laying over and taking the turns with ease. The tyres felt grippy both front and rear and the further I rode the more confident I felt. I tried a couple of 'panic stops' and there was no hint of rear lock-up. Even some hard downshifts failed to disturb the grip of that 180. I did 36kms over my usual 'once round the block' trip and cruised at up to 120kms/hr on the straight bits.

Both the Sprint and the GPZ would leave it for dead but the 906 wins hands down when it comes to 'grin factor'

And all the time the exhaust reminds you that you are riding a Ducati ....

Cheers, CB

Beautiful bike & those tires look really OK!

Thanks CB, seeing those latest pics of your 906 proves to me that the original look of the bike has been preserved, that original look is certainly lost in the 17" conversions that i have seen, and your preliminary findings on your test ride have convinced me that i should follow your path.
Yes there are a few machining job's to do but it's a small price to pay in my view for the new lease of life for the bike that fresh rubber will provide and it will still look like a Paso, as to the untrained eye it looks stock.
I would normally run to my work shop to start but i am loading the car & trailer for the family Easter break to our home in the Dordogne; land of table top roads, no speed cameras, no police that can be bothered to stop you and plenty of sun = bikers heaven, will contend with riding my Morini out there until i get back and start on the Paso for the CB Mod. I will of course let you know how i get on in due course.
Thanks for the informative posts CB and i wish you many happy miles of riding on your machine. Cheers jon

Wonder if this tire combo could pass TÜV?
Gerhard?

Thanks Jon. I will continue to report on how the 906 behaves. Big milestone will be tomorrow when I hope to make it through the WoF test and put some rego on it. Then I will be able to make some visits to friends on it and get some miles up.

Wish I was spending Easter in France!

Have fun, CB

OK, this morning I dropped my reconditioned 906 ($2,300 later!) off at the vehicle testing station to be vinned, with the Dunlop D250 on the back, and the 130/60/16 Metzler M3 Sportec on the front.

It rides like a new bike. With all new brake discs, pads and tyres, along with every fluid, seal, and bearing either replaced or lubed.

I only did 10km to the testing station, and did not thrash it. The rear tyre is *just* touching the chain - not taking chunks or anything, more like leaving very tiny wavy lines on the final 0.25mm of the rubber.

I'm vinning it now, so that further mods to the chain won't produce any legal issues getting the bike on the road. I'm confident they won't see that the chain is just touching.

Tonight I'll take it out to my engineer's in Rangiora about 25 klicks away.

CB, I printed out the entire thread and I went over it with Duane at the shop, and he reckons your mod won't work on my bike - at all, under any circumstances. That's because there's no way to move the chain 10mm outboard because it will contact the frame of the bike after about 5mm! Also, the chain guide would need to be shifted, and (as you've done) mods to the center stand would also be required. He reckons that at 10mm it'll eat a whole in your frame, and you won't notice "because it'll sound like normal chain noise."

Because of this, I am *not* just going to blindly follow the process you've used, but let my engineer check it out for himself and come up with a solution.

My chat with him last night indicates a couple of things worth discussing here. He's an engineer with over 45 years experience, and he restores motorcycles full time in his retirement. He said that it is NOT essential to have the sprockets perfectly in line, and he will refer to his tables which allow him to calculate what acceptable offsets are for this combo.

It may well be (he said) that it is possible to move the rear sprocket 2mm outboard with little or no dire consequences at all, with a simple 2mm spacer under the sprocket. That little offset would still allow the sprocket to be properly located. That's before looking at the bike of course!

He said that it is sprockets that wear (not the chain, mainly) with sprockets off set and that the difference might be a 5-10% reduction in life time at most. Given I'm going to ride less than 5,000 klicks per year, this is a sacrifice I would gladly make if it means just being able to bang another standard sprocket straight onto the when it wears down.

As to how it rides with the new (bigger) rubber, all I can say is that it does *not* feel like I have to muscle it into a corner at low speed, and that I can tell immediately that grip levels are much higher. (The old rubber was hard as a rock.)

With brand-spanking-new stainless discs and brand new pads I was treating the brakes very carefully, in order to bed them in properly, so I won't be "giving it the jandal" until the chain clears the rubber correctly.

It feels pretty damned good already though, I have to say!

I'll report back as soon as my engineer has had a chance to look at it.

Bike passed the Re-VIN test.

But, failed Warrant of Fitness due to headlight being too high. Probably due to increased height of new front wheel with 130/60 on it. ACK!

CB & Mobius , is it possible ,concidering that both bikes were bought 2nd hand ,that you have a different ( offset ) front sprockets ?The reason I ask is that after buying my paso I noticed , by the wear marks on the sprockets , that they were not alligned, needing 3mm spacer under the rear sprocket to get close ( 5mm would have been better but for reasons already mentioned by CB , I wasnt keen to move the sprocket to far off that locating centre.) , However , when I bought new chain and sprockets , for a paso , I had to remove those spacers and it all lined up perfect, and by the time I twigged to this I had already biffed the old sprocket so couldnt compare, but I reckon that there had to be a 5mm difference .Being under the impression , as I am that the paso bottom end is the same ( roughly ) as used on later model duc's , with 190 tyres ......., how do they get the required clearance ? Do they have longer output shafts , or even more ( could be handy ) offset sprockets , or do they just shove the whole donk over to the left a bit ? The sprocket on my SS appeared to be the same ( didnt measure it ) as the paso one , only fitted other way round , effectively moving the chain out 10mm .
MMMMMMMMMMMMM