Higgy,

Perfect sense Fill it with oil, run. Repeat. If it don't seize - all's good

So I guess it can't be that senstive (and I suppose I knew that). It just bugs me that they bothered to make stickers for no real signficant reason.

Then and again - I've seen companies waste more money on less important things!

Cheers for the input and photos,

Mick

I have a 907. All my mechanics and the shop that rebuilt my engine says oil level between the marks. Below is from the 907 manual.



The o-rings between the head and cylinder is another problem. My engine re-builder says the oil passages and water passages there are not very high pressure passages. The trick is to get the head tighten down evenly all around. I myself have tried to stop the leaks there 5 times. I have taken it to 3 shops and they couldn't get it stopped. I then tried over-sized o-rings and that didn't work either. However, on the engine rebuild with the engine out of the frame and tighten down evenly on a work bench, it has pretty much stopped leaking there. Next time you or the shop tries again, try removing the bolts from the cylinder to the frame and then tighten the head bolts. Then, put the frame bolts back. Also, with the engine in the frame, it's hard to get the proper torque on the head nuts with the frame getting in the way so then it becomes a matter of multiplying the torque wrench settings depending on the torque wrench angle, thus the problem with getting the head torqued evenly all around.
du907

The 2 oil level lines have nothing to do with the engine being hot or cold, and has also nothing to do with measuring oil levels on the side stand or whatever.

The decal with the upper oil mark at the bottom was used for a while by Ducati on several models because they had problems with oil staying too cold, effecting engine performance and durability. They tried to solve this by lowering the oil level, thereby speeding up the temperature rise of the oil
However, and this goes especially for bikes with one or more oil coolers, once the bike started to run, the amount of oil in the lines and the coolers was enough to drop the engine oil level to a dangerous level, creating even worse durability issues as you can imagine.
Because of this the decal was dropped again and they returned to the original top oil level. Off course by than plenty of bikes still had them (and even now still do), and manuals were wrong as well because of that.
The solution is to remove the decal and top up to top level, which is almost the top of the sight glass.

I got this information from people that worked for the Dutch Ducati importer in the early nineties, that happened to have office in the same building as the bike shop where I worked at the time (same owner). I've always relied on their input and have never seen issues due to the top level fill, apart from bikes getting oil/condensation sludge on the sight glass at moderate ambient temperatures.

[quote
One more twist,found another tag in the driveway which must have come off the 906. It shows a completely different oil level inidication quote]

Mmmm an oil level sticker lying on the drive way...... that could have been handy the time I forgot to refit the sump plug before tipping the oil in , so friggin concerntrating on not spilling the oil ( no funnel ) that I didnt notice it all pooling round me boots, Yeah !! and there's another effin thing,this would never happen with cheap oil.........yeah nearly the whole 4 litres

Okay I gotta say it as I am itching too.

I can't do as I suggest as my 907ie is in bits and I don't want to waste the oil, as both engines are drained.

Would the best answer not be for those with a running 750/906 or 907ie, to on their next oil change, refill with exactly the correct amount of oil as specified and then to register exactly where the level sits in relation to the sight glass?

Also with this in mind log what oil grade you are using as obviously if you are regularly using your bike in -3C UK winter time then you would maybe choose something slightly differnet to that if you were regularly cruising Daytona Beach +whateverC?

Infact you could just drop the oil out and refill and then know for certain where it lies on your own bike?

Irrespective of what you can see I always go by what the manufacture would suggest and usaually used the site glass just to see how much condensation was in the engine as normally that's all you could see????? And if it needed filling which is normally after a hard or fast blast then it was just a cupful at most any more and I would be looking for a leak or suspect burning waste with smoke.