[bopperoo]

Caught my first ever desmoservice this morning and wanted to share the experience—partially for me to digest it all, partially for your feedback but mainly 'cause it was a whole lotta fun.

The service was on someone else's S2R 800, and to sum up, everything was well in spec. No adjustments needed. Would've been nice to adjust a valve, but I'm happy all the same Have loads more confidence going into my own service soon, that's for sure. Best of all there were some Ducati master techs there this morning—pearls & pearls & pearls of wisdom gained!! (Did I mention it was fun?)

Here are some things that stood out to me, the sort of stuff you appreciate even more from experience, after learning about the desmoservice from YouTube, forums, etc.:

Valves:

• The closing rocker arm doesn't move much when you press it! At least not for this bike. I was caught off guard: didn't feel like anything had moved, and it was only with the feeler gauges that I could tell something had actually changed.
• The closing shim is tough to spin, much more than the opening which basically twirls on the stem. It was nice to get a feel for that resistance; any tougher, I guess we would've had to sand the shim down?

Belts:

• Learned to loosen the cam pulleys when installing belts. I think there were a couple of reasons for this, but I don't remember them. (May help to slip the belts on?) Maybe someone could help?

Thanks for tuning in. Would be great to hear your first desmo experiences too.

 

[ericfreeman]

I took a pair of hemostats and used a torch to put a 90 degree bend on the tips. Then applied adhesive heat shrink tubing to cover the serrated tips to protect the valve stem when clamped. Does a good job of holding the valve up when changing shims. This is the 4 valve had on S4RS Tricolore.

Eric

 

[bopperoo]

I took a pair of hemostats and used a torch to put a 90 degree bend on the tips. Then applied adhesive heat shrink tubing to cover the serrated tips to protect the valve stem when clamped. Does a good job of holding the valve up when changing shims. This is the 4 valve had on S4RS Tricolore.

Eric

Cool. I may piggyback off this myself. At that point now thinking through the finer points to an adjustment, details like keeping the valves up, etc. (At least regards that, there are the pistons at TDC—see Brad Black's videos, e.g.)

Appreciate the care you put into protecting parts! I'll admit I need more of that A work in progress for sure.