Ducati Monster Forum

Hey, Guys!
I already had a 796 '13 and recently bought a S2R 1000 '06, to join the fleet. For my surprise, I saw cracks on both sides of the trellis frame, where the chassis forms a kind of "X".
It has only 28K km on the clock.
Have you guys ever seen this happen before?

Thats.....not good.

I recall a thread years ago talking about this, and believe it was found out that the owner was doing wheelies and probably slamming the front end down. This cracking isn’t normal on our frames unless they are abused.

Yes, makes sense....I have no idea about its past life, unfortunately...

A qualified weldor can repair it.

The motor would probably have to come out.

I'm already doing that. TIG welding, in order to not affect the properties of the tubes.

That's what I'd do. When repairing cracks, I like to drill a hole at each end before welding, but I learned that before TIG was available in the shop where I worked. We used to gas weld two stroke expansion chambers and the holes were required to keep the crack from spreading past the weld repair.  Your guy will do it his way, but if he's certified, it will last.

Caused almost universally by loose or broken motor mount bolts.
Can also happen if the bike is crashed hard enough to break the cases where the bolts go through, then ridden without that being fixed.

That part of the frame is only triangulated if the connection to the motor is solid.
If it's loose, that tiny area of the frame is subjected to a lot of bending stress, and a weld bead *right there* so it cracks.

What DP said^, it can be welded, the frame is essentially mild steel so no challenge there.
Best to be done with the motor out and a naked set of cases installed to preserve alignment.
Not always possible, so a skilled fabricator/weldor is helpful to figure out a way within your constraints.
I'd recommend someone who has TIG equipment as they're more focused on precise and fiddly work and collateral damage is relatively easy to prevent.
It can be MIG welded or OA welded but that tends to be more agricultural quality shops and collateral damage is harder to prevent.

The task of disassembling the bike is being done by a former Ducati dealer technician and the welding work will be done on a shop specialized on the choppers building, strongly recommended by some friends who know the quality of his job.
And the trick of drilling a little hole at the end of the cracks, to relieve the stress concentration avoiding the crack to proceed, it's largely used on agricultural machines, area where I work on. And it really works...
Thanks for all of your tips, Guys! Apreciated that!

Sounds like you've got the resources arranged to get it done properly.

I've seen the crack-end hole drilling used as a complete procedure, with varying success.
Sometimes just one crack and it ends at the hole.
Other times it looks like an apple tree, lots of new branches and fruit hanging everywhere.
The hole drilling may stop a catastrophic failure in the near future, but it doesn't address why the crack started in the first place.
A band-aid unless other work is done.

2-stroke expansion chambers?
If it's a good pipe it's got an active crack at all times.
Crappy pipe it will continue to work shitty and likely never crack.
If it's OEM it's likely crappy and will crack intermittently at best.
Magically you find a pipe that works well and does not crack it will burn your leg or drag in a corner.