SSR billet cam covers/bearings: a word of caution for those with older 2V's

[LowercaseJake]

 As I go through the process of parting out my deceased 900 engine, I packed up the most valuable items for a customer - my V heads. The return on those alone came close to paying for ALL incidentals related to it's rebirth/rebuild as a 750 including some nice upgrades, and in retrospect I probably sold em *too* cheap*, but anyhoo -

I'd installed billet end caps from SSR - very nice pieces and of course I'm keeping em. But the included bearings, which are good quality SKF, were the double round seal type while the bearings inside the cap I was replacing were non sealed. There's an oil passage within the stock cap which lines up with a passage in the head, that obviously lubes the unsealed bearing in the 1996 900 engine. At the time I thought nothing of replacing it with a 2RS type bearing. But when I pulled the cap I discovered the inside facing rubber seal had popped out, and apparently got ate up by my camshaft. I'm going to conjecture that the constant feed of oil directly hitting the rubber over and over and over (literally) again caused this to happen (these 2RS type bearings, whether $2 China or $12 SKF, have seals that can easily picked out with almost no effort).

Looking at an old, almost illegible parts manual for a 1995 900 Supersport clearly shows the replacement bearings to be unsealed roller bearings. My 2000 750 engine also has the oil passage in the head, but I'm guessing it doesn't actually work, likely blocked off, one of those things where Ducati wanted to use up all their castings instead of create new ones to accommodate small details. kinda like why there's drilled and tapped holes for ignition trigger studs on many 99 and up fuelie engines (which is actually very nice for those wanting to convert say a 2001 900ie to run carbs. I've even heard anecdotes of ds1000 engines having those drilled/tapped holes which I'd love to find!)

I notified SSR through eBay and it def got his attention. He seems like a good person, and I highly doubt this had anything to do with the premature death of my 900, but still...I can't imagine camshafts wanting to chew up and spit out chunks of rubber, and I can def imagine this causing bad things to happen.

Have a good one,

- j

[koko64]

Thanks for sharing this