Speedcell install and fuel line re-route

[Bill in OKC]

Dunno what to say.  It appears that the clip is deformed from pulling it off, and thus doesn't fully lock down.

Doesn't matter anyway, the thought of a fire under my ass at speed isn't something I ever want to have to wonder about.

After searching on ducati.ms for awhile, and seeing a few pics of burned hunks of metal/plastic/carbon that used to be ducati's, it's clear that plastic isn't an ideal solution for a fuel line connection.  Thus, I will remidy ducati's shortcomings with something I don't have to worry about  

Colin Edwards knows what a fire under his ass is like at speed - there is a pic floating around here somewhere of his Aprilia Cube after it sprung a leak...  He immediately bailed and the bike kept going for a while until it crashed and burned.  The skid along the asphalt ate a hole in the seat of his leathers - yikes - I don't think you have time to stop and get off gracefully without getting 3rd degree burns in areas that should never be burned.

I'll be interested to know how you solve this problem.  Ducati needs to offer a "DP" version of their fuel connectors for the street.  Maybe I'll get new oem hose connectors on order and replace them every so often until a suitable upgrade is found.

[TAftonomos]

Yeah, burning my junk is not my idea of a good motorcycle ride. 

First step will be to pull the assembly off the tank, take some measurements, and see (possibly) if I could tap the existing piece on there for a metal QD.  If not, welding it up and tapping will certainly work.  This will all but eliminate a fuel leak from happening in the future.  The metal QD's have a positive lock/unlock to them, not this plastic crap that might crack after it gets old that the bike came with.

Granted, it's my screwing with the fuel line reroute on this particularly tightly packaged bike that has lead to this trouble.  But I'm not going back to the origional routing, and I'm not going to cobble together some brass 90's or swivel fittings to make it work with those plastic plugs.

[Bill in OKC]

I would like to do this too but (don't tell anyone) I never learned how to weld.  Hmmm  Is that metal sturdy enough to be tapped?  I'll be looking for a spare fuel pump on ebay to experiment with after reading about your gas leak along with seeing a slight amount of fuel leaking past the seal on my bike even though my clips seem to be holding so far. 

[TAftonomos]

Not sure, I'll have to pull it apart first and see how thick it is.  Worse case I can weld a bung to the plate, and then screw the fitting into the bung  

[Bill in OKC]

I think I've got something working.   The hoses come around under the battery on the left side, then they make an "S" so that they head to the right side and then double back to connect to the fuel pump from the same direction as stock.  It is cleaner than it sounds - and it doesn't put a lot of stress on the disconnects when the tank is raised and lowered.  I have one of the hoses in the channel that the crank breather hose used to use, but I think I could have put them both under the battery (instead of just one).  Sorry for the crappy pics. 




In the last pic you can see the relocated overflow tank zip tied behind the head stock.