My oil change came with a prize!

[Ddan]

Depending on your budged, a cordless impact with a 1/4 hex drive absolutely rocks.

DeWalt makes a nice one, but I'm partial to Bosch.  It hits harder

LINK

Those are great, but for really frozen ones the hammer on the end of the manual driver really helps

[Monsterlover]

Not the best for breaking small stuck fasteners loose IMO...I always strip them out with one of those.

Stick with the old tried and true hand impact.

You're doing something wrong then.  Correct driver for the fastener?

They're designed for this sort of thing.

I don't even own a hammer driven impact.  I've taken apart whole bikes with mine.  Except for engine, swing arm and axle bolts/nuts, it won't do those.

[MonsterHPD]

Hello.
Beeing totally new to this forum, I'd first like to say hello to everybody, glad to be here.

I joined after a friend and fellow member of the swedish Ducati club and Monster owner pointed me this way due to some drain plug findings that looked pretty much similiar to what I found when draining the oil a few weeks back (see picture).



The shim remains (?) were stuck to the magnetic plug, and some alu grain (as opposed to shavings) was also in the oil.
First reaction was " what the f...k...", I then got a beer out of the fridge and decided to forget about it for a while 

I was then sorely tempted to forget all about it, put new oil in and run it maybe 50 to 100 km and drain the oil again to see what it might look like.
Beeing a bit squemish, I decided against this option and decided to pull the side covers .... nothing, clean as a spring morning. Same with the screen, barely a trace of anything in it. So what about forgetting about it all ...

Well, this is what my garage looks like now...



The motor is all in pieces on my workbench, and I've found .... nothing missing. So far, I've not been able to establish where the shrapnel came from
All the bearings in the Duc engine use plastic ball / roller cages, so I don't think any of the bearings could be the source. Maybe some professional Ducati mechanic could identify what seems to be a shim about 0.2 mm thick and maybe about 20 - 22 mm iD?

Pulling the engine apart is no big deal really, except for the crank primary gear which (if you're lucky) will come off with a 2-claw puller, usually though you need to use a big hammer as well. Since ball bearings don't like that sort of mistreatment, new main bearings is almost a natural when splitting the cases.

Putting everything back together again should also not be a big deal, but you need to pay attention to shimming all the shafts for correct axial play. I'll be trying that experience soon....

So, as things stand now I could just as well have just ignored the junk in the oil, ran it for a while, and changed oil again to check and decide later (always a tempting option ...).
I'll put the engine back together to the best of my knowledge, as it seems without identifying the junk, and hoping for the best. Same as if I'd just stuck to changing the oil, really ...

   

[ducpainter]

You're doing something wrong then.  Correct driver for the fastener?

They're designed for this sort of thing.

I don't even own a hammer driven impact.  I've taken apart whole bikes with mine.  Except for engine, swing arm and axle bolts/nuts, it won't do those.

I never had occasion to use one when I was twisting wrenches full time...they hadn't been invented.  

Take one apart that's bound up with looseness...you know corroded fasteners that have were put in dry and too tight...with an air tool and get back to me.

You go right for it with the cordless. I'll stick with hand tools.

Hello.
Beeing totally new to this forum, I'd first like to say hello to everybody, glad to be here.

I joined after a friend and fellow member of the swedish Ducati club and Monster owner pointed me this way due to some drain plug findings that looked pretty much similiar to what I found when draining the oil a few weeks back (see picture).



The shim remains (?) were stuck to the magnetic plug, and some alu grain (as opposed to shavings) was also in the oil.
First reaction was " what the f...k...", I then got a beer out of the fridge and decided to forget about it for a while 

I was then sorely tempted to forget all about it, put new oil in and run it maybe 50 to 100 km and drain the oil again to see what it might look like.
Beeing a bit squemish, I decided against this option and decided to pull the side covers .... nothing, clean as a spring morning. Same with the screen, barely a trace of anything in it. So what about forgetting about it all ...

Well, this is what my garage looks like now...



The motor is all in pieces on my workbench, and I've found .... nothing missing. So far, I've not been able to establish where the shrapnel came from
All the bearings in the Duc engine use plastic ball / roller cages, so I don't think any of the bearings could be the source. Maybe some professional Ducati mechanic could identify what seems to be a shim about 0.2 mm thick and maybe about 20 - 22 mm iD?

Pulling the engine apart is no big deal really, except for the crank primary gear which (if you're lucky) will come off with a 2-claw puller, usually though you need to use a big hammer as well. Since ball bearings don't like that sort of mistreatment, new main bearings is almost a natural when splitting the cases.

Putting everything back together again should also not be a big deal, but you need to pay attention to shimming all the shafts for correct axial play. I'll be trying that experience soon....

So, as things stand now I could just as well have just ignored the junk in the oil, ran it for a while, and changed oil again to check and decide later (always a tempting option ...).
I'll put the engine back together to the best of my knowledge, as it seems without identifying the junk, and hoping for the best. Same as if I'd just stuck to changing the oil, really ...

   

Is it possible there were more than one crank shims per side and things just appear right?

[Monsterlover]

I never had occasion to use one when I was twisting wrenches full time...they hadn't been invented.   

Take one apart that's bound up with looseness...you know corroded fasteners that have were put in dry and too tight...with an air tool and get back to me.

You go right for it with the cordless. I'll stick with hand tools.

Done it

[battlecry]

"Is it possible there were more than one crank shims per side and things just appear right?"

But what could have stripped the shim off then?   Maybe if the shim splits for some reason the rotating crank could spit it off.  It's a puzzler.

[Monsterlover]

These shims...

Pretty much precision thickness washers?

[ducpainter]

These shims...

Pretty much precision thickness washers?

yup...

to pre-load the crank, and shim end play on the trans shafts

[Monsterlover]

Is it standard practice to use multiple shims over replacing the whole stack with one shim of the correct thickness?

[ducpainter]

Is it standard practice to use multiple shims over replacing the whole stack with one shim of the correct thickness?

Think so.

I know on swing arms there are only limited shim sizes and you combi them up to get the number you want.

I'm assuming all the other shimming is done the same.

[Monsterlover]

I would agree but engines are more critical than swingarms.

I guess.

[ducpainter]

I would agree but engines are more critical than swingarms.

I guess.

I guess they could figure out all the possible combinations based on tolerances and have shims made.

We are talking Ducati here you realize.

[Speeddog]

~SNIP~
Maybe some professional Ducati mechanic could identify what seems to be a shim about 0.2 mm thick and maybe about 20 - 22 mm iD?
~SNIP~

That's most likely going to be from one of the transmission shafts, but that is pretty thin.....

It'll probably become clear when you're checking endplay on the shafts, as to which one it escaped from.

Which Monster is that, by the way?

Is it standard practice to use multiple shims over replacing the whole stack with one shim of the correct thickness?

Pretty much.

MonsterHPD's situation is why it's better to *not* use a stack of thin shims, if you can.

0.2mm is very thin, only 0.008", and that's the danger.

On the crank, for example, there are shims starting at 1.95mm thick, going to 2.55mm, in steps of 0.05mm.

[MonsterHPD]

"Is it possible there were more than one crank shims per side and things just appear right?"

But what could have stripped the shim off then?   Maybe if the shim splits for some reason the rotating crank could spit it off.  It's a puzzler.

The newer engines (don't know when it started) have just one thick washer per side on the crank and they are bigger diameter. I suppose the shim on my magnet plug is from one of the tranny shafts but would have assumed it would be a bit more obvious where it came from, especially since there as also some alu in the oil.

I can't see what made whatever shim come loose, but it is probably a good idea to use as few and as thick shims as possible whereever you can.

It's a 2002 900 with almost 50k km on it (a lot of track days) so anything Ducati would have cared to send along should have been out long ago.   

[booger]

I was looking through the LT Snyder Desmodue manual today, and came across a couple of familiar photos - one on page 9 of Alternator Cover Components, and another on page 3 or Engine Lubrication. In those particular instances, the pieces of shim/thrust washer came from the starter gear/flywheel assembly. Worth a look.