Jerome's SS Updated
By Anthony van Someren - 27 Jan 12
The Ducati SS is a great machine to base a modern retro build on, with a lightweight frame, a proven air-cooled engine (with carbs) that has only been radically changed in the last 5 years or so, all resting on fairly decent suspension - leaving the builder to focus on style and upgrades, rather than chucking chassis parts away and trying to replace them with something that will fit.
M/C Deluxe's Barry and Spirit's Tim both have Silver 900 SS FEs which they've suddenly gone all gooey over, refusing to mod either of them in any way (wimps), but fortunately for the benefit of us meddlers, Jerome has provided Tim & Kev with an SS for them to play with properly, and he's not afraid to get the hacksaw out. Good man!
Here's where they're at, from Tim & Kev at Spirit:
IT'S POWDERCOAT TIME
This exhaust isn’t designed to fit the bike so it has been a case of doing what we can with what we’ve got but it’s looking good.
So, now it’s ready to be stripped down, send the frame off for powder coat and then rebuild..
We pushed on with Jerome’s Ducati yesterday, we cut off the excess ready to take it to Lee for frame mods.
Tom in action..
It’s looking better already.
Previousy...
Jerome dropped by to lend a hand with his SS today, he’s supplied the Vonzetti seat unit and wants us to chop the rear subframe and change the exhaust routing.
The link pipes and end cans are actually for a Monster, they would normally sit on top of each other. Jerome got them off of the net for buttons so we’re working with what we’ve got, they’re going to have to be altered to get them to fit but we should be able to do it without too much trouble. We were looking at using a 750 SS’ link pipe to give us twin exhausts but the original pipes are not budging - single pipe it is!
We are going to cut away some of the rear subframe to tidy things up but we want to put a piece of bracing back in to ensure that it’s not only solid, but looks ‘right’ too. the tape shows the piece that’s going and the spanner is doing a sterling job of taking on the role of being, err, a bit of frame..
We also looked at S2 and S7, the Reg and Ronnie of triples. We need a paddock stand for each bike but that’s not as easy as picking one from eBay. The frame is asymmetric, there’s a shaft drive on one side, a round frame tube on the other and nowhere to attach bobbins full stop. We’ve decided to ‘doctor’ our Oxford stands. We’re going to lengthen the vertical tubes to get the necessary height, weld a bobbin to one side of the frame, use a hook to catch that and provide a solid starting lift point and have a cup on the other to lift and sit under the flat bottomed shaft.
Still reading? Don’t worry, I’ll post pics at some point.
More from Tim & Kev on their blog at Spirit of the Seventies
This exhaust isn’t designed to fit the bike so it has been a case of doing what we can with what we’ve got but it’s looking good.
So, now it’s ready to be stripped down, send the frame off for powder coat and then rebuild..
We pushed on with Jerome’s Ducati yesterday, we cut off the excess ready to take it to Lee for frame mods.
Tom in action..
It’s looking better already.
Jerome dropped by to lend a hand with his SS today, he’s supplied the Vonzetti seat unit and wants us to chop the rear subframe and change the exhaust routing.
The link pipes and end cans are actually for a Monster, they would normally sit on top of each other. Jerome got them off of the net for buttons so we’re working with what we’ve got, they’re going to have to be altered to get them to fit but we should be able to do it without too much trouble. We were looking at using a 750 SS’ link pipe to give us twin exhausts but the original pipes are not budging - single pipe it is!
We are going to cut away some of the rear subframe to tidy things up but we want to put a piece of bracing back in to ensure that it’s not only solid, but looks ‘right’ too. the tape shows the piece that’s going and the spanner is doing a sterling job of taking on the role of being, err, a bit of frame..
We also looked at S2 and S7, the Reg and Ronnie of triples. We need a paddock stand for each bike but that’s not as easy as picking one from eBay. The frame is asymmetric, there’s a shaft drive on one side, a round frame tube on the other and nowhere to attach bobbins full stop. We’ve decided to ‘doctor’ our Oxford stands. We’re going to lengthen the vertical tubes to get the necessary height, weld a bobbin to one side of the frame, use a hook to catch that and provide a solid starting lift point and have a cup on the other to lift and sit under the flat bottomed shaft.
Still reading? Don’t worry, I’ll post pics at some point.
More from Tim & Kev on their blog at Spirit of the Seventies