The 888 dismantle and engine strip

Well I have to apologise to Stu, he dropped round for a bit of a photo shoot and ended up with a late night dismantling an 888. Louigi Moto had said that if I could get the motor over on Saturday Chris and I could strip it down for assessment. Not wanting to miss an opportunity Stu was press ganged.
On the whole the good news is that it all came apart except for the front axle that I didn't have the big allen key for. The bad side is that just about every nut and bolt seemed to come from the random size box of bolts so it was two different spanners for every ruddy job. I guess this should have forewarned me of what was to come. Still, working in glimmer of a single 60W lamp and pizza at the end of the tunnel the job was completed and the engine popped in the van for a date with Papa Louigi.

Arriving at Louigi Moto and opening the van in the light of day immediately revealed to eyes of the trained technician the presence of clear RTV Silicone (Room Temperature Vulcanising silicone, you know the bathroom stuff) oozing from base gaskets and engine covers. From the photos and video that Paul had sent me this was not obvious at all and the bike did run, I hadn't done anything to the bike for a week waiting for Stu to have a nose first. So this was a surprise and not a good start. 
OK so lets start to strip this thing, cleaning silicone is a sod but if it needs to be done so be it. Now you know that moment when the tradesman comes around and sucks in though his teeth? Yes, well we had a few of those as Chris battered, in a considered way, the barrels off and the casings apart.
So here we go a few of the choice bits. You're supposed to have lateral play at either the big end of the con rod or at the small end at the piston. Not both or none at all, we had the none at all version. Someone has tried to add some clearance to one of the con rods by hand in a ham fisted way with a grinder, bottom line though, not correct. The base gaskets, several of them, had been glued in with RTV and presumably stacked to set the squish height at the head.

That would be all very well if it had the right pistons. (Yes it goes on) These were ones that Chris and Rich call "High Comp-Low Comp". They are for a 748R converted to 853 with 748R cams. As such they don't actually have high compression as the valve pockets when used here are so deep you effectively add volume to the combustion chamber. (Keeping up?) So if anyone wants some Pistal pistons for an 853 conversion let me know.

The crank was an older 851/907 one and not balanced, the one with about 16 splines so difficult for any upgrades to some modern parts (that's modern in early Ninety's Ducati terms, which isn't very). So combine that with an older gearbox we'd like to replace with a newer one with better selectors but we couldn't as there are subtle internal differences to the cases that negated this and a general lack of part compatibility, I'm starting to get that bottom lip quiver, this ain't looking good. Throughout Chris kept saying, to reassure me I think, don't worry we're just thinking out loud (as we slate your motor, yeah great).

Every cloud has a silver lining and this is where I finally start to get a better vibe about the whole project as Rich and Chris start throwing ideas at each other. Now this is where mere mortals like me fail to grip everything but I get the gist and like the gist of it. Rich takes on a whole new persona as his eyes light up, it's a challenge but we can do this. So he and Chris start planning what appears to be a whole new motor, pistons from here, rods from there, balance this and fit that. Con rods from 1098's and 748's start joining the crank of a 900SSie and the cases as well, 916 pistons, 996SPS casings, Christ where does he get all this stuff? Once the final parts list of the hybrid is confirmed I'll let you all know, I feel it's going to be good.
One final note if you think the following photo is good practice take your bike to Louigi Moto before you kill yourself.