So, we were on our way back to Perth.....with a house warming surprise of being thoroughly boonted up the bum by the real estate agent, vendor and council with our lil' 10 acre lifestyle/orchard property. Amongst other things a supposed active lease on the 5 acre orchard proved to be non-existent and, unable to maintain it from NZ, we were forced by the governing horticulture body to destroy it. So we arrived to 4500 apple trees ripped up and pushed into huge wind-rows, and paddocks that looked like the Somme after World War 1.
For the previous vendors to build a new house to replace the existing cottage in a special horticultural area (protecting food production = no in-fill housing) they agreed with council to demolish the original cottage on completion. Fair enough....but the council failed to capture this in records (checked during due diligence) and nor did the vendor's declare as is required in the sale contract. It was only discovered when we requested plans from the council once we arrived and a hand-written note came to light. So instead of looking at an asset we were looking at a (large) bill waiting to happen. Let loose the dogs (lawyers) of war....
Don't get me wrong the location/property is the best of both world's, being a quiet slice of country on the edge of a city, but for a long while there it was an absolute battle, a case of just staring down at your boots and willing them to keep inching forward.
With a missus at breaking point, a literal mountain of work/apple trees in front of us and battling the council, the poor ol' bikes were banished to a corner of a dusty packing shed for the next 12 months or so.
But one day, after re-wiring the decrepit power and lighting in an old coolroom, I found myself looking around at what would make a great workshop, I mean, there wasn't going to be any fruit was there?! So I transferred all my bits and bobs, rolled the bikes in (apologising profusely), wiped a bit of dust off the 851.....and just sort of kept going:
Now while the bike had pretty much sat untouched for a year or so, I'd still been keeping an eye out like a magpie looking for anything shiny: nightshift may be detrimental to your circadian rhythms but it can be positively devastating to your bank balance with a bit of free time and the extremities of the internet to explore. Hence in the pic above you'll see the frame propped up on some cool old Gio.Ca.Moto rearsets from back in the day, replacing the fugly folding rubber "touring" pegs.
Why are they so cool? At one stage I was struggling to find a supplier for new Pistal piston gudgeon circlips. I had a couple of kind offers for clips that were very close but not quite right, but in the end I approached Pistal direct, and they were fan-bloody-tastic. The Technical and Sales Manager in Italy said it wasn't worth the paperwork to process an order and sent them free of charge, didn't even charge me postage! And who was that guy? Giorgio Casolaris, the man behind Gio.Ca.Moto.
I was stoked to find these: the early 851 rearsets are fitted to long frame hangers where the later 851/888 hanger's are much shorter. The latter are easy to find but getting your mitts on the earlier type is like trying to find a black cat in a coal mine.
Then some low-km Corsa crank cases turned up from Holland, one of the most elusive parts of the puzzle. Not only are they substantially stronger than the pavlova-spec OEM cases but importantly Ducati were using their racing experience to improve the oiling. These were the first version of cases to incorporate what is known throughout Ducati-land as "the red bolt", a hollow bolt and oil gallery to squirt oil under the pistons. So you don't mistake it for an ordinary bolt they paint it bright red.
But what about con-rods? I was a lil' poopy that I couldn't use the Ti rods (20mm pin) from the 748R with the Pistal pistons (21mm pin), but at least one of the gods must like Ducati's (past experience would tell me most of 'em don't!) because Mark Sutton at Ducshop in the 'States (Mark is one of the go to guys for building fast/strong Ducati's) saw on a forum I was struggling to find these clips and rings for the pistons. He couldn't get the clips but kindly sourced the rings. And, liking the sound of the project, he was also very kind in offering a set of top o' the woz H-beam Pankl Ti rods, resized, ready to fit, at a very good price. Top quality parts are never going to be a bargain but he could have got a lot more listing them on Ebay, so I can't recommend him highly enough:
Interesting (and financially disappointing) factoid: Pankl Ti rod bolts are going to set you back about $150USD each....and are only good for 3 x torque cycles. Sigh....
But look at 'em! I really didn't want to hide them inside an engine and couldn't resist fondling them in a most unseemly manner:
