So where's my bloody airbox then? It's been 2 months and still no show. I spoke to the seller and he was very kind to offer a refund, so I was relieved not to be out a few hundy but it did mean more chicken-scratching around the 'net trying to find another one.....
While that was playing out I'd also been looking at front end options as the Marzocchi RWU forks weren't inspiring confidence, and were not an easy fix. It all came down to the NZ rules for the "pre-89" class, where you could only use USD forks if they were the original fitment on the bike before 31 Dec '89. There was a faint ray of expensive hope in that the Sport Production models were fitted with super sexy (for the time) Ohlins FG9050 USD forks, but they really were/are unicorn material, super rare to see them advertised and priced accordingly.
Then I found a lil' gem of information online:
"With Ducati Corse now at full ‘attack mode’ in the World Superbike Championship (SBK) in 1989, the 851 Strada received a major update with 17 inch Brembo wheels, although losing its superb Brembo floating discs. In 1990 the Strada received a dual seat a Showa front fork and Ohlins rear suspension."
You lil' beauty! The Showa fork they are referring to is a basic USD fork fitted to a few bikes including 900SS and such like that is much more affordable and easily up-spec'd with modern cartridges...and if it was available for the 1990 year it would have been physically produced and available for sale towards the end of 1989. That'll do me. So some relatively cheap Showa forks were sourced and my friendly Ohlins tech (great bloke, very helpful both in the workshop and track-side) came to the party with a quality alternative to Ohlins cartridges without the Ohlins price tag. While he was at it he rebuilt and fitted modern valving and a hydraulic preload adjuster to the OEM Ohlins shock.
Showa's, note the looooong fork bottoms typical of the early USD forks:
So I hunt down a set of 900SS triples like this, which should bolt straight in:
Too easy!
Except this is what actually arrives:
GAAAAH! But it's soon sorted with just a bit of time lost.
The front guard is a totally different mounting with this set up and it makes for a good excuse to bin (not quite, but it definitely went out of sight) the ugly original unit and replace it with an aluminium one......
No, of course it's carbon:
After turning up an alloy spacer to replace the redundant speedo drive:
...the front end is pretty much sorted. Jeez, that only took a year or so, with 7/8ths of the bike remaining I should be done in.......about 2025. (insert heavy sigh here....)
