748 cush drive bushes.
 

A mate of mine has a 2001 748E.The bike has done 6000 miles.Just recently he has noticed a lot of play on the rear sprocket.I had a quick look at it yesterday and it looks like the cush drive and carrier bushes are knackered.Is this normal?
I can only remember doing something with my 916 but that had done at least double the mileage.Has he just been unlucky or is there something to look out for?We thought that maybe the carrier nut had'nt been torqued up enough.
So how much are the bushes and is there something we can do to make them last a bit longer in the future?
I did mention to him,he could maybe fit a Renthal or STM sprocket carrier,but the price put him off.

If he's owned it from new, then my guess would be he's been unlucky. If it's secnid hand, then who knows...

I don't think the cost the earth. I'd just replace them. The sprocket carriers don't make the cush drives last longer. They only hold them in place better once they fail in which case you need to change them anyhow.

The guy that had the bike before did about 3k miles,....most of them on trackdays.......so gawd knows!
Thanks for the info.

Keefy,

It sounds like he's got the dreaded sprocket-flange wear ... the same problem I had.

If he has a standard sprocket flange, then it uses a circlip to hold a spacer and washers in place, to keep everything in line. The only problem is that the circlip groove wears and so you get free play in it. The next thing that happens is that your sprocket flange starts to grind down against the hub.

Changing to a new sprocket carrier won't fix this - you need a whole new sprocket flange using the new design that eliminates the circlip retainer with one big spacer.

The bad news is that these cost about 95 quid for the sprocket flange and another 7 quid for the spacer from Ducati. The good news is that you can sometimes get them from breakers for around 30-40 quid delivered ... I paid 35 quid inc p&p for mine.

The best way to ensure you get the right part is to ask for the sprocket flange and spacer from a 998 as these all had the revised spacer rather than the circlip.

Checkout my thread as this has all the pics and details in it:
http://ducatisportingclub.com/contro...d.php?tid=6972

I would suspect it's just normal wear and tear on the cush drive bushes, especially if the bike has been used hard on the track for 3000 miles!

You could replace the stock cush drive bushes with titanium and urethane ones. Seemingly last forever and also prevent the bushes "backing out". Downside is they're V expensive and I don't know of anywhere in the UK that stocks them (somebody probably will tho!) but they're easy to get shipped from the US. Expect to pay something like $275/£150 a set. Stock cush drives are approx £50 a set.

Hope that's of some use!

Neil

Cheers guys,some good info there!
I'll give the 'ol boy the good(?) news.