Ducati Sporting Club UK > Model Specific - Discussion, Technical Problems and Help > 998 / 996 / 916 / 748 > Newbie, with question

[Iconic944ss]

Welcome and good luck....

Buy one with a TL1000 motor fitted

[rockhopper]

I was chatting to someone about that the other day. There was one on ebay a while back. Lovely reliable motor and more powerful than the Ducati although i have heard of a few cases of exploding gear boxes.

[TP]

Originally posted by Iconic944ss
Welcome and good luck....

Buy one with a TL1000 motor fitted

STONE THE BLASPHEMER!!

[beancounter]

I had a TL1000S two years ago but I didn't have it long enough for the gearbox to explode, as I wrote it off after 6 weeks and nearly myself with it.

Good motor though.

[Dukerob]

Mr C
At £4k you're not gonna get a bike with super low miles, but the rocker problem is related to poor oil feed when the engine is first started so miles could be irrelevant, its more about warm up procedure. Worse case scenario is it needs some rockers and at £100 each that can be expensive, but worse case I've seen (at Cornerspeed) was like £1000 worth, Nelly managed to aquire some SPS heads complete with perfect rockers and fitted them for about £600, so its not that bad and a performance improvement. My SPS needed 4 rockers at about 6k miles even with good warm up procedure, so just budget for it. If you buy from a dealer get a warranty and get Nelly at Cornerspeed to check the rockers while its still under warranty.
The regulator will fail (£100 odd) the neutral light switch will pack up (£20) the oil pressure switch will go (£20 off I think) the clutch will need replacing at some point (£100 odd) and other stuff will vibrate loose but its all part of the charm ! Go for it - the riding experience is worth it !!!

[NBs996]

£1024.55 to be precice Rob! But £600 notes for the replacement heads was a proper good result!
And as a result of that I'd agree with what's been said about making sure the rockers have been recently checked.

[Edited on 18-11-2004 by NBs996]

[moto748]

It's not always that bad!

My bike's only needed one rocker in nearly 40,000 miles. And no neutral or oil pressure switches either!
Pattern reg/rect's are about 75 quid.


TBH, I'd have thought that the number of bikes with a "recent rocker history" was very very small. though.
I've seen people on DSC advise: "If the rockers haven't been checked recently, walk away". Surely, if you do that, you're walking away from 99% of the bikes on the market?

[rockhopper]

From my experience then you have been one of the very lucky ones! Just pop into Nellys one day and look at the pile of dead rockers on the work bench! Mine had three at its last service (but it hasnt needed an oil pressure switch yet!!), robs had a couple, TP had about 8 i think and there have been many others. Just treat it as a consumable but as i said, budget for a few if your buying a another bike unless you are 100% certain.

[PDL]

Buy one, you will never go back to Jap ever again.

[rockhopper]

That is very true, despite the running costs! I wouldnt swap my bike.