U-Tool

[itacud]

Can anyone recommend a way of undoing cylinder nuts without having to purchase the £170 ducati U-Tool?
Or where I can get one for about £50?

[nelly]

you can use a crowfoot spanner on you wrench. Not the "perfect" way, but it does work OK.
My first tool was a spanner with a 1/2" socket welded in the center, then an allowance made on the torque setting for the extra leverage.

[itacud]

Many thanks Nelly. Have ordered some.
What sort of compensation did you give for torque using the crowsfoot spanner.

[nelly]

On the crowfoot, it's negliagble. The ones I have are 25mm from drive centre to stud/nut centre so that's 2.5%. Thats within the tolerance of 5% that Ducati specify, so I'd set the wrench exactly and tighten it up as normal.
the spanner I used to use, with the socket welded in the centre was about 100mm centre to centre so that was a different story ;)

[itacud]

Thanks Nelly, But what make of crowsfoot did you use?
I still can't manage to get the ratchet over the crowsfoot to turn the nut. Looks like I'll have to weld a bar to it...

[Shazaam!]

Here's an inexpensive clever design using a socket welded to a box-open end wrench.

http://home.san.rr.com/shazaam/CylNutWrench.jpg