Mate of mine welded my frame. Not a problem since. The official route is defo too much hassle what with waiting for a frame to arrive from Italy and everything else. It makes me wonder how many SS's are riding around out there not knowing the frame is cracked. I wouldn't have spotted mine if I hadn't stripped it down for powder coating.
Cheers Brian.

Thanks for the replies guys - I now tend to agree about the D-I-Y route.

I asked one of the Ducati tecs at our Cadwell trackdays and he basically said that if I didnt have a full dealer service history, then I was probably on a hiding to nothing.

FSH on a 14 year old bike ??? Not that likely, really.

Anyway - piccy of the crack attached - need to have a think (over winter probably) about how best to sort it.

Cheers - Frank

Interesting one Frank. All of the others including mine had the crack on the other side of the frame and had the latter mountings for the locking clasp.
I had a fantastic response from Iain Rhodes at Ducati UK and my SL at the time was 7 years old and he did not ask for any service history. I just took it along to JHP, where John took a picture and three weeks latter I had a new frame deliverd to the door. I think as a result of one of your replys to my original post. Give a go and who knows.
Cheers Allan R

being aware of the cracked frame issue on the ss i have generally checked mine out now and then, after reading this thread I though it would be a good time to check again !!!!!!!!
No cracks in stress points but a crack in the steering stop next to the weld, So to repair this do I remove the stem to save heat getting in to the headstock bearings

I wonder if this is mileage related because, so far, i've not got (or seen) and cracks but i'm always looking. Normally the cracks go around the weld or stem out from the rivet on the frame number plate towards the weld. This is different from all the others i've seen but you can see it's hairlining to the other side.

Hope you get it sorted Frank. I've got some other pics of the same problem. Do you want me to post them up?

Or is it because you've been doing too many wheelies with heavy landings? :D

I know when I was looking at getting a superlight a few years back I was told by a few people that the theory was that the cracking was due to wheelies.....

Ozz, that's interesting because I rarely wheelie my superlight where as I used to wheelie the 996 a bit. The previous owner was an old bloke (and didn't look the wheelie type) who didn't use the bike for years so maybe it's true.

Be interesting to know if 600's suffer with cracked frames as much as the bigger engined SS's. Must be doing quite well to get one of those to wheelie - but I could be wrong!

My 900 frame cracked at around 5 years and 35000 miles.
It was more of a hair-line mark in the paint on the top tube about 2 inches from the headstock, which I noticed after a good thrash back from Donington one evening.
The previous owner may have done the odd wheelie in the first 5000 miles, but it has not done one since.
I must confess to having done the odd stoppie or two, which does bend the rear shock lower mounting bolt and probably causes a fair bit of stress around the headstock area.

At 13 years old and 50,000 miles I treat it more gently these days, - heading to the Island tomorrow night for a few days to catch the Senior Manx GP, and maybe a steady?? lap or two of the Mountain course.

Steve

Cheers Guys,

Zig - I've never wheelied my 900 ever! About two inches of airtime over the mountain at Cadwell is the only time the front gets light with me on board.

Seems mine is a bit of an unusual failure so, I might persue it a bit more in case its something DUK might want to know about.

Red-Duc;
Crack near the steerer stop could just be paint cracking (hopefully) - Might be an idea to repack the lower bearing after any repair is done if you go down that route - might be an idea to ask you repairer?
I remember seeing it can be done with the bike intact and simply earthing the frame (Skidlids post? DD frame repair)

Good luck all - Frank