nope still in bits....(dam pixies never come when you want them to !!!)


so the side rocker pin covers have 5 bolts in them ..

i guess that would mean no O ring then????? confused ....just a little

Just reading with interest again... If this here hole is supposed to be sealed with an O ring and or free to pass oil. Is the oil on its way up under pressure or down flowing back?

If up, and blocked isn't that NOT good....?

The 5 bolt rocker pin covers indicate you have a "proper" E model. Ducati spread the use of the ST4 and S4 head mods probably to reduce the production costs. some E's use the old design heads.
Anyway, the parts manuals show you have the right base gasket, ie no o-ring, however that shallow recess in the crankcase looks like the older style using the o-ring seal............
Could be a parts bin confusion.??????
Also, at some point the head gasket design was changed and this made it thinner. To retain the squish dimension the base gasket was thickened up.
I guess what i'm trying to convey is that i'd try and use the earlier base gasket with an o-ring in place, but you must ensure the base gasket remains the same thickness as your current one......................if you went down that route.
Alternatively, you could try and fit a thin o-ring below the base gasket you have now. Using sealant won't give a sufficient seal to the recess in the crankcase IMO.
That oil way is a return from the heads back to the sump, so it's low pressure. It will be hot though and that's why the oil will, if it gets half a chance, escape over the back of your crancases. It being blocked by sealant won't help whatsoever though.
If it were me, i'd go for the solution of using your existing gasket, with not too much sealant in that area and try and get a thin o-ring in there, under the gasket. The sealing face of the cylinder should be flat? If you need any help or maybe a suitable ring, mail me and i'll measure the ones up off the older engines and try and select a suitable one to use. It wouldn't need to be much more than 1mm section i'd have guessed.

Hope that made some sense...................i'm confused anyhow
:puzzled:

Well done Nelly, I think this is very commendable of you. I know his Lordship has rang you from spain asking for advice when he had a problem, and you took the time out to help him, also the same with Old Yella. Keep up the good work Neil, it will pay BIG dividends in the end.

Nathanhu, you really should have cleaned all that crap off the block before starting that job!!!!!!!!!

Blocking up the hole might be one way of solving the oil supply to the cams problem!

hi Nelly,
todays progress report :puzzled:

ive cleaned up all the gasket faces and the gasket itself .
iv noticed that there is no recess machined into the engine cases for an O ring , and on the mating face of the barrel there is no further oil way drilled upto the head , so i can only assume that the gasket sealant actually covers the drilling to seal the oilway ( the oil return from the cylinder head is down the rear of the head either side of the exhaust manifold and then into the crankcase)
got some Loctite 5920 rtv sealant today , should do the trick ?


thanks for all the help Nelly, i thought it would be more fun to do this on the forum , maybe it will give others a little insite into what goes on inside the motor and we can all learn a little.....lol

normaly i fix Landrovers and Hgvs so this is something new and interesting for me

Good news nat. That slight circular machining is where the o-ring sits on the earlier engines. Blocking off the oil way in the cylinder casting is an easy fix!!!!
The hole in the crankcase could still be open to an oil way though, so as it's not needed, i'd make sure there's "enough" sealant around there to make sure no oil gets out ;)
The Loctite sounds like it'll do the trick............RTV is the key. I use Threebond (Ducati use it in production).
It just doesn't need to go hard/brittle over time............

Best of luck finishing the job off :)