[Clippy]

This sounds familiar…

I had this happen to no less than 12 oil pressure switches on my ’99 748BP in the course of 18 months/12,000 miles.

The first sign that something was wrong was usually the oil pressure warning light coming on. This induced a mild level of panic the first time it happened, but I was reliably informed that if the engine really had that little oil pressure it would have already eaten itself by the time the light came on…great!

At this point the switch would still hold oil, but if you then revved the bike hard it would start to seep between the metal housing and plastic switch.

This happened to me just outside Tours in 2000, and I nursed the bike all the way home by not exceeding 6,000rpm all the way home. At these revs it was not pushing any oil out through the switch. As a point of interest, you can get 180 miles out of a tank of petrol at a steady 6,000 rpm and not need to stop for over 2 hours – this was the only time that happened!!!

On another occasion the whole process happened in one go, resulting in a pint of oil sprayed over the back wheel. It’s a real shame I was tucked in and nailing it down the start/finish straight at Donington at the time, as my braking point became the start of a slow motion trip into the gravel… On the bright side I was unhurt, and Ducati paid for the switch, engine casing and new fairing under warranty!

Eventually On Yer Bike replaced the OE part with a switch they sourced from Pro Drive, the Subaru rally car specialists, and I never had another problem until I sold the bike – but that was only 1,000 miles later!

Now I’ve had 3 years of Aprilia Mille reliability I’ve leapt back into the Ducati fold, but perhaps I ought to take a spare oil pressure switch with me to Le Mans next week…?!?!