MM MECC ANICA

Chill out, it’s just a motorcycle; my 2000 Ducati 748, aka Daniele, my Italian Mistress, who’s namesake comes from my wife’s middle name, who is Italian. She’s a beautiful, dangerous, finicky, and often broken down, 25 year old Italian from Bologna? Ya follow?

As of late I’ve been trying new things and not starting 15 projects at the same time. Well, this has been going better, but far from where I need to be. While my main squeeze the 701 (aka the Austrian Mistress) is fully torn down to the frame waiting on some parts (post coming soon on that), I had a moment of weakness and started getting the the Ducati naked to start sizing up the scale of the engine swap.

Because the new ‘temporary’… muahahahah…. 748cc engine for the bike is a 1999, there are some minor changes between it and the factory 2000 engine. Most appear to be cosmetic in the castings, but I plan on inspecting and swapping all the sensors and fittings over to make sure it is compatible with the installed computer and layout. A 25 year old motorcycle computer is scarily archaic compared to what we are dealing with today, and well, we are talking about Italian vehicles produced in the late 90s… …information exists, but isn’t always what it seems… It was the time where bikes were getting their first step into the future with electronics… and who knows how many cigarette breaks and vino at lunch happened on those days this bike was hand built… put a couple of owners between the factory floor and me… I think you get what I’m saying.

What you’ll see in these photos may not make sense to anyone but the people who have torn a project apart only to ask themselves on reassembly; WHERE THE FUCK DOES THAT GO. HOW WAS THAT WIRE TUCKED????? So here we are.

You’ll see that this bike is mostly era specific carbon fiber replacement panels. A good portion are Ducati Performance from the accessories catalog back in the day and some high end carbon suppliers where those weren’t found by a previous owner. I’ve tracked down some additional 25 year old carbon and cleaned it up in a previous post (HERE).

Anyway… back to the stripping and some closeups for the memory banks.

A cluster fuck of a corner of the garage, but beauty in all those trellised frames. The 701 is in the foreground fully torn down to the frame. More than a few projects showing face here…

Walk through video and stills for reference.

Under seat harnesses and connectors for tail lights, computer and relays.

Airbox, fuel lines and fuel pump connector. Oh and more carbon.

Airbox removed.