<-=- Club Bevel Heaven -=->

All good here. Nothing to worry about! Just the primary gear came loose
Torqued back to spec and buttoned up. Back to running and back to business!

Vince wrote:Bloody hell, my brothers bike has similar, it turned out to be a bit of broken magnet snagging the alternator so don't totally expect the worse.

I hope it's that simple.
This bike hasn't run probably since the 70s, so there may be all kinds of weird thing. It was nice hearing it run while it did.

Well, that was short lived.

Got the tank on and a few things squared away for a test ride. Pop into gear and head up the driveway. Suddenly dies mid acceleration. Kick it and its giving me a good bit more resistance. Feels like a soft seize.
Drain the oil, smells like gas. Yay.
Kick it over with ...

I'm happy to report it's purring like a kitten now!

I went through timing again and noticed the vertical cylinder was firing when the horizontal should be. Their instructions and labeling are backwards!! (Sachse ignition.) Swapped the 2 wires at the ignition module and retarded the timing about 2 ...

Here are the instructions that accompany the unit. They're not exactly clear or the best english, if anyone can interpret it different from how I mentioned I timed the bike:
https://www.elektronik-sachse.de/ZDG3/start/iheader.php?page=4&ver=3.2&typ=Ducati%20860%20Beveldrive%20(Ducati%20Elettronica ...

Lumpy wrote:At the risk of stating the obvious, the TDC you speak of is compression stroke. Not exhaust stroke. Hey it's been done before.......

This ignition doesn't specify but that's always what I time things to. The ol' finger over the spark plug hole to feel which stroke.

For those who plan on doing this ignition, here's how my setup ended up looking. It's not too bad. I'm going to go back and swap some wires out so gauge is consistent. Had to use what was laying around. I'll add a metal bracket on that rear support instead of a zip tie as well. It's rock steady, for ...

I certainly admire your tenacity Blaine.hale. Most would have given it away by now. Kicking back always spells ignition timing issues to me. I have never dealt with a petrol motor with suss cam timing so not sure how they'd react. Never seen a carb cause kick back either but maybe if it's sucking ...

New ignition installed and timed. Timing was pretty easy on it.

STILL no crank. Same characteristics as with the stock ignition. Gotta wrest my ankle again from the kick back.

Work in progress. Hopefully I'll finish up this week. Have to reroute a lot of the custom loom of Motogadget stuff I made. I think I'll move the coils in closer to each other and mount the ignition control unit on top of them. The thought was to mount between them but that won't fit.
For those ...

What kind of puller are y'all using to get the flywheel off? Been at it all day trying to get an 860 flywheel off to no avail. Soon as I get the flywheel off, I can move full steam ahead with the new electronic ignition.

Thanks fellas. I tend to put a lot of miles on my bikes. I ordered the new unit and some Dynatek coils. Coils have arrived and the ignition is on it's way from england.
I'll do another post with install photos and instructions, since they seem to be a bit sparse on the internet.

wdietz186 wrote:Glad you saw the light, even if it had decided to run for you it wouldn't have for very long.

Just how bad are those stock ignitions?

I think I may relent to buying the aftermarket ignition and coils for now. I'm too anxious to get this long project on the road. If it fixes the issue, great. If it doesn't I can always sell the ignition and know my problem lies elsewhere.

That red cable thing is weird. I'll have to go check on my ...

Wish I could say that were the case. There's 4 configurations you can have with those wires. <snip>
Blaine, FWIW:

If you have the original cabling, you shouldn't need to be doing this. One of the two 3-wire cables should be red . It goes to the transducer that sparks the BACK pot.

Really? Hmmm ...