Abstract
This hard to find and expensive bike is sought after by collectors and racers for its place in the waning hours of Ducati’s older approach to manufacturing. This was a hand built bike, using carburetors and an air/oil-cooled motor. While also making 90 horsepower stock, this was a very fast motorcycle that represents the peak of classic internal combustion for the company. I wanted one ever since reading Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Song of the Sausage Creature” where he describes being loaned this same type of bike, and those few rides being his apotheosis of all the dangerous contradictions and unique fun of motorcycling.
I had been led astray by my experience building a Honda CT70 from parts, assuming this was the easier and cheaper way to buy a motorcycle while making sure it is mechanically sound and gaining mechanical knowledge along the way. If not for some lucky coincidences, this wouldn’t have been the case, this build taught me a lot about restoration and making in general, and it took almost two years to complete.
Fabrication
I started by purchasing a frame, these are often in rough shape and I would take time repainting it while saving up for more parts. To continue with this model of finding cosmetic work and taking care of it first, I next bought the faring panels, these had fiberglass laminations that had to be reset with epoxy and repainted. After completing this step I found someone selling a completely rebuilt motor for a 900ss, when I picked it up, he offered to sell me the other remaining major components for the bike: wheels, gas tank, another frame matched to the motor, and front forks. While this was a huge step forward, this wasn’t everything. I still had to source small components that a second time bike builder doesn’t even consider, a clutch throw-out rod, ignition coils, evaporation components. This was going to be an extremely nice bike when complete, it was the limited edition sport production model, with carbon fiber components and a larger upgraded engine and brakes, it was one of 700 made that year and one of less than 3000 across all model years iirc.
After a while I had the bike assembled, less the front wheel, and began working on trying to start it. In the process I had serious problems, and ended up rebuilding the carbs three times before it would run without flooding the engine with gas. I then had put myself in an annoying situation where the bike was too heavy to lift but didn’t have a front wheel. Thus I had to make a cantilever and jack system to sneak underneath the now 300lb bike and try to lift it enough to install the front wheel and put down the kickstand. I lived alone at the time so this was a very scary process, I had no help if I started dropping the bike or got stuck underneath it. Luckily, it went well, and the bike was on two wheels, standing under its own weight.
I installed the faring panels, having to modify the front faring support to accommodate the different year of faring I had sourced, finally the bike was ready to ride. I took it for a 3 mile ride to the nearest gas station and once it got there it wouldn’t restart. Super fun. Again, since I was alone, and didn’t have AAA, this meant I walked the bike all the way home. When I got home I took apart the alternator stator to discover that the two coil wires had been frayed and twisted together as one, and although a basic lesson, it was a good reminder on how induction works that the engine rebuilder unfortunately needed.
Conclusions
Since solving that problem the bike has been problem free. After three years of ownership and limited use, I sold the bike, luckily making my money back and a small profit for all the work invested in it. Unfortunately, the initial allure of the HST piece turned out to be the undoing of my relationship with the bike. It is a small awkward shape, faster than death itself, and only a smooth ride when going way too fast. It was a bad influence, and once out of the isolation of Zoom courses in college, with a full time job, I never felt that I had the acuity at the end of a hard day to fight the bike doing what it wanted regardless of what happened to me.
