Adjust DQS?

Not the electronic part, the lever itself?

I looked in the manual because the way I have adjusted the shifter on ever other bike I have ever owned, doesn't seem to work here.

Used to be you held the straight bar with a 10 or 12mm wrench and loosened the lock nuts on each end, then spin the shaft to raise or lower the shift lever and once you have it where you want it, retighten the lock nuts on each end.

Simple.

On this bike, there is a nut on one end to loosen. I loosened it, and can't spin the shaft. It has a 12mm cut on the bottom end to fit a wrench, but it's one solid piece into the DQS switch and it doesn't spin in either direction.

The only way I can see to adjust it is to remove the rearset to get to the bolt that secures the bottom end of the shifter shaft to the shift lever, and once that is off, spin it, which is hardly optimal as it will be trial and error to get it where I want it, removing the rearset each time.

Even Italian engineers can't have been that stupid designing this, could they? LOL

I looked in the manual and it was no help.

So I went and loosened the lock nut on the bottom. I was able to finally get the insane amount of loctite to break free on the main shaft.

Here is the problem. The way things normally are, you spin that shaft and it lowers the shift lever when you go one direction, raises it in the other. The reason is that one end is reverse threaded. So spinning the center shaft, either loosens and lengthens on both ends, or tightens and shortens on both ends.

This shift rod, both ends are the same thread direction. So giving that shaft 10 clicks, which would normally adjust the lever by like half an inch, now does NOTHING.

The reason is that while it is lengthening on one end, its shortening on the other, by an equal amount. As both ends are secured to other parts on the bike, there is no way to adjust the lever on this bike without removing the damned rearset.

This has to be one of the most stupid designs I have ever seen, and this my 8th Duc, so I have seen quite a few...

his is like designing brake and clutch levers that require removing the wind screen and clipons to adjust the length of pull. It's asinine.

If I am missing something, please, point me in the right direction...

I'm going to assume the DQS linkage is the same for 899 as 959. I've have observed the same type of problem and disassembled further to see what was up and there does seem to be a weird design choice that doesn't match how other shift linkages work.

the DQS unit with its integrated rod end is threaded into the link arm with right hand thread. It's got threadlocker in there but it does come out. On the opposing end of the link arm a rod end is threaded into it with right hand thread as well! So even if you loosen the both lock nuts turing the link arm does nothing.

I've had to adjust shifter position the same way you mentioned. Remove the bolt securing the lower rod end, adjust it then re fasten.

I always just detach the slave cylinder so I can get to the screw that holds that on the shaft going into the transmission, then undo the lock nut, then turn the whole shaft, being careful not to put strain on the quickshift wire. Didn't seem too hard.

I was able to get it finally, but it took over half an hour. I had to remove the rearset to get to the bolt to remove the bottom end of the shift linkage to the shift lever. Removing the rearset, still didn't give enough clearance to spin that shaft because the shift lever kept getting caught up on things. So that too had to come off.

And of course that bolt holding the lever to the shift linkage had so much locktite that I stripped the hex head of the bolt trying to remove it. Had to take a torx bit one size larger than the stripped hex head, and pound it in with a hammer, and then I was able to remove it.

Serious question... This can't be the way it was designed, right?

I mean, had they reversed the thread on one end, this would be a 90 second adjustment without having to remove rearsets and levers and clutch slave cylinders, etc...

If they reverse threaded one end of the shaft link, all you would have to do is loosen the lock nut, and spin that aluminum shaft in either direction with your fingers to get the lever where you wanted, and then tighten that locking nut. Done.

I suspect that that is how it was supposed to be, but someone messed up on the specs and nobody caught it.

Thoughts?

Tried doing it the way I described? It is a hell of a lot easier than doing what you did.

mtb said:

Tried doing it the way I described? It is a hell of a lot easier than doing what you did.

Click to expand...

I didn't want to have to trace the wires up and disconnect it, plus, that armature is a pain to get on and off of the countershaft even with the slave cylinder removed... It barely has enough room in there...

I still think that whoever supplies the parts for Ducati, messed up at the machining stage. The manual describes it how you think it should work, should one end of the shaft be reverse threaded. It's how pretty much every shift linkage on every bike works for the past few decades, including almost every Ducati made in that time.

There is zero benefit to doing it with both ends threaded the same way. If that was the intended design, why even thread the top end? Why not have it be a solid billet shaft with the one end threaded, and use your method or remove the rearset and screw the bottom end in or out to adjust?

The fact that the manual describes it the way you would expect, that can only work if they reversed threaded one of the ends, leads me to believe that someone actually screwed up here, most likely their supplier...

Maybe we should let Ducati know of this issue?

SquireSCA said:

I didn't want to have to trace the wires up and disconnect it, plus, that armature is a pain to get on and off of the countershaft even with the slave cylinder removed... It barely has enough room in there...

Click to expand...

The wire doesn't go up far before you get to the plug. May have to cut a couple of zipties though. You don't remove the armature, you detach the shaft from the armature. It is very easy to do.

Maybe we should let Ducati know of this issue?

Click to expand...

You can, but since they have left it that way for the entirety of the 1199/899/1299/959 production run, I doubt they don't already know, and probably would have already fixed it if they were planning to.

mtb said:

The wire doesn't go up far before you get to the plug. May have to cut a couple of zipties though. You don't remove the armature, you detach the shaft from the armature. It is very easy to do.







You can, but since they have left it that way for the entirety of the 1199/899/1299/959 production run, I doubt they don't already know, and probably would have already fixed it if they were planning to.

Click to expand...

Well, there was so much loctite on the screw that holds the linkage to the countershaft armature, that it too stripped. I went for a mountain ride yesterday and got it where I wanted the day prior, despite half an hour of cursing at it... haha

Interesting. Mine had loctite on it too, but not that much. I have a bunch of allen sockets that allow me to use a good bit of force without stripping stuff too.

It would help if Ducati made things out of something other than swiss cheese.

mtb said:

Interesting. Mine had loctite on it too, but not that much. I have a bunch of allen sockets that allow me to use a good bit of force without stripping stuff too.

It would help if Ducati made things out of something other than swiss cheese.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I used a t handle and it stripped it. They use way too much lecture on stuff...

I too struggled with this thing, I removed the rear set and the shift lever, then the Allen Bolt holding the banjo ...and screwed it in all the way it still was not right so I put the locknut in the lathe and cut it down by 50%, reassemble the thing and now finally its better for me.

By shortening the lever brings the shifter closer to my boot.