Ducati 1199S Possible Seized Engine

Afternoon,

Bike locked up the rear tire/stopped engine while riding approx. 30 mph. Weep hole on the left side let out a water bottle cap sized amount of a clear liquid when it happened.

Bike dash/lights/fuel pump come on when key is turned and starter solenoid clicks once when ignition is pressed. Checked battery/solenoid/starter motor connection with multimeter. Read as it should. Bought a brand new battery. Same symptoms. Removed spark plugs and tried rotating tire in 6th gear with no budge.

Safe to assume the engine is seized? Roughly 9,000 miles odometer.

Drain the oil and see if it’s full of metal shards. Check filter too.

Assuming wheel can roll when in neutral or with clutch pulled in? That would narrow down the issue to outside the transmission/driveline.

airjawed said:

Assuming wheel can roll when in neutral or with clutch pulled in? That would narrow down the issue to outside the transmission/driveline.

Click to expand...

Bike rolls without issue in neutral and in all gears with the clutch pulled in. Little more resistance in gear with clutch pulled in however I believe that is normal. Going to drain the oil tomorrow and will get back.

ya take pics and keep us posted dude..sorry your dealing with this man...been there though...

JAG

Drained the oil/pulled filter. Unfortunately a roughly half cup of clear liquid (water?) came out first then nothing but oil.

Drain plug had one small metal flake on magnet. No metal on oil filter but had about 8 pieces of whiteish crud. It isn’t metal and is soft/easily smushed when pressed. Not sure what this is. Oil seemed to have plenty of lubrication between two fingers. The spark plugs were not rusted but were a bit dark (likely the original ones).

More background: the engine locked up on me roughly 3-4 months ago and has been in my closed basement garage since. Always stored inside (since I owned it).

Possible a head gasket blew and caused the water to seep in? I never noticed the bikes temp gauge reach a concerning number or gradually get a hotter baseline running temp over time.

I am relatively mechanically inclined (used to do valve adjustments on my 1098 via YouTube) and have no issue checking areas you guys recommend.

Thanks for the help so far and would love to hear any thoughts/opinions.

Head gasket and water were my first thoughts from your post. Usually, oil and water run through an engine result in a milk shake like mix of oil and water. I suppose though, if given enough time they'd separate out again. If you pull the heads and valves or the combustion chamber look cleaner than the others is an indication of something amiss.

What was the coolant? If it's straight distilled water that was allowed to freeze, there could have been an expansion in the passages which cracked.

The white crud sounds like possibly the water pump drive gear?

These engines are prone to water pump gear failures as stock is plastic. Take a look at the plastic bits do the look like could be parts of the plastic gear? With the water coming first that also indicates you have coolant mixing with the oil. You'll need to pull the motor apart but do it in phases to properly diagnose the issue. Start with the right side covers and you can validate the water pump gear went bad. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions along the way. I've got two apart right now (1199 and 1299).