!! engine hanging loose in frame !!

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kope999R

kope999R

Joined
Jan 16, 2013
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i m not the easily intimidated or discontented guy, but whilst disassembling the bike to do the engine job, it was found that the nuts holding the bolt the engine hangs on the frame with, had rattled loose from those bolts and were floating in the airbox. there is nothing holding them back from going into the engine should they get flipped upwards ...

quit scary and something to mention to you dealers i suppose...
 

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Damn, that would be scary as hell but you've had your motor torn down n built so this may have been overlooked during reassembly. This is the first I've heard of a bolt coming loose in that area. Still a good idea to double check n make sure I suppose.
 
kope999R said:
i m not the easily intimidated or discontented guy, but whilst disassembling the bike to do the engine job, it was found that the nuts holding the bolt the engine hangs on the frame with, had rattled loose from those bolts and were floating in the airbox. there is nothing holding them back from going into the engine should they get flipped upwards ...

quit scary and something to mention to you dealers i suppose...
Click to expand...

nothing to see here its a v twin remember when i posted about nuts and bolts flying off i got ridiculed. it was the soul of the bike it was a vtwin it was my fault for not checking or i should have used blue loctite on everything.

lets see how your responses go. cant wait to see.
 
Thanks for the post, Kope. To your knowledge were those bolts ever removed during the life of the bike?

Mark--Jesus Christ. Screws fall out all the time on all kinds of bikes, airplanes, autos, trains and space ships and yes, even sometimes on doors in Saturday school. When they do it's 99.99% of the time the fault of the person who last torqued (or didn't) torque down the fastener.
 
my personal bolts are torqued and have blue all over them. i had the unfortunate circumstances of loosing a few important bolts. i hope the soul doesnt unscrew the bolts or the heat loosen the blue
 
AntiHero said:
Thanks for the post, Kope. To your knowledge were those bolts ever removed during the life of the bike?

Mark--Jesus Christ. Screws fall out all the time on all kinds of bikes, airplanes, autos, trains and space ships and yes, even sometimes on doors in Saturday school. When they do it's 99.99% of the time the fault of the person who last torqued (or didn't) torque down the fastener.
Click to expand...

This is a pretty significant detail. Also, this is the same bike that went down at 80 mph, correct?
 
AntiHero said:
Mark--Jesus Christ. Screws fall out all the time on all kinds of bikes, airplanes, autos, trains and space ships and yes, even sometimes on doors in Saturday school. When they do it's 99.99% of the time the fault of the person who last torqued (or didn't) torque down the fastener.
Click to expand...

I agree when it's an isolated case, but when it happens to many people on bolts that were not tampered with from the factory, it's a sign of a lack of quality control in the assembly line. These things due happen in automotive too as you mentioned, but these things are monitored closely by quality engineers and the statistics are monitored such that on powertrains the loose bolt rate is like 1 per500,000. On this forum you see reports of loose bolts all over. I'm sure Audi/VW will implement their quality control standards in the Ducati plant and this will go away in time.
 
To make sure : the engine was not removed from the bike . so it s not re-asembly .

indeed bolts have loosened in big numbers on this bike and things crack.

what i don't like about this one is that it's a bolt you normally don't access, even when servicing the bike. How many times does the tank get removed in the first place..

the biek did go down but that was a very simple slide..i thought about this as well but really can't see any link..
 
i have to re oil the mwr airfilter so i am removing the tank. thanks kope i will look for this. good heads up
 
These four bolts are fundamental to the structural integrity of the bike. If they were not loctited or torqued correctly at source that is VERY VERY worrying. If the airbox works free of the engine cylinder heads, to which it bolts, the results would be catastrophic. I would advocate having these bolts replaced, in case they have stretched and loctitiing and torqueing new ones in place. Since they are critical, I wonder if there is anyway to safety wire them in situ, maybe transversely to each other across the front and across the rear pair. Kope, I would strongly recommend you report this discovery to Ducati.
 
On viewing the parts catalogue, it appears as if the airbox sits over four threaded studs, inserted into the cylinder heads, two fore and two aft. The holes in the airbox are not threaded. Four nuts and washers then tighten the airbox down onto the these studs. What I am confused by in your picture is one fastener shows an allen head grub screw type fastener and the other hole is threaded. This is at odds with how the airbox mounts to the engine.
 
topolino said:
On viewing the parts catalogue, it appears as if the airbox sits over four threaded studs, inserted into the cylinder heads, two fore and two aft. The holes in the airbox are not threaded. Four nuts and washers then tighten the airbox down onto the these studs. What I am confused by in your picture is one fastener shows an allen head grub screw type fastener and the other hole is threaded. This is at odds with how the airbox mounts to the engine.
Click to expand...


It looks like one of the circled items in his picture is the nut (loose), and the other circled item is the actual stud.
 
EvoL said:
It looks like one of the circled items in his picture is the nut (loose), and the other circled item is the actual stud.
Click to expand...

Good spot EvoL. Yes that makes sense. From the angle of the photo, this looks like the rear left nut that has come off, which attaches to the rear cylinder stud. There should be a washer as well, somewhere. Further to my previous posts, seeing the stud length that protrudes into the airbox, would it not be possible to drill this, with the airbox coming off anyway, so when the bike is re-assembled, the nuts could be wire-locked to their respective studs?
 
kope999R said:
i m not the easily intimidated or discontented guy, but whilst disassembling the bike to do the engine job, it was found that the nuts holding the bolt the engine hangs on the frame with, had rattled loose from those bolts and were floating in the airbox. there is nothing holding them back from going into the engine should they get flipped upwards ...

quit scary and something to mention to you dealers i suppose...
Click to expand...

I posted this a while back to have these checked . Mine had come loose as well my dealer had been doing every bike they get as their own recall procedure .

http://ducati1199.com/ducati-1199/13571-another-check-your-bolt-thread.html
 
Last edited:
mark419ny said:
nothing to see here its a v twin remember when i posted about nuts and bolts flying off i got ridiculed. it was the soul of the bike it was a vtwin it was my fault for not checking or i should have used blue loctite on everything.

lets see how your responses go. cant wait to see.
Click to expand...

http://ducati1199.com/mechanical-technical/12577-please-check-all-your-bolts.html

Read your post and see why you got ridiculed . You do not seem to have the personality to deal with a situation and move on .Your still doing it .
Your not the only one . I see it at home all the time but she is six so I cut her some slack for her behaviour .
 
Bad deal, WOT inside that airbox is a weightless environment, very easy for one of those fasteners to go down the throttle bore and hang the butterfly open.
 
The frame to engine fasteners are supposed to be retorqued every 7500 miles. How many miles do you have on your bike, Kope?
 
AH : exactly 2000... everyones talking 1500 km engine rebuilds on SBK race bikes.. but havving to check thiese seem not really good , does it... and i hate to think of all those riding the road and popping a wheelie once in a while...

i'm not squeeemish but this needs to be dealt with before any accidents happen... like said: a stuck feather, bolt in the engine, engine coming loose completetly ... not things you'd want when riding... grrr...
 

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