I'm thinking of buying Monster 696, what should I pay attention to?

baggerman said:

I think you'll find the 696 underpowered. That being said it will be stone ax reliable. If you're a decent mechanic shimming a 2 valve will be readily doable and it sounds like you have some experience. The plan with the belt drives is to check the valves and adjust as necessary every time you change cam belts (I run them about 15K miles except the for 1198). If I were to buy another monster I'd buy a S4RS. 2006-2008 I think. These are the last of the original monster series (shorter and lighter than the later ones). These have 998 testaretta superbike motors, water cooled, make about 135 HP with a decent exhaust system, 56ish inch wheelbase with radial brakes. Really fine handling motorcycle as delivered (all the early monsters were pretty good but these with the superbike geometry and ohlins are really good). 420ish lbs wet. They made a tricolor version of this right at the end (2008). These are equally easy to service just with the added complexity of being a four valve and water cooled. IMHO the testaretta's are the easiest 4 valves to shim (the V4's are like miniaturized testaretta's but the 5 mm shims are kind of a pain). Just need to pull the radiator to get to the front valve cover. From a reliability standpoint the most unreliable part on all of these would be the rectifiers. Ducati put these enclosed under the seat on multiple monster models and these need to be moved into the airstream the common plan being just to cut a hole in the cover beneath the seat and turn them upside down. If the bike was broken in appropriately and you pay attention to the valve train (I reset to within factory assembly specs if needed every valve check and ignore ducati's operational specs) all the belt drives are pretty much indestructible. One other thing the belt drives have a single row output bearing in contrast to the self-aligning double roller on the later bikes so they are more sensitive to the chain being run too tight (they spall the bearing and you need to split the cases to replace).

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mamo said:

I have never worked on a Desmo but I have experience with other motorcycles and cars (diesel BMW, classic Mercedes, old Fiat and others). Assembling an engine from scratch doesn't seem like a big deal to me but I'm a bit shy when it comes to Desmo. Unfortunately Ducatis are not very common in my country so many Ducati models are not available in my country. I really want a Monster 937 but it's a bit out of my budget (about 1.7-1.8 times more expensive). I can't say anything about the ability because I don't have very high expectations, for me it's enough to give a high performance on winding roads.

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baggerman said:

Desmo's just have a second shim for closing unlike everything else. Just feeler gauges for clearances and a micrometer to measure the shims. On the 2 valves you can just get an appropriately sized ball bearing to drop into the closer seat to make that measurement. The openers are direct measurement with a mic. The closers have a weak springs so to remove the closers you put the cylinder at tdc and push the closer rocker arm down, the valve stops at the head of the piston and then use a magnet to remove the half ring retainers. Used half rings are preferred if unbroken since they coin in a little from new and loosen the clearance some. Remember when doing these is that the closer clearances get looser as opposed to the opener getting tighter as the valve stems get to operating temps. Tight closers (like .002 inch) are good. Other than that just like everything you've done I suspect. You treat the 2 valves right and the motors will go 100K miles and still not use any oil. Nickasil bores and a chrome faced top ring. Those same cases and gearbox have had 180 HP run thru them, pretty unbreakable.

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