Plastic water pump drive gear ........why Ducati ?

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Dezi

Dezi

Joined
May 29, 2020
Messages
102
Location
Australia
Well it looks like I may be another victim .
Changed oil after my track day this morning and left with over a dozen shards of hard plastic szwarf .
Only 6000 km on the bike 1000 km oil change track only bike 2014 1199s with R spec engine ridden enthusiastically .
After inter web search seems it is somewhat common .
Why did Ducati use plastic gears ? Noise reduction ? Cost ? VW ?
Bit disappointed especially after having to get my tank welded after leaking from the forward mounts after previous track day .
Another somewhat common failure .
Maybe a Japa bike is in my future third Ducati track bike 1098s had lots of issues 749s was a pain too.
 
I agree. They're dumb.

I have a few WSBK pumps with metal gears if you're interested.
 
I hear you and since my bike is track only I am going preventive mode and have steel gears coming from ducati-kaemna
 
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...Manufacturer's are diong this to reduce cost!
I had VW vehicle with 1.8T engine which had plastic water pump impeller, I assume you have an Idea what happened when my car suddenly overheated on highway!?
 
Dont do metal gears on a otherwise stock engine. Better replace with new plastic gears. You could end up with a snapped shaft.
 
Please elaborate, what would cause that if steel gears installed, which shaft...
 
I get your point, but how many cases where plastic gears did that due to other failure, is there a pattern besides them failing douring normal use due to material structure and getting constantly exposed to engine oil, heat, vibration, torque...
I think they made those gears plastic due to water pump does not require to much load to turn and cost savings! I am no engineer but have been car and heavy equipment mechanic for most of my life and seen all kinds of things.
 
but how many cases where plastic gears did that due to other failure, is there a pattern besides them failing douring normal use due to material structure and getting constantly exposed to engine oil, heat, vibration, torque...
Click to expand...

Only the manufacturer would have that information.

I don't disagree that some type of cost management goes into it, but how do you know that the cost cutting is that the gear is made out of plastic or that the input shaft is made out of a weaker and easier to machine metal?
 
I don't have metallurgy information about input shaft (If you are talking about crankshaft than that is output shaft)... but when you look at whole assembly Crankshaft is driving plastic idle gear which then drives water pump plastic gear. Only shaft that I see being snapped like member Zelnik said is water pump shaft if bearing sizes. To be fair anything is possible but I think crankshaft is way beefier/ stronger than water pump shaft.
 

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Okay I understand that the reason the engineers may of used composite plastic as a sacrificial part and or noise weight/reduction/cost/ Euro compliance whatever!
But what would cause this part to self destruct so early in an engines life ? Could there be another issue in the engine influencing or is it just fatigue ?
As a road bike maybe this would not be under as much stress as you seldom ride a road bike up to the rev limiter very often
so is it because this motor is running at high levels pretty much from warm up to cool down ?
You would think the R&D would put a new design engine while in development up to 10/10ths to make things go bang if they were going to before releasing it to the public.

Anyone here replaced this part themselves ?
Approximately how many hours work involved ?
Is the engine cover a hard gasket or three bond liquid and do you need circlip pliers to
remove the gear ?
I am praying the local distributer here in Australia has them in stock and I don't have to wait for it to be imported from Italy .
Cup half full at least I caught this before ......pump fail.......overheat........bang.......skid......crash.......cry.
Cheers
 
I will be doing this to my bike over the winter, not the answer you are looking for but according to manual it should not be that hard. Main thing will be moving out of the way all the abs plumbing (if you still have abs) because lines go over upper side of the cover. There is no gasket, it is treebond, get yourself heat exchanger "o" rings, oil pressure sensor port o ring, idler gear shaft seal. All these are " you are there may as well do it". Send me your email and I will forward to you shop manual with step by step instructions.
On another note I talked to Jarelj from Ducati of Omaha who has been around these bikes for a while, and he said "it is a good idea if bike is race bike to install steel gears"!
 
Race or track, condition under which bike has been used are very similar and much different than street bike!
 
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Horrific pile of szwarf down in the pick up screen in the sump ,
not only desiccated plastic from Audi's .... water pump gear but left over 3 bond gasket sealant .
It was almost completely blocking the oil pick up .
I think I have dodged a massive bullet by inspecting further into the engine ,
the oil filter was clean with zero sign of debris but if this had impinged the oil pick up any more it would of been game over .
 
I wonder if its a noise thing for homologation. Maybe the plastic gears are quieter allowing them to reduce the noise the engine makes so they can have a louder exhaust etc.

I take it the steel gears are only available for the 1199/1299?
 
I reckon the heat from cold start up to sun like heat of the pani was the reason mine went, i found mine busted when fixing the timing over oil leak, had a shock when i saw all that .... inside the cover. Note that the new plastic ones are noisy until the engine warms and the oil gets around them, so also the problem is dry running i reckon. bet the weight of the steel ones is quite a bit more?
 

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