Advice needed

Motorcycling
1

Hi guys and girls

I have a Ducati Monster 620 ie. Although I am not a total imbecile, I am where fault finding etc is concerned and I have a couple of issues with my bike.

Firstly, there does not appear to be any performance problems but I seem to be using a lot of oil. I guess about 1/2 litre for every 500 miles, is this normal for a Ducati or even a V twin. There is no sign of engine leakage or spilt oil on my gararge floor. Can you help.

Similarly, my ignition switch is very hard to use. It always starts once I can get it into the on position and there is never a problem turning it off. When I try to start it, the ignition switch just wont budge for a few minutes. Can i put a drop of oil or something into the switch itself to free it ?

Sorry to be a numpty but any help would be appreciated and will be worth a beer

Cheers

Daz

2

Can’t help with the oil loss but I find a squirt of wd40 into ingition key hole folloewed by dipping the key in some light engine oil, inserting and working back and forward a few times does wonders…

3

Hey Triang

Thanks buddy, will try that later.

Really appreciate you taking the time for such a mundane stupid question

Cheers

Daz

4

That does sound like a completely abnormal amount of oil usage. Hopefully more qualified advice will follow shortly…

5

Did you have the bike from new?
How many miles has it done?
Does it smoke a lot, and if so, what colour is the smoke?

6

My 749 uses hardly any oil at all, to me 500ml per 500 miles sounds quite a bit.

Just out of curiosiuty how are you checking the oil?

7

Thanks for all your replies chaps

Bike is an 03 plate that I’ve had since Sept 06. But it only had 287 miles on it as some rich bugger had it as a play thing, and obviously didnt play with it.

Its now done 2,300 miles

No smoke from exhaust at all and really runs well, love it actually

I check the oil by resting bike upright against inside wall of garage and reading level on sightglass on RHS of engine casing approx 5 mins after riding, then topping up to just below the high level indicator

???

8

Double check that it doesnt need doing when cold, I thought that all wet sump engines where measured from cold?

Another daft question from me, what oil ar you using?

9

The most common thing with monsters is for the oil filter to come loose. And whilst you won’t notice any oil, you’ll get through a lot. Take her into a geezer and get it checked. It’s a £35 part so no big dramas.

As for ignition. The monster has no protection so as the others say, a squirt of WD should do the trick.

10

If the filter is loose where is the oil going, when i ‘forgot’ to tighten mine, I notced from a few drips on the floor.

Give it a go though fella.

11

I used to have a Monster S4 and kept topping up the oil as I thought it was using too much. Eventually it blew the top gasket.

I don’t mean to scare you, but the oil window never seemed to really tell the truth.

12

Marc, that does scare me but its nice to know someone had the same problem

I will check the oil filter asap just in case

I use a 10-40 oil, normally Shell Advance but have also used Esso

Thank you all for your thoughts

Hope to meet soon

I will let you all know the outcome

Cheers

Daz

13

ps

WD40 and a little engine oil worked a treat on the ignition

Thanks peeps

Daz