851SPECIAL

How this bike came to me

(warning, 5 mile story)

When I was 16, a friend showed up one day with a Ducati. This was the first time I had ever seen a Ducati, or heard a Ducati and from the first of each, I was hooked and hooked in a really bad way. His name was Sergei Sikorsky and he was the grandson of the famed Igor who invented the helicopter. Sergei was a German Russian and had jumped all over the globe before landing in Newport due to his love to sailing and when he landed so did his love for 2 wheels.

The year was 1996 and the bike was a Paso 906 which had been crashed more times than one could imagine. Sergei would tell me that this one was stolen once, only to be driven only 1000ft before the perpetrator squeezed too much throttle assuming it was a Japanese inline 4, wheeling it right into a car (this was common on Ducati's back then). I immediately asked if he would sell it to me, he immediately said no. After a year harassment, Sergei said "OK, I give" but he said he was going to go and ask my parents if it was ok. He did, and my parents said "we can't stop him" and so there it was, my first Ducati: The ugly duc, The Paso 906.

Two years later I decided I was ready to graduate to a "real" bike and what I needed was a "superbike". I found an 888 in Arizona with my name on it and this was the start of my 4 valve affair with Ducati. On one of Sergei's and my many rides of the era, we swapped bikes and he had his first ride on an 888. When he got off he was speechless, honestly didn't talk much for a few weeks, the 888/851 had a way of doing that to people. Many years passed (5 or 6) and I get a call from Sergei who was living in Arkansas telling me he had never gotten the 888 out of his head from that ride and that he had tracked down an 851 with a troubled past, asking if I would look at pictures of the bike and advise if he should or shouldn't buy it. The bike was a 1992 851 Bi-posto and it had a rebuilt title due to a crash at some point but overall it was in good shape, a very good and solid "rider" of an 851, at the price they were asking I told him to buy it and he did.

Three or four years past and Sergei landed back in Newport, a little older and a little less stable, the later of these constants would be the one that got Sergei in the end. With him he brought a handful of bikes, one of which was the 851, now broken with what was likely a bad fuelpump. At the time I had a shop and took the bike in but never touched it as I was too busy building all the other bikes at the time. When I closed the shop, Sergei and I moved the 851 to a storage unit and that was the last I saw of the bike, or him for that matter. From that point, I moved away and started a family, Sergei moved to a boat and started to unravel. Two years later the call came from a friend that Sergei had passed away from a tragic event. The bottom line is that Sergei did it his way and this was the end that was always going to be. Saddened, I remembered the 851 and put it way way back in my mind for a later date because at the time I was having kids and bikes were far from my mind.

Fast forward almost 6 years and I had an itch to find Sergei's old 851 and do something with it. A few of my friends tracked down the guy Sergei gave the bike away to and I started asking to buy it, only to be told no repeatedly (just like with the paso, same story, different bike, kinda the same owner). Every year or so I would reach out to the gent that had it and the answer was ALWAYS no, until one year (4 later) the answer was Yes. I grabbed cash and went to get the bike I had not seen in ten years. Here is where a normal person would say: No one would ever buy a rebuilt title Ducati, nevermind an 851 which is a complex bird: No one would ever buy an unmaintained, non-running bike from a basement after sitting for over eleven years without running. I ran, I didn't walk.

My first sight of the bike, my mind said "What the hell have you done!!!" The bike was in a basement, which was not weather tight, not climate controlled and certainly not dry.

Here is the first sight, I took a pic of my kiddo sitting on it, he was happy, I was not. The bike was a mess, the frame was rusty, the engine was losing it's clear coat, who knew what shape the damn engine was in.

Regardless, I paid the man his free money for storing a free bike that he got for being at the right place at the right time. In the truck she went!

The first thing you do is get it running

With any basket case, you ALWAYS get it running before you do anything else.

Teardown

One of the best parts of a project is the teardown process as it lets you see the state of things and on these old Ducatis, it also lets you see what parts they used from the parts bin to build these bikes. It is shocking how much and often things changed on these pre-916 bikes.

As you can see the bike was in bad esthetic shape, specifically the frame and motor casings and heads. The plastics were OK, In the end I only kept the tank, the nose and one side failing the rest was sourced from the used market.

Specifications

Frame and subframe: 1991 851
Engine: 1992 851
Tank: 1991 851
Front suspension: Ohlins 110MM radial mount from a Honda 1000RR Fireblade.  OEM triples, lower bored. 748/996R 15MM offset rotors.
Rear Suspension: Ohlins M900 with 888 hoop and rocker
Wheels: Brembo 5 spoke aluminum
Exhaust: Silmoto full 50MM Spaghetti, carbon silencers
Tail: 1993 888 race
Nose and side fairings: OEM 888
Headlight: Custom carrier for Purpose built moto 4" LED

Frame replacement and Mockups

The tail of two frames... As some might know, a rebuilt or salvage title carries with it a lifetime blackeye of holding a diminished "value" in the market and in most states, a rebuilt or salvage title means you cannot register the vehicle. In this case, the 851 came to me with a rebuilt title which with Ducati usually means the bike was laid down and the insurance company totaled the bike due to the cost of replacement plastics. Usually a bike goes from salvage, then is rebuilt and a certified rebuilder gets a new title on the bike.

For me to do the work I was planning to do on this bike, I was not prepared to do so with a title that was not clear. Luckily a friend had bought a frame 15 years ago so I gave him a call and bought it.

One thing that is important to know is that between 1991 and 1992 Ducati went to a new frame design for these bikes which later carried in to the 888, Monster and ST platforms. A few differences between them:

1991 and earlier:
- Ugly dropouts for the rearsets. These were covered by the early 851 tail plastics
- Hand welded front tubes from the main frame to the steerer tube
- The tank mounting was not hinged and cliped
1992 and newer:
- Pretty dropouts for the rearsets. This made the rearsets longer and less good looking but better looking overall and allowed for racing to mount the rearsets higher off the ground.
- Two cross member tubes on the lower frame rails that ran between the intake / throttle bodies.
- Bent front tubes from the main frame to the steerer tube

Below you can see the two frames side by side, the upper being the 1992 and the lower being the 1991. Neither looked great!

The newer frames cost less to make due to the bent front tubes which were less stiff but they added some stiffness to the frame with the additional two lower cross members. My plan was to have a VERY stiff bike by having the old frame style with the welded front tubes and corner supports AND I added lower cross members. Below you can see the raw tubing on the lower section.

Early mock up of the drive line with 5 spoke wheels and ohlins fork:

Bodywork / Headlight Mockups

Once the driveline was someone in order, it was time to work on the body. The body is fairly standard OEM other than the race tail which is missing the cut out for the taillight. On the headlight front, I opted to make a carrier to allow me to mount a round light in a square hole (yes there is a joke in there). For this my friend Jesse designed this in CAD and we printed a few interactions before getting it right.

On the headlight, I sourced a Purpose built moto 4" unit from Australia which JUST fit in the square of the OEM glass reflector.

Engine Degrease and walnut blast

The engine had a lot of muck on it and a lot of the clear was coming off the metal. If I had the time I would have broken the entire motor down, blasted and re-cleared it but this was not that kind of job and I don't have that kind of time.

Dirty Engine: