I'd say as far as first rides of the season go it can't get much worse than that...

 

I'd be surprised if they still had a kit. Dealer have a dealer to dealer inventory showing one is in the country somewhere? A.K.A as new old stock (NOS).

Even the OEM parts that were available or say they have the kit spring available?

Ducati, the living room accessory piece. It's a piece bike if the parts are NLA (no longer available).

A dealer phone call are your answers.

:Edit:

I'd like to know how the dealer handles this, and/or Ducati about this 20yr old bike.

 

The upgrade kit was a couple of serrated washers and a new spring, it still can happen!
The important thing is to make sure the shift lever has equal up and down motion.
Easy repair to do your self.
Good luck!

 

Thanks, I'll have a go at it. Just took a look at some YouTube videos. Starts with : drain oil, coolant... I just refreshed everything last week, dang ! I've got 4 bikes and 2 are down now (my MV F4 has Microtek ECU issues) , a third one is on display in my foyer. All I've got left is my 1198R, which is a first world problem
Will keep you guys posted.

 

Well you have 1 out of 4 Italian motorcycles working----Damn your ahead of the game. lol

 

i'd wind the melodrama back a notch or two.

the service bulletin fixes a problem that really didn't exist imo. certainly not on 998.

is the lever stuck and won't move at all, or does it move, but is floppy in one direction?

 

The lever is stuck. To be honest, the bike felt as if it was between gears. I immediately shut it off and had it towed home. What I do know is that the engine was still running normally and that the clutch worked.
I just put the bike on a lift and I'm draining fluids. Nothing weird in either the oil or coolant.
Will only be able to start pulling stuff on Thursday since tomorrow 4AM I'm leaving for a climb of a local volcano. Any further pointers ?
Oh, one more thing. Last week during maintenance I was fiddling with seating position and controls. I did slightly change the Sato gear set & footpeg positioning. Could that have anything to do with it ?

 

Will only be able to start pulling stuff on Thursday since tomorrow 4AM I'm leaving for a climb of a local volcano. Any further pointers ?

Don’t go in the lava. Only pointer I have.

 

if the lever is stuck, unbolt the external gearshift mechanism at the shaft and make sure all that is ok. have seen issues there before.

but if it's internal it's most likely to be the foot on the shift arm jammed under the end of a shift drum pin. happens some times. just flick the shift drum around and it'll free itself. annoying amount of work for such little end effort.

 

I already unbolted the external gearshift mechanism. There were no obstructions hindering it, I had taken great care of that last week when I adjusted it during maintenance. The lever is stuck and it must be sth on the inside. Good thing this happened 9 miles from my house. Last year I took that bike all the way into Eastern Oregon, would have been a challenge to get some help.

 

Last year I took that bike all the way into Eastern Oregon, would have been a challenge to get some help.

All the way from Atlanta?

 

The shift arm spring may be broken or the shift arm has simply over traveled and is stuck. I would pull the cover and inspect the shift arm and spring if in doubt change them both as they are cheap parts.

 

Update : I pulled the cover and couldn't find anything broken. Put the bike in neutral (as per instructions) and aligned marker on upper fork with pin on drum. Question : most instructions I found ask for the mark on the fork to be aligned with the '12 o clock' pin. In my case there seems to be a 10:30-ish pin and a 1PM pin. The 1 PM pin is too far away for the fork to be aligned with it. Before I close things up, does this seem correct to those of you who have performed this exercise ?
Again, this is a 998FE, with the first gen Testastretta engine.
Thx

 

Can you static shift it now? Back wheel off the ground, move the wheel up and down when shifting. This lines up the dogs into their slots on the other gear.

If it shifts, now as fast as you can, shift from 1st to top gear, then down to 1st. Do this a couple of times. Any hang up shifting? Then it's internal. Miss any gears lately. Speed shift this bike any?

 

OK, let me try tomorrow. So far I've only tried 1st and second gear, and that went OK.
As said, this bike has been babied, never had anything happen to it. 9K miles.

 

The 2 forks have ‘similar’ amounts of restricted movement.
That range of movement needs to be shared between the nearest 2 pins.

 

 

1. According to the video and your photo, the shift arm is too far left to the drum's center hole. I'd move that arm more matching the center of the drum's hole as shown in the video.

2. Drive chain is way too dry. JMO

 

Thanks. I fine-tuned it based on the video above. Biggest difference with the other method I've seen is that the one above is performed in second gear, while the one I did before was in neutral. The results were pretty similar though. I found a sweet spot which allowed me to go through all gears smoothly, so I can now wrap it up. Will have to wait till next weekend since i just ordered a gasket (don't want to deal with the threebond in this location). Thank you all for your help. I just hope this won't happen again since this is one of those things you read about, but think it won't happen to you.

 

if you use a gasket you need to reshim the pick up. just use the threebond.

 

Agreed and, threebond is cheaper too.