Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Bristol Blenheim for sale at SGT

Interesting as ever to hear your view G.

You were very generous with the Ducati's especially as their reliability is not a strong point. I hadn't realised until the other day that the Desmodromic valve gear was first used in F1 racing engines either, believing it to be a Ducati invention.

We lives and learns

Much as I like Ducatis, and I too have owned a few, the use of desmodromic valve gear serves no purpose today but to make manufacturing and maintenance more complex and costly (IMHO). Ducati sticks to it mainly because it is their "trademark" and distinguishes them from others.

Ducatis are reliable enough if maintained correctly. Ignore regular maintenance, particularly oil changes on the older models, at your peril.

I seem to recall that a famous example of Desmo valves was the Mercedes W196?

- and I agree about the reliability factor of the Duke. Funnily enough, I also had a M-G Lemon and that was a good reliable bike

regards

G

My various Ducatis were all reliable, albeit high maintenence.
My Guzzi V11, a lovely bike (it felt like it would pull a caravan) but suffered from gear selector issues.

As for desmo engines; I seem to recall that the lovely Osca that Sir Stirling Moss campaigned until recently had a desmo engine?

Bud

__________
2003 - 4/4

You might find this interesting?

http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/lost_marques_osca.htm

Regards
G

Desmorelda, the Ducati Pantah I bought new in 1985 & ran for 3 years as my principal form of transport was 100% reliable. I sold it with nearly 50 000km on the clock for £ 250 more than I paid for it new, but then in those days they were as rare as hen's teeth. Sigh. I loved that bike. If I can persuade my scanner to cooperate I might even post a picture of it. I once arrived at a dinner party on it where one of the other guests was the boss at the time of Maranello Concessionaires. In front of the assembled company he announced that in his opinion the Ducati engine was one of the only ones as elegantly engineered as a ferrari one.

The Mercedes W196 and the SLR 300 both had desmo engines, 'tho the first desmos were developed before the 1st World war on a GP Delage if memory serves me right. For sure, as the man who put them into production on Ducatis Dr Fabio Taglioni deserves most of the plaudits. It has to be said 'tho that the undoubted engineering excellence that went into the Ducati desmos was overtaken some time ago by the improvements in metallurgy of valve springs preventing bounce at high revs without needing the complexity of the desmo actuation.

G

Thanks. A very interesting article and; yes, it confirms that some of the engines were desmos.

Bud

There was a kit to fix that under warranty but unfortunately communication of this fact to the dealers was very poor if not inexistent

Fully controlled valve movement was conceived during the earliest days of engine development, but devising a system that worked reliably and was not overly complex took a long time. Desmodromic valve systems are first mentioned in patents in 1896 by Gustav Mees, and in 1907 the Ariès is described as having a V4 engine with "desmodromique" valve actuation, but details are scarce. The 1914 Grand Prix Delage and Nagant (see Pomeroy "Grand Prix Car") used a desmodromic valve system (quite unlike the present day Ducati system).[3]

So it's a really old system so I'm glad someone mentioned a Bristol for sale.
By the way there was one at J30 of the M5 today being loaded on an AA breakdown truck this afternoon about a 70's model I would say with ovalised grille and double headlights in dark blue.

Found that with my one and only Harley...
Never again...