WTB-450 wide case bevel gears w/question

[Duccout]

Hi Fpicable,

Sorry for butting in, but if you use an unmatched bevel pair you will have to adjust the mesh height as well as the depth of the mesh of the teeth. It is important that as much of the teeth are in contact with each other as possible. There are videos on-line showing how this is done on car differentials (which are similar) using paint on the teeth to show how the teeth are contacting each other. In case you do not know, brand new bevel sets for the 450 are available from Italy (at a price) it all depends on how deep your pockets are!

Good luck,

Colin

[Fpicabia]

@graeme Again, such valuable information to me. Thank you.

I really appreciate the tool breakdown, magnetic pics, small vacuum, etc. I have a complete gasket set. Sounds like I should have a handful of spare shims in varying thicknesses...I'll need to source/fab all that you mentioned and probably some that you didn't. Ha.
I don't recall if I mentioned it in this thread or elsewhere but I do have the Haynes MkIII and Desmo Singles manual as well as the Mick Walker Ducati Singles Restoration one. I will keep an eye out for perhaps a factory manual or a well reproduced copy of one.
Great to hear about the sludge trap not being too complicated.
I also really appreciate the thought regarding your possible spare cam gear but I did find one that arrived today. Was around $30 US delivered and it's in much better condition than advertised. The "hand ground" markings on the interior of the teeth are even close to the one I'm replacing. The "hand grind" on both my chewed up cam gear and the replacement gear span approx 3 teeth and the replacement grind is only 1 tooth further away from the timing mark hole. I hope that's a good sign but I gather lining things up/shimming is equally if not more important?

Interesting regarding 450 engine vibration in different frames. A vintage sidecar racing and regular vintage racing friend on the east coast said similar regarding the 450 engine... You must not find it tooooo bad because you have what sounds like every version of the 450 that was made. Nice. I'll poke around here to see if you've posted pictures.

Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing knowledge. So very well received.

All my best,
Fpicabia

[Fpicabia]

Hello @Duccout Colin,

All tips and suggestions are well received on my end and thank you for being the gentleman by even mentioning "butting in." I appreciate the point about mismatching gears. Makes complete sense that it's crucial to have the teeth meshing/matching as exact as possible. That the teeth have full contact. Also the tip about car differentials, the paint test, etc. are great to know. Thank you.

As I mentioned to @graeme in the previous message, I found a replacement cam shaft bevel gear in really good shape as I was having a bear of a time finding a matching set, let alone a single lower bevel gear shaft for the 450. I did see that they are available from Italy but yeah, gulp, was happy to find this cam shaft gear stateside. I'm on a bit of a budget at the moment...

Now on to cleaning off all carbon build up from the piston, etc.

All my best,
Fpicabia