ducati track bike project, [aka unradical ducati, the blind stagger, the poverty bike, peaky blinder]

well, what on the surface seemed like a ten minute job resulted in an afternoon struggling to remove the cush-drive rubber bushings from the rear wheel, i hit them with a couple of sprays of penetrating fluid late last night before i went to bed, warmed them up with the paint stripping gun and tapped out the wheel bearings easily, the cush rubbers? no bloody chance, i broke out the propane torch and heated up the wheels so much that the paint blistered on the rims, selected a piece of aluminium round stock as a drift and my favourite hammer, bosh, bosh, bosh, nothing, bollocks, i daren't hit them any harder for fear of actually breaking the castings. in the end it came down to very careful drilling on the bridgeport to get them out. i have never seen a bike so neglected as this one, even the mz commuter bike we used as a basis for the mz racer project was in better fettle than this beauty. systematic abuse, neglect and bodging by the p.o's tell a sorry tale, the wheel bearings, swinging arm bearings, head bearings and spindles have never, ever seen any lubrication, i priced up replacements and i'm into nearly £200 quid with the cush-drive rubbers included! the budget is almost spunked already, that's it, i promise this is the last bike project for me, i'm going to go and buy a nice, reliable, clean, late model honda next time, fuck the old bikes...........