Front Wheel Removal

First take the big end nut off. Then you can loosen the axle clamp bolts on the forks.

There's a tool that fits inside the right hand end of the axle that comes in the tool kit. It looks like a short piece of tubing with a couple of holes in it and a couple of pins sticking out on opposite side.

Stick this in the right side of the axle and with a rod or screw driver through one of the holes wiggle and twist the axle out. The fit of the axle in the front wheel bearings is snug. It helps to support the weight of the wheel as you slide out the axle. If necessary, you can fabricate a dowel rod of wood or plastic to help tap the axle out from the left side.

Front Wheel Installation

If you don’t follow the proper installation sequence for the front wheel, you can incorrectly align the front axle in the forks which will cause unwanted friction in the fork tubes and handling oddities. Also, be particularly careful when you tighten the pinch bolts—the Ducati axle is thin-walled and will ovalize if these bolts are over-torqued.

You can use a dowel inserted from the left side to hold the wheel in position. Put anti-seize or grease on the axle and then insert it from the right side (of the bike). To avoid damaging the thin-walled axle, tap it in gently and rotate it using the special tool from your Ducati tool kit. Once it is in, line up the holes in the axle with the holes in the axle clamps so that the through-holes allow screwdriver access to the compression valve adjusters.

The common mistake made here is to just tighten everything up at this point. Instead, here’s the proper sequence to assure that the forks are aligned.

1. Temporally tighten-up the two RIGHT side axle clamp bolts so you can torque the axle nut.
2. Put on the (left side) 28 mm axle nut and torque it (63 N·m).
3. Then torque the two LEFT side clamp bolts (19 N·m).
4. Now, put the brake calipers back on using the proper torque setting (43 N·m).
5. Now, loosen the two RIGHT side clamp bolts.
6. Take the bike off the paddock stand, and bounce the suspension up and down till you are sure that the right side fork has moved to the proper (neutral) position along the axle. It makes it easier to compress the suspension if you hold the rear brake on when rocking the bike forward. Don’t use the front brake.

Once this is done, torque the two RIGHT side clamp bolts to 19 N·m, reconnect the speedometer cable, and you’re done.

 

Rear Wheel Nut Torque Spec (± 5%)

Diavel, Monster 1200, Multistrada 1200, SBK 1098, SBK 1198, SBK 1199 Panigale, SBK 1299 Panigale, Streetfighter 1098, 2017 Supersport all use a 55 mm nut. Torque this nut to 230 ± 11 N·m. (170 ± 9 lb·ft)

Important: Grease is specified to be applied to the axle threads and underside of the nut in order to achieve the correct torque listed above.

The proper method is to torque to the lower value and check for alignment of the hole in the nut with one of the holes in the stub axle. Then tighten the nut further to get alignment.

If you incorrectly tighten to some unknown torque value, and then loosen to achieve alignment, you risk achieving a final torque that is insufficient to prevent wheel back-and-forth rotational movement of the wheel about its axle.

If the nut is under-torqued it will allow the nut to loosen, allowing the wheel to rotate in its mount and be damaged by repeated acceleration/braking impact loads that will ovalize the four locating pins holes on the backside of the wheel. Damage to the axle spindle can also occur. Also, a loose nut will back-off till it's stopped by the retaining pin, then bend the pin and deform the nut. It's a good idea to mark the nut position with a marking pen, so that you can quickly see if the wheel has moved after a ride.

This high torque makes the socket that you use even more important. In particular, you should machine down the hex end face of the socket if it has recessed flats. Otherwise, you'll only get partial engagement of the socket flats on the relatively thin nut. You'll need to anticipate slipping and damaging the nut.

Rear Wheel Removal

The rear wheel is held on with a 55 mm nut cross-drilled to accept a safety retaining clip that is installed as a safety precaution to prevent the loss of the nut. If the nut was not torqued correctly when last installed, the nut may have loosened a bit and captured the pin. This will prevent the socket from being placed over the nut, so you may have to cut off or pry the pin out.

You can expect that the rear wheel retaining nut will be VERY difficult to remove, usually requiring the use of an impact driver (or a long handle extension) to get it off. Over time it seems to get tighter.

A good way to keep the wheel from turning while removing the nut is to have a helper apply the rear brake lever with a normal amount of force. Be careful, too much force on the lever can break the rear master cylinder bracket which is the pivot point for the rear brake pedal.

Still won't budge? Get a longer breaker bar.