Anyone Here into Narrow-case Ducati 250s?

I saw a pair of narrow-case Ducati 250s for sale at the swap meet last weekend. One was a 1963 Scrambler and the other was a 1964 road bike. They were both really rough but might have potential. I just don't know much of anything about them in terms of parts availability and working on them. Anyone here into them or know much about them? Thanks. Here's a picture of how I would like to do them up:

I've got a 250 project (which is now a 350) and recently put a 160 project on the road.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=526351
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=521288


Parts are available, there is a pretty good support system for them. You can spend about as much as you want on them depending on how far you want to go. The bike you've shown doesn't seem to have anything too outrageous on it. Only the engine, frame, swingarm, and hubs look like stock narrowcase parts, and the engine's been blasted to give it a sandcast look .

Personally I wouldn't cut up a scrambler frame to make a special out of. Leave it for the scrambler guys. I think all you have to do is cut one brace off the rear section but still...

Thanks for posting the links to your build threads. Just glanced at them so far.

I might be able to get two bikes for around $800. One is a pretty complete 1963 Scrambler, missing fenders and carbs, everything rough, motor stuck. The other "parts bike" is a 1964 Monza (probably, but could even be a Diana) that has been converted into a scrambler-like dirtbike thing, missing even more parts, motor stuck as well.

The plan would be to combine the best parts of the two and make a special and sell anything extra of any value to help with funds. (Actually, my wife wants to build both bikes but that doubles the cost of course).

So I don't know if $800 is a screaming deal for these two bikes or a ripoff of something in-between.

Really, all I want to start with is frame, motor, wheels, brakes, forks. Everything else will be replaced with aftermarket stuff that suits our taste and budget. I want it to be the bare minimum to be street legal, hidden battery and so on.

You would probably have to search far and wide to buy either one of them for half the price.

If it was me I'd jump on it (after a little bargaining that is)

PM me, I'll go in on them with you. Sounds like a screaming deal to me.

Hard to tell if they're "worth it" without seeing them but as mentioned it'd be hard to find them seperately for half that price? If I did find a bike fitting that description I wouldn't want to pay much more than $400 for it though. Having said that, prices for the singles are going up so I may be out of the loop on that. (I bought my donor bikes at least six years ago)

Depending on what type of use the bike will see, you can build it without a battery. I'm probably going to do that on my 350. My 160 will run without a battery, but the brake light won't work without one.

You didn't ask this, but... wild guess, no time into doing the math, I'll guess you'd have $5k into the bike before it looks like the one you showed a picture of. Depends on a lot of things of course, but if the engine is stuck and parts are missing I think you could easily hit that. I'd be surprised if you could do it for under $3500. Obviously that depends on how much work the engine will need, what sort of skills/resources you have, and how deep you want to get into it in general.

As nice as that example is, returning the street bike to stock Mach I or Diana specification could be even more costly. Original tanks and headlights are out of sight.

There's no way on God's green earth we would try to return these things to anything close to stock. There just isn't enough left, too far gone. That's why they would be fun to make into specials of some kind, don't have to feel guilty about anything, anything we do would be an improvement.

With the attitude that, "anything we do would be an improvement ". What could go wrong ?

Too much to mention. You don't seem to be very familiar with the marque you so flipantly dissmiss the standard issue of.
Do some research. There's plenty of info out there. It's not like you're cutting up a CB from the 70's. Although that's been done to death already.
Anyway it's your money , spend wisely.
And for comparirson I've purchased , 2 bikes plus a spare roller for $400. One was a '63 250 Scrambler the other a 450 Mark 3 D. Another time I got a 250 Monza for $200. A 450 Scrambler was my first, $275.
All the above were bought in the previous century.
In this century , I got a 350 widecase Scrambler for $400 and a basket 250 narrowcase for $150. Nothing in the last couple of years, though.

Wow, and your attitude makes me want to stick with Guzzis. Way less snobbery encountered in that world, and people don't treat Guzzis like they are some precious Ming vases. I hope you aren't indicative of the people I'll be dealing with in the vintage Ducati world if I decide to go through with this project. If so, I may have to rethink this, then again, nah, I'll just dive in, do what I want, make mistakes, learn, have fun, like I always do.

Remember, these are just machines. If there is something magical or complicated about these single-cylinder pushrod motorcycles, I'm all ears and willing to learn all the dark secrets.

And yes, if all we do with them is get them stored somewhere inside and cleaned up, it will be an improvement. But based on some bigger mechanical pains-in-the asses I've tackled in the past, I think we just might be able to do just a little bit more than that.

That you think they're pushrod engines says plenty...

You think original tanks and headlights are expensive? Have you seen what NOS narrow case pushrods are going for?

For the benefit of Swillmongrel: I'm a "Guzzi-guy" - had lots of them - now my wife & I each have 850 LM 1s, and she has a Monza and a V65TT.
Don't under-estimate the worth of what you have found - by chopping them up to make them suit this month's fashion, you might be throwing a LOT of money away.
We also have a Ducati single race-bike; it was the most interesting of four bikes that came to us in a heap. We were able to get two more-or-less original stock roadbikes built and sold to finance the racing, plus another 80% complete pile of parts.
Each individual bike returned over $2k - and that was in the last century.
Several people who know about the race-bike have offered five-figure sums.

It's your money - and these are (probably) your bikes by now, to do with as you please; I'd just urge you not to do anything irrevocable that you might regret financially at some future time.

Ming vase ?Snobbery?
You have me wrong.



This is my '69 450 .Built from a $50 roller with some $50 cases and parts of this and that. Red Wing forks a friend gave me. 450 Honda front brake. I made the seat from an old Shoei helmet and fiberglass.

No concours origanal here.

The only pushrod in this opperates the clutch.

Oh yeah, no valve springs either.

Wow, I step away for a few hours and things take quite the turn...

A chopped up Monza that's missing parts and has a locked engine? Lots of money there? Where? From the description these are nowhere near stock road bikes, let alone original. The original part was gone long ago.

A five figure racebike did not start life as a ratty Monza... unless someone spent a lot more than five figures building it or got quite lucky with the parts that were included.

No pushrods, true, but neither of them are desmos either.

Prices from 12 years ago mean little today. I bought a mostly original, complete roundcase for $700 about 8 years ago. So what? Today that's a $4000 bike, easy.

A ratty Monza will never be worth much. A restored Monza will be worth more but never more than what it would take to build it from a ratty Monza. It's not a Diana, it's not a Mach 1, it's a lowly Monza that someone else already butchered, neglected, and tossed aside.

Yeah, I'd agree that pretty much anything that saves it from that is good. I'd hope it doesn't turn into yet another poorly done cafe rat bike but it's not mine so I'll just have to wait and see.

FWIW as long was were posting project bike pics here's my $200 160 Monza Jr, before and after:





As you can see I staretd with a pretty complete, original, stock bike. Doing this took some cutting and welding. Anyone with a burning desire to have a stock appearing Monza Jr could cut and weld it back to stock specs. I'd consider that person to be a fool however...

It's just a 160 so it doesn't really matter? Fair enough. Here's what I'm doing to a 250 Monza that came to me in similar condition:





Don't mind the fenders or bars or headlight in that shot, they're already being replaced. And the 250 engine has been replaced with a 350. And the front hub will be an Oldani replica. As with the 160,not much from the 250 will be left when I'm done.


To the OP - it's a freakin Monza. Don't worry about it. And no, most people that I've run across in the vintage Ducati fan club aren't going to give a rip what you did to it... as long as you do a nice job. Have some respect for cripe sakes.

OK, so why is OK for you to put something like that together and not OK for me to put something together like the picture in the original post? Is there some secret handshake I must know or initiation ceremony I must go through before I am allowed to own these scrap-piles just because they are ancient Ducatis?

If the derelict 1963 Scrambler is too valuable for an ignorant, flippant, disrepectful hack like me to own, then maybe someone here would like pony up and buy it from me after I make a deal for it.

I'm getting all this crap because I said they are too far gone to justify the money to restore to stock? Really? For that I get called names here? It sounds like I could just buy them and part them out and make more money, but for wanting to bring at least one back to life, I get peoples' undies in bundle?

All these cafe racers might be the flavor of the month, but it's something I've been into for about 25 years and will continue to be into after people have moved on to the next thing. It seems like the only sane, logical thing to do with these things other than to part them out. But if someone wants the '63 Scrambler that bad to lovingly restore to stock, PM me and I will try to work out a deal that will make both of us happy. I won't hold my breath though.

And to those of you who have replied with specific, useful facts - I sincerely thank you!

I'm still curious about what a restored 1963 Ducati Scrambler is worth. The guy with the one for sale claims they go for $12,000 and that it would cost me $7,000 to restore to that level. I find the $12,000 part hard to believe.

I looked on eBay and saw a restored 1963 Ducati Scrambler that was bid up to $5300 with 7 hours left in the auction. I don't know what it actually went for, but $5300 with 7 hours left tells me probably not $12,000.

No offense, and I'll probably get accused of being a Troglodyte next, but I'm not sure what the appeal of the '63 Scrambler is, were they good at what they were designed to do in their day? Did they win races? Something groundbreaking about their design? Please don't get offended by my questions, I am curious about these because I obviously know nothing about them and am here to learn. Thanks!

If you are interested in single cylinder Ducatis, one book you should have is "Ducati Singles, First Person" by Tom Bailey. First hand knowledge of the bikes and the "scene" in the US back when these bikes were new. You can get it from Amazon, but do Tom a favor and cut out the middleman. Contact him at tom (at) motyeliab.com for more info. I enjoyed it a lot. You'll also need to buy a shop manual and a parts manual but you already knew that. Only a troglodyte would attempt to rebuild one of these without those two books.

I don't know if/why a restored Scrambler would be worth $12k. I doubt that you could do a proper restoration on a wreck for $7k. Put another way, I highly doubt a $7k restoration would result in a $12k bike. If it would, you'd see a lot more Scramblers for sale IMHO. If I thought I could make $5k rebuilding single cylinder Ducatis I'd have three of them in process right now. There are very few Ducatis that are "worth" restoring from a financial point of view. Here's where I normally put a disclaimer as to what I think "restoration" means but I'm already rambling so not this time...

There actually is a pretty strong following for the Scramblers and IIRC there is an Italian club(?) that produces parts for them. If I ended up with both of those bikes I'd look into rebuilding the Scrambler as a Scrambler but again that's just me. And mainly because I already have sporty bikes but I don't have any Scrambler type bikes.

P.S. Send me an PM and I'll send you a pdf with the secret handshake and other helpful hints. Just don't tell anyone who told you or I'll get voted out of the club.

Thanks for your insight DesmoDog! You've given me some things to ponder.

Saw that book title online and it does look good.

+1
I've got probably a dozen Duc books, by Cathcart, Falloon, Walker, etc. but the above was by far the most enjoyable to read. Just plain fun.

Falloon's Standard Catalog is also a really good visual history.

Also, lots of good singles info and a forum at http://www.motoscrubs.com/