Hi guys, I've spent the evening trawling through old posts trying to find information on yet another issue that's come up on my 749. Please stick with the description as it may all lead in to the new problem. I have only owned the bike for about 1 month. At first I couldn't keep a charge in the battery and it was a pig to start. I fitted a new gel battery, and it was still a pig to start. It started just fine when given a little extra juice from a car battery. I put the difficulty starting and maintaining a charge to the bloomin' Datatool Alarm that had been fitted. Once I removed that I have had no starting troubles on the 2 days I have taken it out until this afternoon... in fact it started this morning on the second prod from cold in -1 temperature which was a real surprise. When removing the Datatool I traced back all the wiring which showed a few wires which had been soldered piggy-back-style on to other wires and only 2 which had been cut back and replaced. I simply snipped off the wires that have been solder on to the existing loom and re-insulated them. The 2 wires which had been cut and bared back I soldered back together. The soldering on the thick brown and white wire was not the best soldering I have ever done in my life. (Ignition wire behind the battery box?) It was, in fact, rubbish. But it was a borrowed soldering iron and I couldn't get enough heat in to the copper to melt the solder properly. I rode the bike 150miles yesterday in the dry, with no problems, apart from the brake pin falling off! Today I rode around 120 miles when I pulled in to a garage on the A303 for a pee break and a warm up. As I approached the garage and dropped down the gears the bike stalled, the EFI light came on and the back wheel locked up. I was not traveling more than 20mph at this point so the clutch came back in and I stopped safely. After checking the error code (10.2) I re-started the bike, which took some convincing but started and ran on 1 cylinder for the remaining 30 miles home. The EFI light dropped off a couple of times and the Hor. Cylinder came back online but never for more than 10 seconds. It did this a few times. So now I'm back at home, investigating what could be causing this. *My first thought was that my poor soldering could be causing this. Is this a symptom that could be caused by this? *There are a lot of threads about the coils needing updating. I'm happy to buy some new coils, but they aren't cheap so I want to check the cheap choices first. *The ECU could be bad. I have a DP Performance ECU and Termis. I haven't checked what kind it is beyond this. I do have the original Standard ECU and Exhaust. *The ignition Relay could need replacing. Again I'm happy to do this but I can't find one easily online. Is it something I will have to order from Moto Rapido? Any other ideas? Sorry for the long post but I want to be as thorough as possible. Thanks!! Tom
Tom First thing that I would find a probable cause of your trouble would be the soldered joint you mentioned. If you suspect it might be a 'dry joint' , redo it. You need a large enough soldering iron to get enough heat into it quickly without melting any insulation. The wires need to be spotlessly clean to get a good joint, try using some brake cleaner or meths, if desperate use Vodka! I presume you are using solder that contains flux? If you suspect the horizontal stick coil might be causing the problems, it's not too difficult to remove the seat and tank, and swop the coil packs around,. If the vertical cylinder now starts playing up, you know what the problem is. Have you cleaned the bike recently, possibly got water in the front coil pack? I would remove the stick coil and clean in the recess with a thin stick with a rag around it to ensure it's completely dry, and clean the stick coil as well. I recall from one of your recent posts that chrisw supplied a link to a relay from e bay at a very good price!
I will give that a try in a few days when I have some time. I have ordered a little 60w Soldering Iron for a few quid to see if it is an easy fix. I'm not sure if this will be powerful enough to get the job done. It's in an awkward place to access too. I haven't cleaned the bike or ridden it in the wet. The only thing I have done differently is that last night the bike was kept outside and there was a light frost this morning. The bike was dry when I rode it at about midday and the problem kicked in a couple of hours later. Thanks for your reply
Rereading your post again. I would definitely remove the coil pack and the spark plug from the horizontal cylinder and inspect them for damage/water/duff or dirty plug. Only takes a few minutes to do that, time well spent imo!
Start with the cheap remedies first. The horizontal coil stick gets seriously corroded if you don't keep an eye on it. Seems like there is a glut of 749/999 owners having problems at the moment. My 999 poor starting issues were resolved by fitting a secondary earth lead from the -ve terminal to the earthing point on the engine and a new injector/fuel pump relay 4 Pin 'Normally Open' contact MICRO Relay - 20A | eBay
Hi, you still having issues? Sounds like you had the same problems I had ( 749 error code 10.2 )? I swapped out coil packs, cleaned, bought replacement ones, etc, and finally it was found that the ECU had a fault. ECU was repaired and it hasn't come back since.
My 749 had almost identical issues apart from the starting, on the button every time, turned out to be a dodgy ECU, happy days after that but it is very un-nerving when on a M-way and the thing suddenly cuts out in the outside lane. Something else worth checking is the tank aswell, when mine started playing up i checked the tank and could not believe how much crap/crud/rust was in there, took me eight hours to clean it completely, im amazed it ran at all !!!!!!
I haven't even looked at it yet. I bought a couple of bits like a new relay and a better soldering iron and I'll have time to look at it all tomorrow. How did they fix the ECU? Just reprogram it or replace it?
Alec at Ducati Pro Team had a look at it. He then had it sent off to Avanti race parts who reprogrammed it. Wasn't cheap but it did the trick. I think there's a member on here who works for Avanti. Hopefully he'll chime in.
That'd be antonye I believe,and I dont think he chimes in ,more like busts the door off the hinges and stomps in over an aliminium tray filled with gravel in his stilleto's
Chrisw - Thank you for you advice. I fitted a secondary earth lead from -ve to a random bolt on the engine and the bike now starts on the button with absolutely no funny business. I replaced the Relay, having bought the one you linked to previously, and it cleared the coil fault too. Below is a pic of the coil i removed - absolutely no corrosion and a couple of pics of the relay. You can see the rust on there quite clearly. Interestingly the relay was being soaked by the coolant leak I had noticed before but hadn't fixed. That's a lesson learned in itself. I would really recommend fitting a secondary earth to anyone having starting troubles and check that relay!! You have saved me at least £50 on a used coil and £150 on a new one! All for a £3 relay and a bit of wire. Thank you Chrisw. I owe you a pint.
Glad to have helped. Hopefully this will also help the other 749/999 owners who are having similar problems. Some di-electric grease on the relay connector helps keep the damp at bay.
With the relay I also cut a finger off a rubber glove, put the relay inside and tie wrapped it in place. You can also try turning the relay so its oriented contacts down so water does not collect and corrode it. Duke
I electrical taped the bejeezus out of it. I haven't fitted the fairing again yet as still need to track down the leak but I'll johnny it up before I do.
