My Pantah was dry stored for 10 years and has not yet been started. I am doing all the usual things, belts, brake and carb rebuild, oil change change etc; but, in going over the bike in more detail, I have found that the wires from the stator and both ignition pick ups have lost chunks of their insulation and bare wires are exposed. I know that this is not an uncommon problem and I had to deal with a similar issue on a Laverda Jota I once owned. While I have the stator on the bench, can anyone tell me the resistance I should have from a healthy stator? I will be checking the ignition pick ups and understand that I should have a resistance of 200 to 250 Ohms from a functional pickup. Is this number broadly correct? Hopefully I can get all this electrical microsurgery done before my box of parts arrives and I can get ready to start her up.... Any advice gratefully received. Many thanks.
I recall the resistance between my two yellow stator wires was less than 1ohm on the 81 MHR. My regulator end wires had brittle insulation and bits had broken off. Maybe the regulator simply gets too hot for the wires. I replaced about 15cm of each yellow with a slightly thicker wire gauge. My ignition pups were around 230ohm each; I'm sure the Pantah should be the same.
The stator winding resistance will be very low about 1Ω or less and very difficult to measure accurately with most meters. Importantly check that there is infinite resistance between any of the 2 stator wires and the iron armature frame. The pick ups should have a resistance of 220 ± 5%.
Thanks Derek, and thanks Rick. Both my pick ups read 230 Ohms so that seems to fall within specs. I am currently performing micro-surgery in order to replace the failed wiring. I am beginning to suspect I may have an intermittent open circuit on one of the pick ups. Assuming a worst case scenario, if I need to replace a pick up, is there any one that carries replacements.....?
Cooking of the pickup wiring is common on the 860 bevels so it doesn't surprise me if there are similar issues with Pantahs. There are a number of options: Some folk repair the pup wiring (https://store.bevelheaven.com/Electrical-Battery-Ignition/BOSCH-Pickup-Wire-Kit-SS-Darmah-MHR-etc/) some send the pups and casing away for repair (https://store.bevelheaven.com/Restoration-Services/BOSCH-Ignition-Wire-Replacement-Services/). It would be worth contact Steve at Bevelheaven to discuss Pantah-specific fixes. You can buy new but it will hurt: https://www.ducaticlassics.com/ducati/066046260/pick-up-set-with-cables-exchan I'm not sure about the Pantah but once the pups are fiddled with on an 860, a special tool is required to position the pups. On my bike, I connected the pup wiring to my multimeter and flexed the wiring to see if there was any intermittent loss of signal; both were fine. My wires did not look badly cooked. Despite this, I decided to upgrade with a Sachse electronic ignition, Dynatek coils and a Shendingen rec/reg. The Pantah system is Sachse's most expensive: https://www.elektronik-sachse.de/sh...-23-for-ducati-pantah-aluminium-flywheel.html
Thanks for the detailed reply Rick. I am going to look at the pick ups again this weekend and hopefully I can make a decent repair. I have sent Steve Allen a note and he replied with some advice. I guess if I am defeated I can send it to Steve and have him work his magic. The Sachse option is appealing, but the price tag is a bit eye-watering...
This was mine : Before After I was left with very short lengths to solder to at the pickups but as an electronics technician I have years experience at soldering so not difficult.
Very nice job Derek. Unfortunately I am having to excavate back into the plastic of the pickups to get to the wiring pins. My wires were in truly horrible shape...
Saltspringer: I just compared my old pups with Derek's and they are the same; same part code 1214 212 118 but the number below on mine is 929 compared to 049 on Derek's. I think this is just a manufacturing batch number. If you can't fix your pups you can buy mine. I'm not sure what they are worth as I haven't looked but I will be cheap! Here's a quick-pic taken a few minutes ago below. I'll take more pics and remeasure resistances if you wish.
Hi Rick, that is a very kind offer and I would be very interested. If you can measure the resistances that would be awesome. My good pick up measure 229 ohms and that seems to fall within acceptable guide lines. I am going to try and make a reliable repair to the flaky pick up this weekend and will get back to you with an update...
Derek, I need to do the same job and replace the wiring, so few questions if i may: * what sort of shrink tubing did you use? to my understanding it's suppose to be heat\oil resistant * can i gust take the pick up plate of the engine, or is there a certain way it need to be adjusted once out back? Many thanks Eran
I didn't use anything special for heatshrink, something like this. I can't see heat being an issue as I wouldn't expect the oil to get much hotter than 100ºC unless I was really caning the bike and I'm pretty sure that oil wouldn't bother it either. You can remove the plate, fix all the wiring and replace it easily enough. Putting it back on is a case of lining up the dots on the flywheel with the pickups and adjusting for the correct clearance. When you have the engine running you can check it with a strobe. Unfortunately, if it needs adjusting you have to take the alternator cover off again for access. It is all in the manual that I sent you a link to.
Hi Today I finished fixing my pickups and I thought that I would share a couple of points that might help someone else doing this repair. My Bosch pick ups were on a 1981 Ducati Pantah, although I am sure that the principle is the same for all Ducati's using the same type of pick ups. The first step is to test the pick ups to see that you have about 200 to 250 ohms resistance. If the pick ups show a low resistance it is an indication that the insulation within the coil wiring has started to fail and the coil is developing an internal short. Take some photos, draw a diagram showing which pin/wire colour in the four way plug is attached to which wire on the pick ups. Up in the four way plug I managed to slide a very small jewelers screwdriver down beside the pins of each wire and pull the female wire and pin free of the plastic plug body. Once I pulled the plug pins out of the plug body I cut the pins off and put them to one side. Undo the wiring flange on the front of the engine and pull the wiring through into the engine case. Remove the pick up plate. I cut off the excess wiring, and, as you can see, the remaining insulation was very severely compromised, right down to the plastic injection molded body of the pick up. I carefully removed all the insulation, and tested with the multi meter the exposed pick up wires to see the ohm reading has remained the same... I cleaned the bare wires with isopropyl alcohol and fine emery paper to get a consistent bright surface. Be careful not to stress the wires. I applied solder to the exposed wires, and to the ends of the two new wires that I was going to attach. I then gently soldered the two new wires to the pick up wires and slid down shrink wrap to isolate both wires from each other, the shrink wrap provided very important support to these delicate connections. This pick up is the lower one on the pick up plate, the wires need to be biased to the left as soon as they leave the pick up, in order to provide enough clearance from the outer engine cover once installed. It is a bit of a tight fit, so do not run the wires straight out from the pick up, gently pull them left. I put a piece of red shrink wrap on the White/Black wire as a visual reference. Slide on a sheath of shrink wrap to contain the two new wires. Test the pick ups with your multimeter... Assuming all is well put a dab of JB Weld on the top of the shrink wrap to further support the wiring and secure the wiring to the left until the JB Weld has hardened off. Test the pick ups with........ by now I am sure you get the process, just make sure that you are not carefully installing a pick up that no longer has the correct resistance, or is now an open circuit. The finished assembly looks like this. As you can see from the picture below, the upper pick up has a bit more space so the wires can come straight out of the molded housing and do not need to be pulled to one side. Install the pick up plate, rotate the trigger ramp to the bottom pick up and set the pick up center lines to the flywheel dots. Set the air gap to 0.35 - 0.40 mm and you should be done. I guess the key part of this fix is to make sure you use a oil resistant, silicon insulated wire. I bought a length of 18 AWG wire from a local wiring specialist that also came with an abrasion resistant, flameproof fiber coating. I also found an oil resistant shrink wrap that had an adhesive lining, and used two sizes, 1/4" to secure a pair of wires and 3/8" to secure a bundle of four wires. The shrink ratio was 3:1 Take your time; use a soldering iron that gets hot enough to make neat solder joints, remember to feed your new wiring harness through the front engine case wiring flange, before you attach the four-way plug... Hope that this is helpful, good luck!
Excellent!, very good and clear explanation. thanks for posting. Do you have a link to the wires and shrink?
Hi Eran I bought the shrink wrap from my local NAPA autoparts shop. It is distributed in western Canada by a Vancouver-based company called Vertex. They supply a lot of products to the marine industry and their shrink wrap is supposed to be good in oil environments (automotive and marine). I also identified a shrink wrap product from a company called McMaster-Carr. https://www.mcmaster.com/8195K23/ Their shrink wrap specs seemed ideal, if you can find shrink wrap that is close to these specs I am sure that it will work just fine. The wire I used is 18 AWG called "SEW" wire. It's a silicone insulated wire, designed for high temperature applications, with a fiberglass outer cover. The specs are here: http://www.prioritywire.ca/specs/SEW-2.pdf I didn't buy my wire from this company, but I would imagine any specialty cable shop should be able to supply similar SEW wire. These are the products I chose to use for my personal fix, I think they will stand up to the hot engine environment.... but no warranty is expressed or implied.......! Good luck with your fix, I hope it works out well.
If you want to read a bit more about silicone cables this link is a good starting point. https://www.elandcables.com/the-cab... has good,and ozone and weathering resistance. I am thinking that silicone cables, covered by oil resistant shrink wrap with an adhesive core, should provide a durable ignition wire that will outlast me......
bonjour, je suis à la recherche de capteur référence 1214212118. pour Ducati 600 Pantah.comme ceux de Saltspringer .
Wow! I admire your diligence & skill Saltspringer. I took the lazy and more expensive option and junked the complete ignition in favour of a brand new system that includes multiple ignition curves all with much gentler steps than the original Bosch. https://www.elektronik-sachse.de/shopsystem-3/en/Digital-Ignition-Systems/Ducati/
