Morning all.97 plate standard 916 Need some help.please. before we start battery had a solid 12v(I'll worry about charging later) went for 140 mile ride yesterday and all was fine until about 5 mile from home when it cut out. Managed to get home. Now won't start. All the lights are dead. Brake. Indicator. Main beam and dash. And the fuel pump will not prime unless light switch is in the off position. If I put it to off position after about a second the pump primes but won't click. And the lights on the dash dim a little. Checked all fuse. Could it be a bad earth. Any ideas welcome
Hello Jason, If you have LT Snyder’s D4 maintenance guide, there’s a very instructive chapter on D4 electrics (p. 101) with a special focus on pre-99 single phased D4s, why they are weak and poorly designed... You may find it very useful. If you don’t have it, it could be a very valuable purchase. The 5th and last edition is about to be released. https://desmotimes.com/product/2-desmoquattro-maintenance-and-modification-manual/ It explains, among (many) other things, why a bad battery will destroy your charging system (voltage regulator, connectors, wires...), which in turn will never be able to recharge your (bad) battery. And so on... It’ll also explain what is a bad battery. It may show correct voltage but still not hold charge. Anyways, 12v seems not enough (my battery shows 13,6v when motor’s off). I personally believe that recharging the battery (or better, keeping it always charged with a battery tender), should be the primary concern of all pre-99 D4 owners. In your case, I would test a new battery and voltage regulator after having checked all the connectors and wires (battery to regulator to alternator). Too much draw caused by a faulty charging system will melt your connectors...
check also the Yellow relay next to the battery, I had a 748 in to look at with a strange issue of cutting out when the lights were turned on, and this was the culprit.
When you replace your battery & Reg/rect, which you shall be, look for the mosfet one. Solder the two yellow leads from stator to RR. Dont use connectors. See guillaumes pics above. Keep the 916 on a trickle charger always. My single phase 916 eats batteries and RRs but none since I started keeping it on tender full time. It’s just one of those things with a 916.
I just did that mod too, lest I end up stranded somewhere far away from home... From LT’s book: #10 wire (2,59 mm) is recommended for 30 amps (pre-99 single phase stator wires) #8 wire (3,26 mm) for 40 amps (later 3 phase charging systems). https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.engineeringtoolbox.com/amp/awg-wire-gauge-d_731.html
I also got my stator rewound by http://www.westcountrywindings.co.uk/ . You may not need to do this, but I did mine and asked them to put thicker core on whilst they did. WWW did a fast turnaround too. Very pleased with them.
Thanks forbthis. The more i think about the sequence of events that occured the more I think my battery and subsequent charging system may be faulty . The bike died in the first instance when I accidently caught main beam switch. I will check and if required replace battery and regulator and then check output voltage
As posted many times on here, it's a real priority to check your alternator and regulator loom runs and connectors for overheating and melting before you use the bike again. If it is the regulator failing and/or high resistance in connectors/leads then you've been lucky, particularly at this time of year in the U.K.
That can’t be right? Importing from the US into France or into UK (now it’s out of Europe) should be about the same cost, shouldn’t it? VAT (20%) + shipping. I got my copy sent to a friend in the US. He then sent it to me via USPS priority, as a gift. I only paid 50€ delivered to my doorstep.
Not entirely true. He will not ship by choice, probably because of COVID restrictions making things more complicated, and not worth the hassle for him (he’s a very small company, as I understand). Aside from this, shipping from the US to the UK or the EU is still totally possible all day long. I receive packages from the US on a monthly basis. As I wrote above, you need a US based intermediate (family, a friend,...) to make things possible. Or a shipping company, as stated on his website.
The figure I arrived at was based on the FedEx charges as used by the US mailbox company on a 1lb package. Part of the reason he no longer ships to the EU & UK is the VAT processing. Its all on him to process and send to the respective revenue authorities and he feels that the governments are ripping us off enough and he wont support that. Update - cheapest FedEx rate based on 0.1Kg is $111.54
I had the same fault with a 748 a few months ago running fine, turn on lights and it cut out. it was the Yellow ignition relay next to the battery. try bridging the relay and turning on the lights with the motor running to see if there is a difference, before you go spending money etc
I received a small FedEx parcel (1 lbs) in June, from Pensacola FL (it had nothing to do with DesmoTimes and was sent by a friend who lives in the same city). The VAT invoice was sent directly to me by FedEx about 3 weeks later (25€ plus 15€ for « filing fees»). So I paid 40€ in addition to the shipping, for a declared value of $150. May be the VAT system works differently for companies? Last May, I ordered 10 copies of DesmoTimes D4/D3/D2 maintenance books for various members from our forum around here (group order type thing). I arranged to have same friend pick them up locally and send them over to me via USPS priority ($120 for shipping ), declared as « gift » on the custom slip. Customs didn’t collect any VAT upon importation. Based on €/$ exchange rate at the time and after I remailed each copy to the buyers, it cost us about 50€ a piece. Has something changed recently ?
Sorry, a bit late to the party. It sounds very much as though its a charging issue as others have suggested, ie, your (perhaps not so healthy) battery wasn't being kept fully charged on your ride. Assuming you've a multimeter set it to ac volts, disconnect the block connector that brings the yellow wires from the stator (LH crankcase) to the reg/reg (the thing with fins by the battery) and insert the probes into the yellow terminals. If you've a 3 phase stator, ie 3 yellow wires, then any two will do but swap them about so that you're testing all 3 phases. If it's a single phase stator (2 wires) then simply probe the 2 connections. Make sure your battery is fully charged and then start the bike. you should be measuring something in the region of 25v or so at tick over rising as revs rise to around 80v (more precise numbers can be found with a Google search). If that is the case then your stator is working fine, so kill the engine . In which case. reconnect the block connector and switch the multimeter to dv volts now place the probes across the battery terminals. restart the engine and you should see something in the order of 14v at the battery as the reg/rec converts the ac coming from the stator to dc to charge up the battery. Low 13 volts is also just about acceptable. Anything below 13v and it's likely your r/r is at fault, in which case you should purchase a new one form Electrexworld. Next, check the state of your battery, before replacing the r/r. With the multimeter still connected, check that it's >12.4v when the bike is switched off. Turn on the ignition and the voltage shouldn't drop below 12.4v. Turn on the lights and the voltage should stay above 12v. Turn off the lights and the voltage should go back to c12.4v. Press the start button and the voltage shouldn't drop below 12v as the engine turns over, if it does then the battery needs replacing.
Folks, the yellow wires are AC and in particular the three wire 520 watt system provides a three phase AC supply up to 90 or so volts, the current in those wires is no where near 30 and 40 amps as suggested as that ignores AC and 3 phase supply theory (although the current on the DC side of the regulator could be that high). If you replace the stator wires, use appropriately rated ones with correct heat and oil resistive insulation. The reason why the yellow wires are the size they are (on both Shindenghen and alternative systems like Electrex) is because they are of adequate capacity for the designed AC load. The wires break down and burn when that load is exceeded during a fault condition. That fault condition is usually down to the resistance presented by dirty or corroding connectors or a related load imbalance on the AC wires. For the OP, check the yellow connector block and charging circuit function and replace the yellow 40A relay.
The diference is that your friend sent the parcel via the US Postal Service and not FedEx, which is the shipment option being supplied to you via weship-it.com as recommended by the desmotimes web site Would you be up for organising another multi-copy order for the final edition if there's enough interest?
@mcr998 Hey mate! Sorry for a late answer. I am already setting up a group order with the French Ducati Forum. I have already 10 books pre-ordered. So yes, I could definitely add a few (5) more copies if some people here are interested. Three things to keep in mind, though: 1/ This time, I will not have to ask my friend in Pensacola to sort me out for shipping. As a matter of fact, I’ll be deploying soon in the Gulf, on a US FOB. There, I will benefit from APO US postal domestic fares. I already discussed this with LT Snyder and he’s good to go. That also means I won’t be able to ship out your way until I get back home. That’s February 2022... 2/ Pre-order discount ($39 in lieu of $49) for the 5th (and last) edition of the D4 manual is available until 10 August (he starts shipping on 15th August). So I will place the group order on 9 August. 3/ I do not know how things work when shipping from EU to UK, price wise. But the best solution would probably be one single parcel from EU to UK and then UK domestic dispatch. Let me know if you are interested in coordinating the UK side of such an order. G
