Hi all, I recently bought a 1999 M900 and I think I may have got a bad one. When I bought the bike, the guy told me the battery wasn't too good, so we jumped it off his car and I took it for a test ride. Everything seemed alright, and he gave me a good discount to buy a new battery, so I bought it. Now that I have replaced the battery, I'm still having problems starting it. When I turn the key to 'on', most of the time the oil and N lights don't come on, but the rev counter starts showing a few thousand revs (constantly flicking up and down a bit), and the starter wont turn over (no sounds at all when I press the start button). If I hit the kill switch, the revs go back to 0, and the oil and N lights light up - first not very brightly, then after a few seconds they suddenly go bright. When I disengage the kill switch everything goes back to as described above. Once in every maybe 15-20 key turns to 'on', the oil and N lights come on as they should. Then when I try press the start button, it either dies completely or it starts basically as normal. Not sure if it is related or a separate problem, but once it is running I can't get it to idle properly. Adjusting the choke by the smallest amount either makes the engine rev like crazy or die out (unless I hold the throttle up a bit), even after it is warm. Not only that, but it seems to be not running smoothly at all. Any ideas? Thanks, Jimmy
Sounds as though you have problems with your connections. First thing to try is replacing your relays. Next is to go through your starting circuit cables and clean all the connections on battery, starter solenoid, starter motor and earth. Next check the top fuse in the fuse box for a decent connection.
As others have stated I reckon, although I know sod all about the 900 that you need to go through it and replace relays and check all the connectors are making good contact with no corrosion. For what to me sounds extremely weird behavior, the first places I'd go to are the earths, battery to chassis and any other main earths on the bike as if these are not good then the elek-trickery starts looking different routes to find earth and all sorts of weird shite starts to occur As I said I don't know the bike but that's just generic info when things have went wrong for me
Relays are dead cheap and will be really easy to access and replace on a monster. 12v automotive relays are pretty generic. Just replace like for like from Halfords and put the same colour leads back to the same number pin. If the relay has the same number of connectors, it should be fine. A relay is a miniature solenoid and is subject to corrosion. Replacing them will do no harm even if it's not the root cause of the problem.
Btw, is this a carb or injection bike?? If it's a carb bike you can do a great deal worse than take a look at Ducatisuite - Google it! The guy who made the site took a 900 monster and lightly modified it to run as sweetly as its designers intended. The 2v Ducati motor is not emissions test friendly and had to be strangled to get it to comply. You don't need to worry about emissions, so you can unstrangle it and get it to run as it should. It's all fairly simple to do and will be very rewarding. You need to install a jet kit, adjust the carbs properly and install a coil kit. You will then have a much better performing, smoother and more economical machine. I have done these things to an SS in the past but @Arquebus on here has done it recently, so you need not be short of advice.
