Hey Guys Ok so I have a 1995 748 that's never caused me a problem. Today I started it without any problem, fired first time. Drove it about 500m to a petrol station. Filled up and returned to it. Wouldn't start, wouldn't even try and turn over. It was like the battery was completely dead. I swore a lot and had a small tantrum when some bloke came over and helped me bump it. Thought that it must be a flat battery so I carried on about 20 miles around the motorway without it missing a beat. As I'm leaving the motorway it starts misfiring badly, I continue as I'm on my way to work but it's running horrendously. I pull up at some traffic lights and go to pull away, it stalls and I push it to the side of the road. I barely have an ignition light and it did absolutely diddly squat when I tried to fire it. I found a hill and bump started it first time, carried on with it missing even worse. It was popping and juddering in every gear. Got a bit further and then pulled up at some lights outside work and it died as soon as I pulled away. Almost no ignition lights so pushed it inside. Just tried it again about half an hour later and had full ignition lights. It wouldn't turn over at all but when I pressed the start button the tacho showed about 4000rpm. It made a very quiet strange noise but didn't even try to fire. It's worth mentioning it's about 31 degrees outside but the gauge showed that it never overheated. I'm guessing the problem is electrical and probably to do with the ignition system as it bump started every time but literally got no idea what's wrong with it. Please help all suggestions welcome! Cheers in advance Dave
It may be possible that your battery just died. This happened to my wife's Panda. She drove it home from work perfectly fine but it then wouldn't start again and the electrics went haywire as the relays switched and then switched back due to insufficient charge. It wouldn't take a charge. I took the battery in to BBL and they said it was totally buggered and that's normal these days - modern batteries don't always fade away, they often just suddenly die. Something to do with plates buckling, then shorting.
Definitely has the symptoms of a battery not charging, the 748 doesn't suffer with faulty relays as much as the 749/999. Steve
I don't know the 748 but I agree as a generic problem it sounds like as @Old rider states. The popping and bad running could be low volts after leaving it a while the battery may recover a little, enough to give you idiot lights but not much more The bike may also have ECU undervoltage protection too, if the battery volts are low the ECU could shutdown without warning. How old is the battery? If all the connections are fine, including the earth (at both ends) then the next thing is to check is the battery voltage. If its 12.2 or lower then take the battery out the bike fully charge it, measure the terminal volts after say 30 minutes, then put the battery back in. It should be around 12.7 Volts If the bike starts on the fresh charge try upping revs to around 3k and measure the voltage across the terminals, it should definitely rise at least 0.5 volt, if it does the chance are the charging system is doing its thing Just the first steps I'd take given your description
Charge the battery, check and clean terminals then with the bike running if you have access to a multimeter check if it's charging, most common fault will be a failing reg/rec. Steve
As the bike started at home and gradually failed throughout his journey my first thought is that the battery is OK and not charging due to reg/ rec failure or even generator failure, that's after checking the connectors on the charging system particularly the plug on the two yellow wires from the genny. Steve
Ok, I guess if the battery was toast and the charging system was fine, he'd still get sparks then, just not be able to crank it.
Only half-seriously, I think every Ducati ought to have come with a basic multimeter in the toolkit, you can glean so much from just a few tests and be back on the road in no time.
Lol, to be fair to it I thought I would have had more problems with it than I have so far. Battery terminals were all fine, it's currently on charge at work so can't check voltages yet but will update tonight after its had a few hours. Thanks for everyone's help.
There are two yellow wires that come from the generator to the reg/rec they normally have a white connector, this plug is well known for burning out, it's a first check, most will have been replaced or soldered direct by now. Steve
It's well- documented over the years Tans, if you put "748 regulator melting" into Google then you will have enough reading matter for the rest of the evening
You will have to remove the right hand fairing the plug is behind the reg/rec below the battery. Steve
Yep, sounds the same as the issue my buddy had with his 97 bike; the stator had fried and with a multimeter on it and running, as u revved it the voltage would just drop off to around 8v!!! The Reg rec broke because the stator burnt out. West Country windings fixed the stator and provided a new reg rec, which with some decent soldering the bike has been perfect ever since, recording solid voltages of around 13.8v when running Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
