[Seattleducati]

I was riding on the weekend and came to a stop at my sister's house. When I stopped, bike in 1st gear, clutch in and front brake on, the whole instrument cluster went blank and the bike died. Strange. I checked the fuses and the 15amp fuse for starting the bike was blown. I replaced it and no problems. The other day I was wheeling the bike out of my condo complex parking lot (bike in neutral, ignintion on ready to start) and the tachometer needle flicked up for a brief second (up to maybe 2K rpm) as I was coasting (bike turned off) out of the parking lot, then the fuse blew again.

This morning I went out to start the bike, had it in neutral, ignition on and the bike not moving and the tach needle jumped up again to 2K rpm before I started the bike; no fuse blown this time though. Also, it takes about a minute or so before the tach will flick; the bike being in neutral, turned off but the power switch on.

I'm thinking a short somewhere, and possibly related to the tach wiring. I did pull the body panels off and the tank out and checked all the wiring I could see but nothing looked like it was shorting. I also pulled the ignition switch off and apart and nothing there as well. Any clues?

Thanks in advance,
Jonathan

 

[JonST06]

If all the wires look good you may have a intermittent short inside your ignition switch. Also maybe a short in the starter???

[ This message was edited by: JonST06 on 2006-11-08 10:25 ]

 

[Seattleducati]

Well, I pulled the switch apart and nothing seemed out of line. Also, would a short in the starter cause the tach to jump like it does?

 

[JonST06]

If you had a current or voltage spike I would think it's possible to see that in the tach jumping. I would try disconnecting what you can and still have the bike run. Then ride the bike and see if it still does it. Reconnect only one thing at a time to narrow it down. Electrical work at a shop can get very expensive based on how long it takes them to find. It could be a simple 5 min fix, but if they took 6 hrs to find it at 75-100 bucks an hour that will put a dent in the old pocketbook.

 

[Seattleducati]

The guys on another forum suggester loose or chafed wire near or around the starter, regulator/rectifier and stator problem or wire chaffing around the head of the frame so I'll check those all out as soon as I can.

 

[trotsky]

I was check the wires near your feet. I know the little rubber boot on mine near the footpeg is starting to show some wear. Maybe something simple. One thing that might be obvious is the ground wire on the battery...read a few posts lately where people have tightened it up and it has fixed weird electrical problems.

 

[2ndSpace]

Loose battery cables!?!? Mine did the same thing.

 

[Seattleducati]

Loose cables where? At the battery terminals or at the grounding points? I know for a fact that at the terminals they are as tight as can be.