Ducati Monster Forum

Hello everybody!

Today I was going to wake my monster from its winter hiatus. I turn the ignition key, and it lights up, and starts up pretty easy. I turn it off after a while, but when I turn the key back on, it is totally dead. I try to turn the key on and off a few times, nothing. The relay under the seat responds though. Suddenly, when I turn the key, it lights up again, and I can start. I drive a few minutes, and it dies. This repeats itself a few times. Also - when I turn the lights on, it dies. I have a hard time finding a pattern though. Any thoughts on what this might be? I think I shall pull the left hand side switches off and give them a good cleaning up and see if that helps, other than that - I am clueless.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Start with cleaning the battery connections and grounds. 

Start by putting a volt meter on it. You should be 12.6 - 13.2 vdc with the bike off. If you're below that, then you need to put it on a tender or trickle charger. Don't try to start and run the bike if you don't have this minimum charge. If you get it to the proper range, then start the bike and check the volts at idle. At idle you should be around 13.6 - 14.2 (rev it to about 3k to be sure you can get to 14.2 but not over). If you're below or above this range, you have a charging problem. If you run the bike without the proper charge, you will over work your rectifier regulator and fry it. If you don't have the proper idle charge, you likely have a bad rectifier regulator.

   "smertehyl"   [laugh] [laugh]

Solved:main relay corroded. Thanks for the input guys!