Help Diagnose Starting issue Please.

[Traeden]

So, I brought my 2000 ducati monster 900 out of storage and did everything to get her ready for riding. changed oil, put air in the tires and even went on a nice canyon ride. 5 days ago it snowed out of the blue and I wasn't able to move my bike before it got snowed on. Wiped off snow but it now will not start and put it under covered parking but it wouldnt start later that day. I gave it a few days to dry out still won't start.

When I try to start it I turn the key and here the fuel pump putting fuel in to start. I hit the starter button and it turns the engine over, I see the starter motor engaged turning, occasionally i'll hear a pop noise but the engine won't start. I can't push start it either.

I have a battery tender and made sure it was completely charged and that the distilled water levels are good. I checked the air filter and it seems fine. I checked the spark plugs. Both were gapped a little more than recommended. 1 of them showed according to my book signs of a rich air/fuel mixture indicated by the sooty carbon on it. The other looked like it could use being replaced so I replaced them both. still no luck and same condition.

Please help me diagnose this problem so I can enjoy the summer riding in store! Thanks.

[Howie]

Are you sure you have good spark?  Did you store the bike with fuel stabilizer?  Is the cranking speed sufficient?  What is the voltage reading across the battery while cranking?

[Traeden]

Hi Howie,

I'm confident this will get figured out with your experise. Thanks. I usually put stabilizer i'm not 100% I did cause I was rushed when I stored it and had to leave town but since I've been back I rode enough to need to refill my tank with premium and I put some stabilizer in then just incase as per instructions.

voltage was only 10.5 volts across terminals when I tried to start. read 12 idle. I hadnt recharged it since the other day trying to start it probably drained the battery a bit. Battery is a little more than 1 year old. I'll try by passing with car to see if that changes things. I'm not sure how to measure cranking speed. Also it won't push start. doesn't that probably indicate things?

I've never worked with spark before so I'm not positive if they are sparking correctly but I have uploaded a video posted at this link. let me know if you think its a weak spark.
2000 ducati monster m900 spark plug sparking
should also help maybe based on the sounds.

thanks I eagerly wait your reply.

[Howie]

Battery is a little weak, but in spite of that cranking speed sounds OK.  Hard to tell in the video, but spark looks good.  Charge the battery overnight.  If convenient, have it load tested so you know you have a good battery.

Give this a try; put a drop or two of fresh gas down each throttle body.  see if you get some life.  If you do have stale gas it will burn (maybe not so well) once the cylinders are warm. 

[Traeden]

I have no idea how to load test motorcycle battery and when I asked autozone they said they can only do it for cars.

I'll try charging the battery overnight but I hooked jumper cables up to the battery terminals (car was off) to my car and then to the corresponding positive and negatives of my bikes battery and that wouldn't even turn it just clicked.( i have no idea what that means did i hook it up wrong?)

I drained the fuel tank and will replace with new fuel just to ensure there was no water in the tank. Is it possible water is somewhere in the fuel lines?

To start we need fuel, air and spark. If I can't push start it and my spark plugs are fine and battery as well perhaps somethings wrong with the fuel or air mix? one of the old spark plugs was black and sooty and indicated according to my chart that there might be too rich of a fuel air mixture or obstructed air filter. I don't know where I should start to tackle trouble shooting that.

Air filter looked fine under the casing. there is a red cone shaped filter thats under the tank and seat area. I am not sure what that is for but it looks a little mucky.

[Traeden]

[Traeden]

I just drained the tank(that sucked) and will put new fuel in it tomorrow.

I'm going to check the pressure tomorrow morning. my logic says that if the spark plugs arent wet (which they havent been) and the spark is indeed happening then fuel must not be getting into the system. perhaps a valve is stuck or somethings wrong with the injection? I don't know if it is relevant but I'm getting close to the 6000 mile valve service work.

Please anyone else feel free to chime in. I want to have this fixed by thursday evening and will be working on it and check here all day tomorrow and thursday.

[Thermite]

The spark looks fine and the engine was turning over nicely ( but with no compression because the plug was out).

You have the recipie for fire: Air, Fuel, Ignition and momentun. 

Looks like you have the last two.  Air is easy.  Follow the fuel.  Fuel filter, pinched lines, bad connections, etc...

[Dellikose]

It sounds like the gas. You still have the old gas in the lines, even though you drained the tank. I know with carbs you can drain the bowls to get some fresh fuel in there, but for injected I'm not sure if there is a place to drain. You may just have to keep cranking until it finally runs to burn up what remains.

The cone filter under the seat should be the crankcase vent. Normally it is routed to the air box, but it sounds like you have an aftermarket piece (K&N maybe). It's normal for it to be dirty, since it catches any oil which positive pressure from the crank case throws out.

[Traeden]

So I found some this on another thread

"The comment about the fuel flowing from left to right means that the fuel is pumped out of the left (as you are sitting on the bike) tank connector through the fuel hose to the pressure regulator and then returns on the right side of the motor into the right side quick connect. I would pop the hose off the right side of the regulator and briefly switch the ignition to see if fuel is getting that far. After that I would pop out the injector on the horizontal cylinder and crank the motor (with the injector connected) to see if it is supplying fuel or not."

Will try this and check back. if it comes down to having to clean fuel injectors any posts on how to do that step by step would be great

[Traeden]

fuel seems to be flowing just fine. I read about doing a pressure test by putting my finger over the cyclinder hole where the spark plug goes. pressure was strong and fine on the vertical cyclinder (directly under gas tank closest to seat). The horizontal cyclinder was most likely the problem. pressure was very low and didn't come close to moving my finger.

What do I do now? I'll be looking online but people who already know your comments are welcome. I'm thinking this might mean that a valve is stuck? no idea how to fix that. I do have a haynes manual though and a good community of ducati forum friends!

[Traeden]

As per advice of other individuals I bought a can of aresol starter fluid and sprayed a little on the air filter and in the cylinder of each spark plug. this did nothing.

What I know:
was riding fine a 2 weeks ago and i changed oil and went through a whole tank of gas

engine turns, starter motor is engaging, battery distilled levels full, holding 12.5 volts puts out 10.5 when I hit starter, spark plugs are sparking and new, fuel tank has brand new fuel, Fuel pump is engaging every time the key turns and works fine, engine kill is not pushed

***Pressure/ compression in vertical cylinder feels fine. pressure/compression in horizontal cyclinder feels weak. Would this be why bike won't start or just be an issue for performance?

Potential things to do:
I've looked around and still don't know how to perfrom cylinder leakage test.
Would inspecting the fuel injectors and cleaning them possibly be the fix?
Is there possibly something wrong with valves? How do I diagnose?

I'm moving in a couple weeks and need to figure this out before then. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I am super happy to take phone calls or text for more clear and immediate communication. 801-512-7549 Traeden<trade in> as  mentioned fuel injected 2000 monster 900. I have a Haynes manual.

[Thermite]

Since the valves open and close mechanically "stuck" would result more than just starting issues.  If it were valve related more likely a belt problem.

[bond0087]

If you can't get it running even on starter fluid, it would seem to me that ignition would be the most likely problem, but I would do a few more tests on the fuel front before you draw any conclusions. I would suggest taking off the air filter and pouring a few drops of gasoline directly down the throttle bodies.  If that doesn't work, then you can judiciously spray some starting fluid directly down the throttle body. If neither of those work, it seems like ignition is the likely culprit.
     It is difficult to tell whether or not your spark is OK based on the video of your plug at the specified gap.  It is much easier to spark across a gap in open air than in compressed air in the engine, so you need to see how well it sparks across a large gap in open air.  Also, I can't tell in the video if the spark plug is grounded to the engine case or anything, which is important to do (it can damage your ignition system if the spark plug is not grounded).  You need to hold the spark plug against the engine case or another grounded place to make sure that you don't mess up the ignition system. 
    To test the spark, a tool like this one:  is generally used. With that, you can see exactly how large a gap your spark can jump.  If it does not jump the specified gap (it should be in the Haynes manual somewhere), then I would start investigating ignition further.
    If it ran well very recently, I think any sort of valve or compression issue is unlikely.  If you ran into a problem that ruined your compression or valvetrain that fast, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you would have noticed it when it happened.
   Also, during this testing, I would recommend hooking the bike up to a car battery (with the car not running and the bike's battery taken out of the equation).  A mostly drained battery makes it a real pregnant dog to find anything else, and a good car battery will give you all the juice you need for loads of unsuccessful troubleshooting!

Good luck!

[Traeden]

Thanks bond. I'll look into getting the spark plug tester. I did ground it to the engine case. I tried hooking up to my car battery (car not running) but the bike wouldn't even turn over when I did this. Perhaps I hooked it up wrong?

did the jumper cables on car battery and then attached the corresponding positive to positive and negative to negative cables on the bike without my bike battery. I also tried just grounding the negative. I also tried that with my battery left on the bike and all the same result... instead of engine turn over just a click noise.

I'll try fuel and engine starter down the throttle bodies (throttle body is exactly what?) I'll google search in the mean time.