Took my 851 for a quick spin earlier today. All ship-shape and lovely on the As and Bs in the crisp morning in the West Pennine Moors... until I lost power and the engine cut out a few miles from home. After a few mins normal service resumed and I pressed on. Error. About a mile later, I heard a loud crackle/ pop- similar to a backfire. Dead. Completely dead. Push home dead. Won't even try to start. Lights come on but the right indicator is going twice the normal rate. The fuses on the dash look to be all right. On a downhill, I hopped on and tried to bump it. Didn't start but it sounded like a bag of spanners. I'm guessing the belts have gone- despite being about 250 miles in from a new set fitted by a very experienced Duc specialist. Any ideas? (I'm hoping someone is going to authoritively tell me it's not the belts and the pistons and valves aren't done.)
On my 851 when the belts snapped it just clipped a couple of valves. With broken belts the cams seem to allow the valves to snap shut. If the belts have jumped a couple of teeth though.... It's not difficult or hard to check, but if a Duc specialist has worked on it recently i would be taking it back to him in the first instance.
Thanks for the heads up. Perhaps not as catastrophic as I'd thought then... I don't think the belts have jumped. I'm assuming the pop was a snap though! I just wanted to get some feedback before I call them on Monday. It's quite a trek so I was hoping it might be something sortable more locally. Oh well...
I’d take the belt covers off to check. I had one go on my 1098 and luckily only ended up needing a new head. But it was painful £ wise.
Sounds more like an electrical issue to me As suggested above possibly the regulator has failed. I had a similar experience with a 900ss a few years back
That’s odd- They normally hum like an electric motor . but seriously, on start-up I think it’s largely the open clutch shimmy that causes the “is it supposed to sound like that?” moment, but if it’s being bumped, the clutch rattle won’t happen, and if the owner is used to the normal engine sound and it was different after it stopped then . IME, electrical induced misfire sounds a bit like a cheap fireworks display, fizzles pops and bangs, then nothing but a bit of smoke. Belt going can be more like real ordinance depending on what the engine is doing at the time. I hope the OP is lucky, but I would think it unusual for a Ducati with a reg rec failure that stops running due to a discharged battery to then start back up on the button after a few minutes.
