Had a look at solenoid, looks fine, fuse is intact. Wonder if I need to get rid of the trickle charger cable that leeches of the battery, as I don’t use it. When I was putting the battery in from the negative terminal saw for a second some tiny sparks, which I don’t know if that is normal or not.
I doubt a trickle charger lead would draw current if not plugged into anything (besides its there to put current IN to the battery) How have you checked the solenoid? Visual inspection or electrical test? Whenever you connect a battery, always +ve first, -ve last - other way around for disconnecting. With due respect I think you ought to get the bike looked over by a qualified auto-electrician.
When you get the multimeter, refer to the electrical drawings(in the back of you manual)check there is current going from the solenoid to another component in the bike when the power is on. Power may not be making it from the solenoid(even if the fuse is fine). That was my issue anyway.
From what you say water ingress could be the cause of your problems. There are 3 critical relays shown a 37/38/39 on the wiring diagram. Locate and check for Verdi Gris/water ingress. They are a cheap part to replace (should really be a yearly service item).
Yes in Holland Dealer was nice enough to just lend me a battery, still nothing. Other than making some nice sparks when hooking up the negative terminal. I think at this point the bike won, I managed to get a trailer to a shop tomorrow, gonna be interesting to find out what the cause was. Had a service to bleed the brakes anyway tomorrow, so not a bad timing. Thanks everyone for the help, it was fun to open the bike and see what is on the inside I suppose. Gonna get multimeter for the next time
News from mechanic, 2nd day, still not identified the cause and it doesn’t seem straight forward. They think might be backup battery for alarm related. Apparently at some point the bike electronics started up randomly and then died again
First thing I do on any bike is remove the alarm, they are always hassle except to the thieves who don’t care and steal it anyway.
I'm also wondering how likely is it that Ducati dealer would cover any of the costs, as it's been in their hands a week ago before. Maybe something went south there, although obviously without first allowing them to find the issue can't say for sure. I'm not exactly putting the blame on them, but considering it was running fine for a few months, it's a bit odd that this happened a few days after 12k km service. On the other note, how does this bike fare to you guys in the rain? Is it known to not be able to handle rain more than any other motorcycle? I mean the zx6r I have I was riding in really bad rainy conditions, and never had any issues with electronics, so would be strange if a few rides in the rain would short something in the 899 to this extent. This is a bit of rambling, but not much else I can do at this point just wait
My 899 has done 17000 miles now and got wet twice this year. No electrical problems for last 2 years. Just a new set of cams on rear cylinder.
Well the mechanics from my good local place gave up, they are taking it over to Ducati, where I had my last service. They couldn't find the cause after 3 days... Reason why I took it there in the first place is because I had it booked to do the brakes and thought they'd figure this one out at the same time. Yikes
To be honest I’d have called the Ducati dealer and got it straight back in there for them to sort out. Assume some kind of warranty came with the bike?
Okay so just had a call, apparently the bike wakes up when you give it a good "smack" as my mechanic put it. Essentially a shit ton of relays and wires were burnt through, so those will be swapped out for tomorrow. I didn't really get a good answer for the cause, but mostly it came down to it being Ducati. That's my mechanic words not mine lol. I'm wondering since I just put the gb racing clutch/engine covers, could they be possibly retaining more heat within the bike? As I did that at the same time with 12k km service.
Just my opinion, it’s nothing to do with fitting GB Racing covers but more likely the result of a short circuit. Could be a damaged live wire that went to earth or a regulator/rectifier catastrophic failure. Get your mechanic to look at the voltage output of the generator when he’s fixed it. Andy
