shutdown

[DesmoDog]

Doing 80 on our main road yesterday when the engine coughs once, then dies. All power gone and I'm lucky not to have anyone behind. At first I though it was out of fuel and the light had gone, not so. Couldn't get it to turn over at all. When it does, the starter motor won't turn off, including when I use the cut out. Have it collected (2 hours) and to the mechanic - starts it first time. Drop the tank, and the bastard dies again. Mechanic rekons it can't be the alarm system so I'm looking at a short somewhere.

I remeber someone else writing about starter motor woes, could this be linked?

[Pedro]

Try the starter motor relay - quite common issue on Monny's and 888s I think.

[DesmoDog]

tis true, especially on older versions - the mechanic though this, checked it and it would appear not to be the case. ???

[norrie]

Could it be that when you drop the tank there is a wire getting trapped or something.

Worth checking for.


Norrie.

[Shandy]

Does your kill switch normally work? Sounds like if the kill switch didn't stop the starter motor then either the kill switch doesn't work or its a short.

Like Pedro said the starter relay could be sticking. It might not do it all the time which is why it wouldn't go for a while and then wouldn't stop when it got going, sods law it was probably behaving when the mechanic looked at it!

I have trouble with my old 95 M600, sometimes when you press the starter button nothing happens, a wiggle of the wires on the starter relay sorts it out.

Not sure about the dying bit though can't help with that, that could be a short somewhere. It might be worth having a look at the air inlet trumpets on top of the air filter box, mine wander from time to time and end up pointing sideways squashed on the underside of the feul tank, shot in the dark there i could be talking out of my a*s.

Good luck, just remember if it was easy everyone would own one!

[DesmoDog]

Cheers guys,

Ped - I think the relay was what the mechanic was talking about. He checked it and the more modern version was installed. I'll check with him though.

Norrie - first time I lifted the tank (and was horrified at the state of the loom) I noticed a forked plug with long connections was almost undone, this was down under the seat and back towards the rear shock. I put it back together and forgot about it. Does anyone know what it's for? Could it be alarm related? I'll mention that to the mechanic tomorrow as well.

Shandy, I'm more and more sure it is a short - the battery flattended itself last week after 6 days. That could point to minimal contact, where yesterdays was a sudden short out. I know the guy before me had disconnected his alarm for the winter to stop the battery flattening, there's also evidence that the bikes been dropped at some point - I'm wondering if there was damage done somewhere then.

OK, so I now have a more useful list to go to the mech with rather than. Is it !!!!ed (yesterdays highly technical question).

Bloody annoying, but I still love the things!

[Pedro]

It might be a dodgy earth. There is an earth point on my 900 on the back of the rhs footrest hanger upper bolts. The nut had fallen off and the terminal was rattling around causing spluttering......

[DesmoDog]

update: I spoke to the mechanic who started it again while I was talking. The battery is losing charge, but he rekons it could just be at the end of its life.

I found out what the forked contact was for - the tank sensor, this was loose the last time and its possible that it came apart again explaining the cut out.

So, I'm off to talk to the mechanic to find out just what the damage is for a new battery - well I know that, but for his time telling me that :-/

[DesmoDog]

Well that was quick! He's been out for a ride on it and now he thinks its the fuel pump diaphragm. Something that dosen't go wrong very often, if ever. Thats his current thought, but he's going to strip it tomorrow and have a look see. I feel I'm about to depart with a wadge here :eek:

Time to go talk to N.I.T and see how much such oddities can be sourced.

[grunter]

what year? when you say it dies when tank down does it turn over?

[DesmoDog]

Grunt,

It's a 98, was a dark. It was turning over, just - seemed like a flat battery. Been on to the mech today and he tells me he spent an interesting afternoon extracting a large amount of crap from the pump diaphragm (I must put that through the spellchecker), seems that the tank filter was removed at some point leading to the eventual blocking of the pump. Bench tests have the engine running a lot better, road test this afternoon then my pump might well give out when he tells me the cost - Something I doubt N.I.T. could sort, but thanks for the very good price on a replacment pump mate.