Hey Everyone! May's Bike of the Month challenge is now open for entries!

Thank you all for your input.

694 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Punch, May 5, 2020

Yellow800ss

Discussion Starter · Apr 4, 2020 (Edited)

I just got done painting my 2004 Ducati 800 ss and the Tuesday after, I wanted to ride it to work. I went outside to start it up and nothing......
Totally shocked.
So that night I searched for answers on this forum. After 20-30 questions about “My Ducati isn’t starting “ and I got a list of things to try. Battery, spark,and gas. So I started with the battery and took it out and hooked it up to the charger for the night and it read 22% out of 100% at 10.4 volts out of 12+ Volts. So the next day it read 100% and at 12 Volts so I reinstalled it and it started right away. Totally shocked again for a good reason this time.
I just want to thank everyone who answered any questions about this topic.
I seriously cannot thank you all enough.
Can’t wait to ride it tomorrow.
God bless this forum.

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belter

· #2 · Apr 4, 2020

if it went flat sitting in the bike you need to check for a current draw with the ignition off. get a multimeter that has milli amps, disconnect the battery positive lead and fit the multimeter clamps between battery and lead. it'll give you a current draw reading. the reading will spike with the immo light on the dash flashing to over 10ma, and it'll have 1 or 1.5ma (ish, i forget now) constant draw due to the ecu. 6ma will kill a battery pretty quickly.

when you first connect the multimeter it'll have 60 or 80 ma or something like that which is the dash activating itself. once that is over it should drop to the 1.5ma and spiking.

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Yellow800ss

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 5, 2020

The bike sat in winter storage while I found the time to paint it and do some maintenance. The battery is less than a year old, but the bike sat for 3-4 months with out starting to charge the battery so I guess it drained for some reason witch is why I will try your idea.
I will do the multimeter test you described just to see if there’s a draw on the battery but after charging the battery I cleaned all battery connections with a wire brush and sandpaper. The power wire going to the starter was rusted, So I disconnected it and cleaned the rust up and it started much quicker than before.
It’s been a month now sense I had the problem and the bike has started on the first push of the button.
The day it didn’t start I thought so many things. Manly the starter. I’m so glad I did a search on here to find a quick and easy and most important cheep fix to the problem I was having.
Thanks again Ducati.ms.

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Punch

· #4 · May 5, 2020

Also lead acid batteries have a characteristic called self discharge.
It might be a few % per month but added to the small drain Belter mentioned, it can mean without charge the battery flattens.
In the discharge and self discharge process the active materials turn to lead sulphate.
This can form a layer on the surface of the active materials and even inside, which can become relatively impermeable.
It is called hard lead sulphate.
The special solar batteries I was involved with had minute traces of selenium and tin to help in the active materials plus some other elements.
The charge and discharge process requires that the electrolyte can permeate the active material to take a part in the charge and discharge process/chemical reaction.
If it can't get in then the chemical reaction cannot take place effectively, which means your battery is stuffed.
A stuffed battery on charge will show 14 or whatever volts, but when you try to use it, because the electrolyte can't get in there, the discharge chemical reaction can't keep up with the required load/discharge current and the terminal voltage falls.
Hence the RRRR, RRR, RR, R sound when you try to crank the bike and it runs out of oomph and does not start.

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