[Ducati] Had a bad day

[Rich Roberts]

Bummer, have not seen many catch fire due to reg failure. Electrex is your replacement option. Getting 10 gauge wires through the seal on alt cover will not prove a big deal. I did it and sealing it back up was intuitive. Think I may have used Yamabond and a piece of tubing to maske a nice tight fit. Use auto grade 10 gauge and solder directly to the connection points under alt sidecover. I removed the stator by removing those couple of bolts that hold it in bore. It is a tight fit but careful prodding will pop it out. Hope you did not get acid all over. It is esp hard on paint. The stock batt is not in a very good location if you ask me, go down on right side and good chance you will puncture battery with that one locating pin/bolt behind box. I did and it is sad when you have to sit and watch all the electrolyte drain out the hole.
Pushing is no fun...last time the connector for fuel relay made poor connection for no apparent reason and suspecting more I also pushed home backroads for a couple of miles. Never did that on a Honda. :)  The insulation on your alt toasted for seveal reasons Number one is due to running batt voltage too low. Need to keep bike on a tender at all times. or go with a better battery that does not leak. I put an Odyssey 680 on my 996R and now everything is wonderful with starting and maintaining batt voltage. Stock system is just crap. Also redo your connectors. I use Ancor brand adhesive lined heat shrink marine connectors. What style does not matter as much as using good ones. I think I used spade but bullet works as well. Make sure all connection points are good and corrosion free. I also used some braided heat tube rom McMaster Carr and sleeved the wires from Alt to keep exhaust heat, engine heat off. but most of the heat is from resistance from low batt voltage at startup.
 keep it charged and you should have no issues. Rich 


----- Original Message ----
From: EJ <ijaywu at gmail.com>
To: ducati at ducati.net
Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2006 12:13:11 AM
Subject: [Ducati] Had a bad day


My bike (97' 916SP) just caught fire yesterday.

It suddenly lost power. I let it slide to roadside, and saw smoke
coming out of the right fairing vent. I know it's the regulator, so I
took the fairing apart and... I saw fire! right under the battery. I
put it off with my leather glove, installed the fairing back and
pushed the bike 3 miles (mostly uphills) home, with all my protecting
gears on. Almost dehydrated.

I'm glad that I have the Dzus screws on my bike. Without them I
wouldn't have be able to take the fairings apart and put out the fire
as fast as I did. The regulator is completely toasted. There is a
short and the wire started burning because of that. It burnt a hole in
my battery, and the sulfuric acid kept dripping out on my way home.
Gladly there is no metal part beneath the battery, only the CF
fairings.

http://tinyurl.com/f29c3
http://tinyurl.com/fvf84
http://tinyurl.com/hnrx6
http://tinyurl.com/l5q8d

Anyway, it's a terrible experience. Just to remind you guys that, if
you ever suspect your regulator isn't normal (my GEN light came up
sometimes in the past two months), replace it. You might burn you
beloved Duc if you ignore it.

I'm planning to change the yellow wires coming out of the alternator
(2-wire type), so I'm taking the crank case off. However, how did you
people who have done this before manage to run the larger-awg wires
through that tiny hole in front of the alternator cover? Do you guys
have any suggestions about where else to check?

And a final question. I tried to drain the engine oil. I released the
filter (smaller one) and the drain plug on the bottom of the engine
case, but only 2 litres of oil came out. The larger filter isn't
removed so there might be around 250cc in it, but it's still way too
less. I'm sure the oil level before I drained it is normal, right
between the MAX and MIN lines. Is there anything I'm missing?

-- 
EJ

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