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Yesterday I looked on this excellent forum for any ideas that may explain poor cranking and starter performance that rather suddenly appeared when I tried starting in the morning after a fairly cold night (around 6deg.C 43F) a few weeks ago. I first assumed that, after 5 seasons my LiPO battery was starting to age and with the cold and higher oil viscosity that this was the problem so I bought a new battery. The effect seemed to be temperature related; always being a problem when cold starting. The new battery didn't cure the problem; hence my looking at the forum. There didn't seem to be a dedicated topic focused on exactly this problem, hence this new specific topic, but by various searches i did find a few ideas, even one that reported a similar problem because they had put in 20W-40 oil rather than the recommended 5W-40 oil and this became a problem on a cold day. In fact I made a list of all the possible options and there are lots, (battery, starter, starter contactor, connections etc. including the possibility of the magnets becoming demagnetised (on a Ferrari forum), but obviously the most likely was a poor connection so I stripped down all the connections between battery and starter, including the heavy duty earth cable that fixes to the gearbox casing, cleaned them, added corrosion protective grease and reattached but really didn't see anything that gave me the slightest concern. However, on dismantling I did take off the insulated spade terminal that supplies the voltage to the starter contactor and it didn't feel a tight push-on. I used pliers to compress the jaws of the female insulated terminal, cleaned up the spade that emerges from the starter contactor next to the large +ve starter terminal and reattached. Problem solved! Obviously high resistance to the contactor coil can cause the contactor to pull in rather weakly, leading to high resistance in the main starter contacts and a weak start. I am putting this experience out just in case anyone has a similar problem. It might be useful for others to add their own experiences associated with solving the problem of the starter motor working but having difficulty in cranking the engine as quickly as normal.

I keeping looking for that charcoal canister. and looking and looking and looking . . .

Its easy to fabricate muffler hangers with simple hand tools from 5mm aluminium plate. Better than ruining a good set of standard hangers by chopping off the peg mounts. Ciao

It's for the stock V11 2004 version. I was musing about what I wanted to do to clean up the lines of the rear of my bike. Pull the blanket of a mudshield from the tyre & install a slimmer cleaner hugger. Cut the passenger footpegs off the muffler hangers. Then fabricate a tail tidy of sorts. Change the bulbous brake light for an LED unit. Then as the beer adjusted my capacity for what is reasonable, started looking at those sexy Rizoma turn indicators. At that point I realised I'd strayed into fantasyland & went to bed So if anyone has a set lying around, of no use...

I'm the "wind" :-)..contact me Kane. PM

I caught wind of a Tekno set that "may" come available near you. Sure, they ain't purdy, but they'll get you to a South'n SpineRaid!

Contact cleaner doesn't work (I know, now there'll be 20 people saying it worked for them)The switch is a sealed unit from both sides, internally for oil and externally for weather. Mine failed and the contact was just tarnished after getting old. Cleaned it up with Scotchbright and it worked again but I couldn't get it to stay together so just used my spare. Ciao

You're getting your dead gameshow hosts mixed up. I think you need to ask Monty. On door #1 I can't help my eyes being drawn to that ugly charcoal canister under the bike. What is wrong with me?

Do you warm the battery before you try to start your bike in cold conditions? With a LiPo battery when the ambient temps drop you must turn the headlight on for 30 seconds or so before attempting to start to warm the battery. Ciao

It sounds like you did a thorough job of troubleshooting and fixing the electrics. And you are right about this forum being excellent. I just finished fitting a later model gearbox shifter plate with the banana link, and doing the Lucky Phil fettling of the shift hook, and finally installing the Scud/Chuck spring. I had already fitted the Phil/Chuck extended shifter lever. Shifting is a charm now. I owe so much to the wisdom of the forum members. Now what was I saying? Oh yes, as I took the starter off, I noticed the same loose spade connector on my bike, and I fixed it the same way you did. Clean, squeeze, grease, and go. I did the same to the starter faces that touch the bell housing, as that is the starter earth return. You may want to check the earth circuits for the regulator and coils too.

Thanks, PeterT! It always fascinates how commonly issues turn out to be something as simple as a weak connection. But nothing's really free and I expect the forum members will gang up on you for some pictures of your Trofeo . . . Welcome, Sir, and thanks again for the excellent technical post!

Agreed brother.... could be a lot worse. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Docc, please Hey docc, very cool! Please keep me in the loop. Thanks!

hello everyone, i just bought a rosso corsa with the same bubble problem on the tank vinyl. Could someone tell me where to get this vinyl?

Travelling advice from a squarehead, SW Motech up front are fine, but bags rear with that form - shape are sensitive to turbulence when the word speed comes up, just heavy own experience. And they are way to big, you don't need it. Some clear wrapping around the tail, coud be nicely done, and a triangle shaped bag, happy travelling. Cheers tom.

For those of you in SoCal, Aprilia has one more demo-ride / track day scheduled for this year, on Dec. 14 at Chuckwalla. They will have the 660, and other bikes, there to ride. https://aprilia.regfox.com/aprilia-racers-days-2020 This would be a nice way to end this year!

The way to drill out the old hole straight is to use a bush with the same size ID as the drill and hold it against the surface and run the drill through that. Obviously the bigger the bush OD the better but this provides you with a drilling guide perpendicular to the mounting face to use. Ciao

Shees Doc.......... 4500 Klm one way. Would love to participate one day