Kiwi_Roy

Swishdave, I believe the reason the SCR type burns out is because of the flakey Voltage reference, the Voltage drop gets a little too high so the regulator compensates firing the SCRs until they never turn off. This is particularly bad on the 01 with two relay contacts in series. Eventually the diodes overheat and melt the solder and the leads drop off, I have photos somewhere. I'm sure the Mosfet regs are much better and I would avoid anything that's a direct replacement for the DE. I'm glad Electrosport are more forthcoming, I never had a problem with mine but they refused to divulge what principle it works on. I agree, a Voltmeter is a great confidence boost, just like the oil pressure gauge, highly recommended if you aren't running a Roper plate.

It seems to me this thread covers just about every charging fault. I will go over a couple of faults, Overheating the 30 Amp fuse and the two yellow bullet connectors is caused by resistance (bad conections) A series regulator can only decide to start charging at the start of a cycle, once it turns on it's committed for the whole half cycle, we know the alternator Voltage can go sky high. Actually its not really that the joints are bad its just that the current with a series regulator can be so high, it's only limited by the power the alternator can put out, I suspect it peaks well over 40 amps for part of the cycle Heat is Current squared x resistance just for example a couple of different currents, lets assume we have 0.01 Ohms resistance in one of the joints 20 x 20 x .01 Ohms = 4 Watts 40 x 40 x .01 = 16 Watts twice as much current but four times the heat A shunt regulator on the other hand can turn off at any part of the cycle so as soon as the battery Voltage is high enough the regulator shorts out the alternator and the 30 Amp fuse is spared Using separate light relays to remove the load from the OEM headlight relays as Lucky Phil did is a no brainer, it ensures the Ducati Energy gets a stable Voltage reference, Actually a couple of times my regulators stopped and I got home by running a wire direct from the battery to pick up the male pin effectively making it a direct connect regulator, can't leave it like that because it draws about 15 milliamps which would quickly flatten the battery. The Ducati Energy must have a good ground connection, it has a tiny black wire all the way from the regulator case to the battery, its not good enough, those big current spikes act on that small wire creating large Voltage drops which effectively reduce the output. Lately I have been suggesting using an aluminum strap from the regulator case to a timing cover bolt (same metal all the way) and it could look quite neat. I used an Electrosport on mine and had no further problems (if I remembered to replace the fuse at the start of season) but I think I would go with a Shindengen next time only because I don't like the secrecy of Electrosport. I no longer have the need for either type with my 72 Eldorado and 06 Griso Good Luck

Yes, the switch has failed, they are not very reliable, I fit a 0-100 psi gauge on all my Guzzis when they do. Some claim if you fit the rubber cover over the switch they last longer. Usually fast flashing is caused by a short. If you replace the flasher unit with a high wattage lamp, I use a headlight bulb with a pair of wires soldered to it. Plug the lamp in the flasher socket, now the lamps will go when you turn on left or right. With the lamps on wiggle all the wires around the lights, if you create a short the headlight bulb will flash On.

The original Ducati Energia is a series regulator, it opens the circuit instead. IMHO these are a good regulator let down by the flaky Voltage reference from the headlight circuit. More than once I got my bike home by hot wiring from the battery to the male pin (black wire) of the regulator. I think it would be more reliable with a different relay connecting the black wire to the battery, I thought about connecting it to the ECU relay which has a fairly light load, the reference draws about 15 milliamps from memory. The 4 or 5 Amps through the headlight relay creates an erratic Voltage drop although the regulator holds the headlight Voltage constant at the expense of battery regulation. I couldn't get Electrosport to tell me anything about their regulator, I suspected it was a shunt type. The Voltage reference is permanently connected to the battery making it more reliable, it only draws about 0.3 milliamps but it will flatten the battery over time. I would pull the fuse over winter but then I forgot to put it back again and consequently the battery went flat, luckily I was close to a friends house and I was able to give the battery a quick charge. There is only one thing that will cause the 30 Amp fuse (plastic) to melt, a loose fuse holder, mine actually welded in but I was able to squeeze the contacts together. I replaced the fuse because It had been arcing and it seemed fine. As for the bullet connectors, I think the ones on the stator are larger than our normal ones, it's better to cut them off and use butt splices. I had to replace the yellow wires on my stator, one wire broke at the coil connection, the copper was too corroded to re-solder.

There was a Motus at the rally in Utah in September, very nice bike, chain drive though.

I thought I had posted it here before, Knight Design a family run business in Oregan make lowered pegs for your Guzzi I bought a pair for my Griso along with their dropped toe peg for the foot pedals Google Knight Design www.knightdesignllc.com

Docc, I don't think it would track across at the two way connector. One side of the lamp is supplied from the black wire or at least the red/black its connected to the other side is grounded by the regulator to turn the light On, There's a connecter at the headstock the idiot lights plug into, my guess would be there, perhaps spray with WD40 next time you are going to be out in the wet.

Yes, but it only needs a few milliamps, the smallest load on the VII would be an idiot light at about 100 mA. On my Eldorado I have a light if any fuse blows. You could use a blown fuse like that as a Go winkie in fuse 8 slot especially if it had an electric petcock removed just by shorting out the petcock connector.

DosLeMans, Thanks for the heads up on fuse 8, I often wondered. Some guys don't want to mess with the loom, I understand the reluctance so I came up with a different approach. If you look back a page I show how you can make a relay with the Go Winkie light piggybacked on to it. The particular lamp I chose works on AC (or any polarity DC), this will work in every slot. Slot 4 is the ECU relay if I remember correctly. If you use just a regular LED in series with a resistor, make sure you get the polarity right and it won't work in every slot because some slots have the polarity reversed, The resistor should be 1K Ohm to 2.2K A bare LED will have 1 lead a little longer than the other, that's Positive On my VII I had a light on every relay but connected 87 to chassis. I think its better to monitor the signal to the coil in this case because it may show as a flickering fault before it's so bad the relay drops out. It's not essential to solder the wires to the relay pins.

When are you going to give up that Odyssey Doc? Too finicky for me

When the odometer on mine quit so I moved cogs from the trip meter which has less load on it. The ultimate solution is to change the clocks for Speedhut, they can match the look and set the new odometer to match your milage. Most go with the GPS speedo but I prefer the simple pulse input model. (look at the other thread "Scuds Old V11 LeMans" for a great example of Speedhut)

My 01 manual says 3.5 Litres of Agip 4T Super racing SAE 20W/50 oil Correction - I think 10W/60 is recommended as Chuck says That's what I used when I had it I think Motoul full synthetic would be a good substitute for Agip Even though it's expensive she's worth it If you happen to find Agip be sure to shake the bottle as it settles out. Congratulations on the fine bike.

Here is Carls wiring diagram http://www.thisoldtractor.com/guzzi007/schematics/2004_V11_Sport_Catalytic.gif Just one other thing to check, if you had the battery out over the winter make sure you have it back in correctly because if you put the battery in backwards the bike may crank over and seem normal but the ECU won't power up, no pump, no ignition, it has a safety diode (48) to prevent damage, I have seen that several times particularly with those universal 4 terminal batteries. Starters with permanent magnet fields like a Valeo will run backwards and probably won't spin the motor but others like Bosch or Lucas with wire wound fields don't care, they will run the same way. If you pull out relays 4 & 5 and poke your red meter probe in each of the 30 slots you should get +12 Volts to chassis (Fuse 1 and Fuse 2 ok) To prove the pump is ok poke a wire into relay 5 base from 30 to 87, this will power up the pump independent of the ECU. If you have a meter with a 10 amp range poke the probes in 30 & 87 it will tell you what the pump draws, I think its in the range of 6 to 8 Amps.

That would be too funny but kill switch won't let it crank either Come to think of it isn't that the new symptom?

Your original post indicated that the bike was turning over, your second confirmed that. Now it's not turning. Often what happens is the lead Oxide creeps in between the battery terminal and lug completely disconnecting it. First of all remove the battery terminals, give them a good scrape and put back with a smear of Vaseline, same for the main ground point. The Vaseline excludes the air, with no Oxygen the Lead won't oxidize. Check the battery Voltage before and while cranking. Listen for the pump priming It's too noisy when the motor is turning over to hear if the pump cuts back in, that's why I suggest a bulb on the relay / 87 pin

LowRyter, Glad your trip went well. The only time my VII failed to start it was the side-stand switch. If you look at Carls schematic for the 1999 it calls the relay Sidestand Relay, really as it's activated by the Neutral switch it should be called the Neutral Relay the later 2004 calls it the Neutral switch the Idle Switch. The thing is the Neutral switch and the Stand switch work together to send power to the ECU, knowing that if you short out either switch or relay contact chances are the bike will fire up. Pull out the relay (No 3) and wrap a bare strand of wire around 30 & 87 pins and stuff it back in and away. The same result if you leave the relay out and stuff a wire in the socket 30 to 87 The VIIs will run without any relays if you poke wires in the sockets but it's nice to have 4 & 5

I haven't been able to log on lately with Tapatalk. If it's unplugged I can understand that.

Its really helpful to know what these 2 relays are doing Wrap a small wire around the 87 pin and run to a small 12V lamp with the other side to chassis If the pump is not doing its 2 second prime look no further. I have known the pumps to gum up, sometimes they can be jolted free.

First of all, does the fuel pump do it's two second prime when you turn the key On? The ECU relay should close when you turn the key On The ECU power relay should close for about 2 seconds then open When the bike cranks over this relay should close again, as the ECU picks up pulses from the Crank Position Sensor You haven't removed the crank position sensor by any chance e.g. to fix an oil leak

You mentioned back a page that when you put the bike on it's side it would stall, I misread that as leaning over. Did you mean "On The side stand?" If the Neutral light is flickering and the side stand is deployed of course it will stall because the ECU is loosing power. I suspect you have a loose wire or the Neutral switch is sizzling away, it shouldn't be too hard to track down. You just have to decide weather to fix it, ignore it or bypass it

It's easy to check your TPS, just find the terminal that's connected to the slider and monitor that to chassis with a meter It should ramp smoothly from low millivolts to about 4-1/2 Volts as you twist the throttle. Use the Volt range on your meter, actually an old analog meter works best for this.

I don't think that model has a tipover switch but it certainly seems like loss of power. To confirm that can you wire a small lamp to Fuse 8 and Chassis, install it semi permanent so it's ready if it cuts out again any 12V lamp will do. Fuse 8 is the last point before the power goes into the ECU relay after half the flakey wiring, knowing if that's alive is a great troubleshooting aid.

If the engine is cutting out for no reason it might be the side-stand switch is faulty. to check this pull out relay No 3 and short out between relay pins 30 and 87, this will make sure the relay cannot make the engine stall Relay no 3 ----- 30 around ----- 87 | | | 85, 87a, 86

I or J To work on the switch safely disconnect the battery negative lead The switch unplugs just under the tank but I usually work on it in-situ

As Chuck mentioned earlier, if there's no power at relay 3/30 with the key turned On suspect the wire may have broken off the ignition switch. The switch is very easy to remove it's held on by 2 Phillips screws up from below, leave the lock in place. The back unclips and the white switch plate tilts out when you release the clip. After a few years the grease dries out and becomes hard holding the tension off the contacts Wipe out the old grease and replace with fresh Vaseline Fasten the wires to the back cover so they don't flex at the solder joints or they will become brittle and snap. The regulator needs to be well grounded from the case to chassis because all the current passes back that way, When it's new the bracket may be well grounded but it deteriorates with age, I always suggest a 6" wire from the case to a timing cover screw.