Can this item be inspected (by me I mean), or is the damage all internal and invisible? What do we think actually happens to it?

yes (quick answer)


take off the plug cap(you might need to undo the small nut holding it to the rocker cover.
push the coil and the male L/t wire plug together and push the relese clip and they shoud pull apart.
in good light look at the metal prongs inside female plug socket on the coil
if the metal prongs are a greeny colour then carefully rub them with a small piece of emery paper .


dont go mad though as you dont want to remove the coating on them
if symtoms persist them strip the wire plug its self and clean the contacts.

other option is to slide the wire plug on and off a few times with a little wd40 to clean the contacts

the fault normaly is an earth problem and is read by the mathisis as an earth falure front cylinder

the last bodge is to turn the metal pins inside the coil female plug a few deg to force the contact patch to stay constant

only problem is that the coil Failure normaly leads to the plug to be U/S as well

[Edited on 11-4-2005 by nathanhu]

Had a quick look and a clean up.... Its just the same, No volts = no sparks= dead coil !! :mad: Had a good old look at the Fila.. Thats seems to have the new type coils fitted... So with any luck mine should be ok !!

Great, thanks nathanhu. I shall go and tke a look. I have some high preformance (Wurth) silicone spray that Italia recommended. It's thick and stays put - in fact clogs the nozzle on the can, so it ought to protect the pins.

How do you recognie the new types then?

OMG - this is not the offending item is it? (see pic)

I had never actually (knowingly) seen the plugs as I don't do any maintenance (in warranty period at moment). Also, these don't look like any spark plugs I've ever seen.

The OMG was because I had this item fail on me on my first long(ish) trip last year. In fact, I was still running it in and ended up in the Cotswolds phoning for the AA. I thought that it was an engine sensor, I noticed that the plug had come adrift so I wedged the clip shut with a piece of plastic which you can see in the picture.

I never did take it to the dealer ... refitting the plug solved it and I carried on. Been OK since.

[Edited on 11-4-2005 by HW]

Coil turned up first thing today.... Cheers John (Ducati Leeds) Will be fitting it tonight ..so hopefully back on the road again :D

So, is it the bit in my photo above? Just trying to make sure I am on the same wavelength here .... ?

:puzzled:

How different is the 999 set-up from the 748/996 one?

HW... you are on the same wavelength.... Nice picture ;)

Not 100% sure... But i think you have separate coils and plug caps on 748/ 996 etc... But i could be wrong !