Ducati Sporting Club UK > Model Specific - Discussion, Technical Problems and Help > Monsters > My bike's broken down! Help please.

[eccles291]

Finished work early today... woohoo!! Left London at 4:30pm but due to the sodding bike breaking down, I didn't get home til gone 8pm!!!

Immediately prior to the breakdown the bike had been running fine. I was sitting at about 80mph in the outside lane of the A1 and suddenly the engine died. It wouldn't fire up again on the button and bump-starting was unsuccesful. Fortunately there was a gap in the traffic and I managed to dive to the inside lane, where I managed to coast to a stop on a slip road. Thank god it was there and was just reachable with the momentum I had as there was no hard shoulder. Trundling along those last few yards at only a couple of mph wasn't exactly my idea of fun with lorries bearing down on me at a rate of knots!!

It's deffo got petrol as there's at least another 30 miles to go before the reserve light's due on. Also, it didn't cough and splutter like running out of fuel, it just died in an instant - literally like hitting the kill switch (and before anyone asks, yes I DID check that! )

The first thing I did when I got off the road was check the fuse box but all the fuses seemed to be in perfect order. All the electrics seem fine as the headlight, horn, indicators and idiot lights all work but there's absolutely squat diddly when I hit the starter button.

When I got the bike, the previous owner said that sometimes the bike is a little problematic in starting and went on to explain that there's some relay(?) or other just under the fuel tank - accessible through the frame on the RHS - which needs a wire wiggling and the bike then starts. I farted about with this wire for a while at the side of the road but it made absolutely no difference at all.

I got the bike home in the back of a van but haven't had time to even look at the bike tonight. Any suggestions as to where to start looking for the cause/problem would be much appreciated though. i.e. - has anyone had this happen to them? BTW - it's a '51 plate 600 Monster with 6000 miles on the clock, if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance.