Hi All, this is my first post and, for once, I’m posting something that I hope will be useful, rather than asking for help. Trust me though, this won’t last. I’m bound to be asking questions soon enough!
Anyway, I recently bought an '04 plate Monster S4 which I love. I’ve had a good number of Ducatis in the past, but not for the last few years. Shortly after I bought it, the speedo started to develop a mind of its own - the needle sweeping round the dial to a random position on startup and then not actually doing anything while riding. When I shut the bike down, the needle would wait a few moments and then park itself somewhere else random. Now, I don’t usually take my bike anywhere for repair until I’ve identified the problem, so I went through the following:
- Speed sensor: Only 3 wires - pos, neg and sensor output. Since the odometer is still working, I discounted this.
- Aftermarket alarm: The bike had the nasty remnants of some alarm system still fitted and we have now removed it completely and repaired the wiring harness where it had been spliced in.
- Speedo assembly: I took this apart and left it to dry out overnight, just in case washing the bike had caused the problem.
None of these things worked, so I had to fit a phone mount so that I had a speedo for yesterday’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride in London.
This evening, however, I just wondered whether the speedo was being influenced by some minor voltage anomaly. So I fitted a CTEK charger cable, connected the charger and, hey presto, the speedo has now started functioning perfectly. This after 6 weeks of faffing around. So, before you go and buy expensive new parts, do check that the battery voltage is correct.
Now I need to check the regulator is doing its job properly.
Hope this is of some help for someone, as I know I’ve been searching the forums for weeks with no results that I could find.
Incidentally, this speedo unit is fitted to pretty well all of the sport, monster and classic models of the 2002 period.