Starter relay blew. neg. terminal melted!!

Had my 02 Mille since new and am used to the battery appetite Bertha has. I have a shop grade wall mounted trickle charger plugged in every night just so she starts when cold. Anyway, I've has some issues starting her lately. I went to start her today and the thing almost ran before a hiss and pop & then smoke from under the seat! I immediately ripped the seat off and wow....the negative terminal was GONE!!! Literally nada, molten lead.
Okay so here's the knowns:
*New battery (1/mo) testing at 13.4V & about 8A (Fluke meter) but with no neg terminal I'm shelling out for another new one.
*Solenoid was burning hot and fried (melted through the rubber boots and was the source of the smoke). Tested the leads and nothing to the starter side.
*Starter spins fine and is new as of may. I checked all of the connections to make sure they were tight.

Now for the Question(s), I am upgrading the solenoid to a 100/150A unit (as mentioned in a million other posts) but from experience what is the difference in the Hitachi MS5D-191, 200, 611 etc? Amperage? Which is best for the power hungry Mille? I've read on a forum that someone (Killaprilia I think) has or can get new wiring for the heavier load. Anyone who has performed this upgrade please respond or PM me. I've bought top shelf batteries and performed no better than the cheap one that was installed before this Yuasa. Any suggestions, that are reasonably priced? Anyone have a gel battery like the Bikemaster or Ballistic?
-Paul

you can use car starter relays! 200 and up A and dirt cheap! i've got a 600A volvo xc90 unit on mine. paid about 10 pounds from a salvage yard...

Yep killaprilia does the heavy duty leads...pm him here or on rsvr.net

PM'd & adding to the list is the brown/white connector mods. I'm determined to make her start better than new! Thanks for confirming. Did you install them? Any idea as to what the amount is for the wiring (ballpark), because it will yet be another expense to run across the boss....never a fun conversation, lol

So I thought I'd look into additional common problems the plaguing RSV electrical system while I am waiting for the new solenoid to fix itself :biggrin & thought..."self, why don't we start at the easier one, the ******* brown/white connectors at the rectifier..."
A picture worth 1000 words:



Not a promising start to say the least. I will head into replacing the terminal wiring when I get word from Killaprilia and after I'm done soldering & heat shrinking the hell outta this mess. Dare I look into the ground straps?!?

Don't forget to check out the other connector that carries the alternator wiring, that can also cause problems.

do look into the ground straps! i for one made two extra earth cables. one goes from batt to one of the rr bolts on the tail section and one goes to one of the starter motor bolts. 6mm cross-section cable, ring connectors (or whaterver you call them in english), crimped and soldered
!

Kiwi_rsvr said:

Don't forget to check out the other connector that carries the alternator wiring, that can also cause problems.

Click to expand...

Will do. Actually I'm forgoing riding for a bit to take a bit of care for the old girl. Checked the white connector & it seems to be fine although I am going to hack that off too. At least there aren't too many issues with the rectifiers as with oh so many bikes.

stress said:

do look into the ground straps! i for one made two extra earth cables. one goes from batt to one of the rr bolts on the tail section and one goes to one of the starter motor bolts. 6mm cross-section cable, ring connectors (or whaterver you call them in english), crimped and soldered
!

Click to expand...

I plan on it! Thanks for the tip of adding more. Any idea where I can my hand on some unshielded grounding straps/flat cable?

you don't need flat cables&co. heavier gauge wire will work fine!

Had a few minutes to get to work and here's the lack of a brown (melted) connector:

Almost finished with the white conn. mod wires.....Slow progress as usual & anyone with a toddler will understand why.

One concern I have is that the the connector got so hot it malted plastic and had me questioning the jacketing on the wire. I noticed that the yellow jacketing was soft when I was cutting the brown connector out. I don't know if it will remain to get that hot & now only replacing the union with heat shrink tubing was the best idea. Maybe it will not get as hot, who knows. It could just be poor quality copper wiring & under rated for the resistance of the load it is carrying.

So after all the labor there was a lot learned as to the issues I've been reading about. A serious wiring upgrade is needed to cleanly carry the loads to and from the supply. I haven't heard anything from Killaprilia yet but I did manage to find a kit on ebay that seems like a good quality upgrade:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aprilia-Caponord-Futura-Starter-Starting-Upgrade-Bike-starts-in-1-second-/150988011268?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2327963704

here are some pictures I took along the way. I hope they help others who might be considering the mod or just can't figure out WTF is wrong with starting it.

White connector rewire. Removed white connector & added wiring to fuse & (-) terminal:



round connector @ other end of yellow wires from the rectifier:



This is the melted ground/earth terminal at the other end of the battery neg post. Funny how they place a heavy duty terminal at the battery but place a pos soft steel ring terminal at the ground point!



Voltage reading @ display after all the work done. Much improved over the 13.3v it was reading:



Voltage reading at battery after the mod & repair:



Amp reading after the mod
Much improved from the 5.9ah before the work.