Been looking online for a solution to my Uly electrical issues since Buell / HD dealer has been unable to help. Bought an 06 Uly with 18month waranty left. This has run out in the last few weeks. A fault has already been logged with them, so they are aware of it, and had it in 5-6 times to try to investigate the fault, with no success.

Basically, the bike is totally stock, no mods at all aside from the addition of a Garmin 550 power supply connected to the ignition system by the dealer themselves. Over the past 3-4months the bike had developed some odd electrical issues. The most common is for the speedo and rev dials to flip from left to right, and back again when the ignition is switched off. This basically resets all the trip info, and the clock resets to 1.00, which is annoying as I use the trip as a fuel gauge. Some other symptoms appear to be full/main beam flicker when the indicators are flashing and the bike is in a turn. This has caused people to pull out in front of me as they think I am flashing them out. these faults have been intermittent, and as such hard to track down. The dealer has checked the earths, looked for cable insulation splits, and crushed cables as the loom passes through the forks, and told me each time "we think we've sorted it". Each time they haven't. One thing they have noted is the foam under the seat was soaked with water, so at my own expense I have had it recovered. While it was being recovered, it was in my dads garage, nice and dry, and when I went to collect it and put the seat back on, the trip had reset again!! so I'm guessing its not water from the foam sitting around the battery and fuse box. Other electrical issues they HAVE fixed are a flickering brake light (broken front lever switch), and blown indicator relay.

since then, they have swapped out the speedo console, and the same still occurs. they have also tried swapping the ECM, but the bike wouldnt even run on an new ECM, so they have ordered a 3rd ECM to try in the hope the 2nd one was faulty. In addition, the bike now wont drop its revs to idle. If you get it up to 3-4rpm for anything more than 30 seconds, eg motorway riding, when you pull the clutch in, the revs drop to 2,500-2,000 rpm, and hang there, instead of rolling straight down to 1,050rpm. they have replace the throttle cable, and idle adjuster, and cleaned the airbox butterfly valve, but the same problem persists.

I love this bike. It has taken me round Europe on a 4000 mile trip through 13 countries. It cost me a lot to buy. And I dont want to start thinking I should have bought a BMW F800GS. Its a fun bike. A good looking bike. And it will go most places, but with this intermittent fault, and the waranty now run out, I'm not sure what to do. I dont really want to chop it in, or change it for another, I just want it to work. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Tried a nice warm garage, and a dry seat, tried earths, tried crushed cable searching, tried split cable insualtion, tried a new console and ECM. The next thing they want to do is remove the GPS power, but that defeats the point of the bike for me, big trips where the power supply is essential! HELP

I know there are numerous posts in here re elec issues, but none seemed to be the same thing as this...

Could be caused by broken wire or otherwise interrupted ground connection for the IC or heavily dropping vehicle voltage in general. Happens also when the IC loses switched and unswitched ("keep alive") power together, which seems a bit unlikely IMO as this would require two faults instead of just one (missing ground). Speedo/IC has nothing to do with ECM for 08< models, so any changes there seem wasted effort to me. Replacing the main harness is commonly reported being helpfull. Aux power supply might be an issue. I wouldn't touch anything else before the harness problem is fully solved. ECM fuel calculations rely on vehicle power, so it's essential to fix that first.

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thanks for the response gunter. unfortunately, i am dependant on what the dealer is willing to try. i appreciate they have stepped up efforts and are swapping bits out to try to isolate the problem, but the replacement ECM made her run like a dog, hence the 2nd one being ordered. If that one doesnt work either I'm not sure what they will do, or what i am supposed to do with a bike that only runs with the original ECM. i'm not sure i can just tell them to swap the loom.

also, i understand from your post that the idling issue should be resolved with the other electrical issues. but it has had a new battery on it a few weeks back (at cost to me as they had said that was the problem) and the idling issue occured about 3-4 weeks ago, whilst the trip reset has been happening for about 6 months... not sure that the 2 are linked!?

What part of London are you and what HD dealer are you using.
I hope it is not Chingford. Did you buy it from a HD dealer.

First thing is to not worry about the waranty running out for this problem. The work was started on before that happend. Just because the dealer is taking so long to fix it that is down to them.

Second they should not just be "changing out parts" to fix the problem. That is just what a fitter does. They are supposed to be HD trained engineers. That is part of why they charge so much. They need to pin down the fault and fix it. If they just change all the parts they may just as well give you a new bike s.

Third is if it is an 06 bike the normal HD waranty has long since run out. Must be at least 6 months. Wene is it and how long has this been going on. Is the bike back on the road now.

Sounds like a possible earth problem and/or broken wire, in the cable sheathing, which will be a bugger to track down. Also has anyone checked out the ignition switch system. I think they are Italian made and you know what there electrics are like.

This is what they should have started with. Logic.


Why . It already has 2 power sockets on it and at least the dash one is ignition switched. If you must hard wire the GPS, wire it to the back of the dash socket with an inline fuse. Takes all of 15 min to do. Anyway they only want to test it to see if this is the root of the problem.

This is another issue and down to HD fecking your bike about. The revs thing has happend to me. A TPS reset and all that stuff needs doing. Get the old ECM back on it and do that but like Gunter said the other stuff wants doing. This dealer sounds like they do not know what they are doing .

Oh I forgot to say . I also have a 06 Uly with 10k on it and know it quite well now. Had a belt, battery and rear wheel bearings go on mine so far .

Also the starter switch contacts needed a clean. Think thats about it.

thanks duchman. its not chingford its the same dealer i bought the bike from and its been an hd dealer for 80 years or something! it is an 06 bike first registered in may 07, so the waranty has just run out at the end of last month
i do understand why they are swapping parts out, as it will hopefully allow them to isolate where the problem is? i'm not sure how else you would locate an electrical bug.
that said, i i had plans to go travelling round europe on it in a months time, and now i dont have a reliable bike!? its been a problem for about 4-5 months now for the trip reset, and about 2-3 weeks for the speedo issue

Hi. Well if all else fails come and see me. I have most of the bits and bobs for the Uly as well as a ECM-Spy lead.

Best of luck TFD.

i think the wiring loom is broken ( just the copper internal conducter,not the plastic outer insulater,) somewhere around the headstock area is favorite the later ulys has a larger cable guide to reduce this problem this can be fitted to 06 models (less than a tenner!)

this is a known problem

regards......... whichway?

"77" connector ic allways worth a look (see How too section)

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........have you tried turning me off & then turning me on again ?

I had a very similar electrical problem recently (not the clock sweep though), I traced it to the headlight earth, which was not totally broken but had probably three cable strands still intact, this caused loads of strange goings on.

Revs hanging must have something to do with TPS not adjusted correctly or idling slightly too high, I wouldn't think the two is related, I think it would be due to the fact the dealer has been swapping ECU's.

You could try to make a temp earth cable with crock clips and fit it behind the screen and onto the frame, this could eliminate the bad earth suggestion in that area.
Also was there an issue with the subframe which the batt earths on, at it's junction with the main frame not passing current very well on someones bike? Maybe a temp earth lead here may eliminate it from your enquiries.

Nate.

Tried to send you a PM but it doesn't appear to have worked.

My Uly had intermittent 'clock sweeping' and loss of tripmeter & clock settings quite early on.
I eventually had to tackle this myself and the problem was traced to a failed splice that is in the main loom right where it goes through the headstock loom guide. There is a power wire from this splice that takes battery power directly to the instrument cluster and it is this power source that provides the 'keep-alive' voltage to retain the clock setting and the tripmeter settings. If you disconnect / reconnect battery power with the ignition switch off the speedo and tach needles also do a start-up sweep. This provides you with a good way of tracking a bad splice if you have one - just prod at the loom in the area indicated with the ignition switched off and you may well be able to reproduce the problem.



In this photo you can see where I made a 'quick and dirty repair with a small section of red wire added to the broken wire. This splice is covered with hot-glue filled heatshrink and the splice can be broken but the wire held very firmly by the hot glue. The brown wires to the right in this photo have a similar splice for the R/H blinker connections and yes, they failed at a later date. All they had to do was position these splices about and inch and a half away from the bend and there would be no issue. That is what I have done now and with 81,000km on the clock haven't seen any other problems with these repaired splices.

The problem with the blinkers and headlights sounds like it could be related to the ground connections that are located at the bottom of the headstock. These four grounds are :
Headlight ground.
Blinker relay ground.
Horn ground.
Aux power outlet ground.

Over time I have had all four of these ground wires break and they can break internally as mentioned previously by Woz - to a casual glance the wires look to be intact with nice firm ground connections.

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turned out to be a break where one cable runs down the loom from the battery, and near the headstock, splits into 3. 2 run to the ignition, and 1 up to the console as the "keep alive" feed. where it split 1->3, where was a break in the cable (but not the sheath around it). repaired this and had no repeat of this problem. woohoo!!

UKBEG strikes again

Perhaps the HD Trained Engineers should ask here when there's a (well known) problem that they can't fix

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