| Author | Message | ||
     Riding_tall |
Well, crud. A few weeks ago the bike ( 06 Uly ) started to act a little odd .. not really bad but nuff for me to order some new plug wires. stumbling but not really bad. Well before the wires get to me, starts cutting out, then back in .. usually with some dramatic backfires. New spark plug wires .. magnecore 8mm .. a noticeable improvement but .. 20 miles later BANG, stumble .. well thats not the issue. The weekend of march badness/closing of TWO .. and 70F weather .. bike is down. After a lot of reading post and some sage advice form an expert I decided to look at the wiring harness in the steering head .. WAYYYYY more work then I wanted to do but ... here it is.  and here is what I found  I'm no expert but I'm fairly sure that the wire is not supposed to be broken. part 2 in the am .. it's past my bed time/beer limit. Quick recap is that .. the broken wire is not the issue. | ||
| Etennuly |
Uh, you have a bigger problem than the wiring.....your fork tubes fell off!  Yeah you got some wires to fix there. But it sounds more like your problem could be a need of a TPS reset. I highly recommend cleaning the throttle plate thoroughly before doing it. | ||
| 7873jake |
I'm watching this one with you R-T (saw your post in the other thread). Between spring break and a rebuild on the bench, I've had to curtail my 'investigation' further in to my chuffa chuffa chug bang. | ||
| Xbimmer |
My '06 was doing that last summer (and whole lot of other stuff for about a year before), turned out to be the ECM. Talked it over with Al at American Sport Bike he suggested a heat-revealed cracked trace within. Bought a near new takeoff '07 ECM from him for a great price, problems gone. Thanks again Al if you're listening. | ||
| Riding_tall |
Uh, you have a bigger problem than the wiring.....your fork tubes fell off! I'll just have to get a lot better at riding wheelies. What Has been done so far ) New ECM last fall ) New plug wires ) TPS reset ) undid breather re-route. ) Check for broken wires/shorts Symptom. Now that I have done the plug wires, the TPS reset and fixed the wire, the bike is running very well, when it's running.  It will run fine for a while ( 20 min or so ) then it happens. It will start to stumble badly, like the kill switch is being cycled on and off very quickly, usually backfire and while thats happening the gauges are jumping around or it will die completely. then it will be ok for a while. No check engine light. No codes in the computer. It would also start to miss ( but not in the same way more like the cold stumble-pop ) when the RPM hit about 5.5-6k but I have not tested this after TPS reset and fixing the wire to see if it's still happening. My best guess is bad Cam position sensor but there could still be a short that I didn't find. thoughts, ideas ? It sometimes re-fire while I'm still rolling but on the way home from work ( after fixing the wire ) it died and would not re-fire. Almost left me stranded. tried push starting .. no go .. had drained the battery to the point it would not turn over any more .. on what was my last try .. It fired up and I was able to ride home. I did have an ECU go bad and this is a almost new one. Old one was cracked where the wires connect. I could wiggle the wires while it was running and it would die. ( or if it had stopped get it going again ) With the bad ECU I would get a slightly different issue. Be riding along and it would cut out for about 1/2 - 3/4 of a sec eng light would come on and then it would be fine. I'm guessing it was the ECU restarting. It was showing a bad ECU code. I have the spacers front and rear now. When I put in the new ECU in I also took a look at the wiring under the seat and noticed the O2 sensor wire was rubbing but not rubbed through so I put some heat shrink around it and re-routed it to keep off the top of the engine. With the wire in the wire-harness in the steering head. The broken wire was brown-black stripe just after 3 wires came together. The black plastic that holds it together is not flexible at all and the wire broke at the end of the hard plastic. Odd thing is even with that wire lose everything seemed to work. Anyone know what that wire is ?  Also notice that the throttle cable is in with the wire's .. is this the normal setup ? The only close up pic I found shows the cables outside the cover. For future reference the part number for a Cam Position Sensor is 32443-04 , called while I was typing this. (Message edited by riding_tall on March 16, 2011) (Message edited by riding_tall on March 16, 2011) | ||
| 7873jake |
Quote: "It will run fine for a while ( 20 min or so ) then it happens. It will start to stumble badly, like the kill switch is being cycled on and off very quickly, usually backfire and while thats happening the gauges are jumping around or it will die completely. then it will be ok for a while. No check engine light. No codes in the computer." +1, exactly | ||
| Etennuly |
Check between the bottom of the engine and the muffler for wires that run tight against the muffler bracket. I have fixed these on a couple of XB's that were having similar issues. The bracket's edge is sharp and it seems that when it got hot it shorted the wires that were bared into it. I moved that triple splice into the flyscreen area on my bike. The red ones are to power everything up top. There is also another triple splice, I think in white wires, for the right turn circuit. I moved that triple splice up there too. It makes for four less wires in the bending area of the wire harness and more room for movement in the loom retainer. | ||
| Riding_tall |
Vern, "I moved that triple splice into the flyscreen area on my bike" .. .. great idea .. I was already forming a plan to re-do the wiring and clean things up. I think I'll add that to the list. A quick check of the wires near the exhaust bracket and the wires looked ok, did not seem to be touching the bracket but I'll take a closer look during the day. I think I answered my own question on the throttle cables .. looked at another Uly today and it's the same as mine. I saw the other Uly because on of the guys at the ( not so ) local harley dealer rides a Uly ..went there to pick up the Cam position sensor .. sigh. Haven't put it in yet because it looks to be a pain to replace and drilling out rivets is slightly less fun then than trying to drill your own teeth. | ||
| Etennuly |
Under my air box cover base I fixed many worn through/rubbed bare/ grounded together areas in the harness. One was where the o2 sensor wire crosses over the ETS wire. They were metal to metal on the wires. Next was the injector wires warn through where they rubbed the breather hose. The TPS wires were melted to the point of just touching through their insulation. The primary coil wires were rubbed through on an edge. There was a pink wire on the ECM that looped down and rubbed through to ground. A wire from the BAS was left rubbing through to the metal bracket after the recall moved it to the back. The big engine ground strap/cable was loose on one end. The number one spark plug wire was worn through at the idle adjuster cable. The ETS wire's insulation was burned off for the first inch or so. I had to replace the ECM eventually. The cooling fan never worked right after about 30,000 miles including both ECMs. Put it on a manual switch and all is well with that for the last 10,000 miles or so. The major ground wires on the inside of the seat side rail from the battery. And constantly re-tightening the battery cables at the battery. Make sure your battery is up to it's nominal 12.6V. That is the break point per the SM for low voltage to test anything, although HD always said their 12.2V battery output was enough. Just a few ideas that might help you find a place to look. | ||
| Etennuly |
I re-read your posts again. You aren't by chance facing the infamous Flashy Light/Run/Skip problem that many of us faced a while back are you? As the bike comes up to temperature you may or may not get a flashing red light, the engine will sputter and carry on at any speed above 50 mph. Slow down and it smooths out, speed back up and it will miss and skip. Up hill is worse, hot temps are worse yet. If so you have a lot of reading to do on the subject of overheating in the archives. The fan is powered with 12V all of the time and is controlled by grounding through the ECM. After months of head banging research by many good folks here on BadWeB, some of us hooked up a manual switch on the fan, bypassing it's load onto the ECM. It fixed mine. Just need a switch with a light to remind you to turn it on and off as needed. With all of this, it never sets a code because it is doing what it is supposed to do to protect the engine in an overheat situation, run skip. Fires every other power stroke to allow the extra fuel to cool the engine and cut back the heat inducing power load. | ||
| Riding_tall |
I don't thinks so .. I thought about that too .. it's happened even when the temps were in the 30's and the fan was not on so I don't think it was over heating. That and when it hit's it's not at all like it's going into skip-spark .. it's a total loss of power .. it seems very much like there is a short in the electrics ..cutting out all power , spark, gauges ect and then cutting back in sometimes very quickly because the gauges never make a full sweep .. just quiver, and the spark must be dieing too because there is a total loss of power and the the backfire as it kicks back in. that, or it just dies completely. seems to me like a short but I've seen a number of threads here were very similar things happen with a bad cam sensor. I don't know .. very frustrating. Oh and glad you finally fixed you flashy light/run/skip issue .. that was going on for wayyyyyy to long. | ||
| Etennuly |
OK. Your gages could have failed at anytime because of that red wire that was broken. You may have the worn through wires in the fuel pump bracket. That will mess with your low fuel light and can make it run poorly, cutting out and such. | ||
| 7873jake |
Eric, see here for some add'l info. I haven't traced the red/white wire off of the ECM to see where it goes yet but I seem to have found my gremlin (or one of them). http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/142 838/620256.html?1300819869 Jake | ||
| Riding_tall |
new cam position sensor is in place an it seems that may have been it. Not calling it fixed yet but 2 rides .. 30min and 45min and no issues. While I had it apart .. wiggle-tested every inch of wiring I could reach, took apart every connector I could find and put some dielectric grease in, even though I had already done most of them. Checked all the wiring I could and didn't find any more issues. With all the attention I have been giving the bike it's running soooo much better now. It was way past time for a TPS reset. No more looping idle, It will idle when cold, much more power. Now to put the breather re-route back, I forgot how annoying the cold pop-stumble is. I will post a follow up after some longer rides and I'll post up some pic's of the other wiring issues I found last fall, if I can find the pic's. | ||
| Riding_tall |
Calling it fixed, it was the cam position sensor. A week of riding and no issues. Also put on a new (used) front rotor that fixed the pulsing brakes. Ahhh, time for a long ride. | ||
| 7873jake |
 mine turned out to be a dodgy front connector on the ECM. Moving the red/white lead on the grey connector would cause the bike to shut off. Turns out, the movement causes the ECM to hiccup. I guess I get to email Erik Buell Racing soon.  |
