| Author | Message | ||
     Natexlh1000 |
Yes. Let me be the second one to thank you for recording your struggle. One other thing, I would suggest avoiding those crimp-on butt connectors. I have never had any luck with those on a vehicle. My old Civic was owned by a kid before me and he loved those things. It made it more easy for me to find electrical problems though. If something stopped working, all I would have to do was follow the wire until it leads to one of those damn things! Vibes+corrosion=non-conductive butt connectors. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
Seems you're making really good progress. Thanks for taking the time to document. Also, I like the way you put the dog in the wiring harness photo for scale. . | ||
| Hughlysses |
Happy Easter everybody. Also, I like the way you put the dog in the wiring harness photo for scale. She (Hunley) is kind of small for a Golden Retriever so looks may be deceiving. One thing's for sure after yesterday- I would NOT want to have to change out the wiring harness on a fully-assembled bike if I could avoid it. That also makes me think unless this R harness turns out to be mostly "plug and play", I'm gonna be very tempted to shell out the ~$360 for the 2009 X wiring harness. I'm still watching ebay for a wiring harness but nothing's turned up. ~9 out of 10 XB harnesses on ebay are from R models, and all are pre-08 so far. I'm sure a perfect 08/09 X harness will turn up for ~$50 BIN the day after I get this thing put back together. | ||
| Tootal |
That dog's not afraid of work, it can sleep right next to it!!  | ||
| Stevem123 |
Hey Hughlysses, I used to live in Summerville when I was in the Navy too many years ago. Small world. I'm in SoCal now working on the Marine Base in Twentynine Palms. I would be interested in having that old wiring harness when you complete the job. I have an early 06 Uly and might need it someday. Steve | ||
| Hughlysses |
Hey Steve- that's cool. I rode past Twentynine Palms a couple of years ago while doing a whirl-wind tour of southern California by car to check out some rooms at a bunch of Navy bases. I'll let you know about the wiring harness. Most of it should be intact when I'm finished no matter which route I go. If I go with the 09R harness, I think I'm going to have to use a few plugs off the rear of the Uly harness to splice onto the 09R harness. | ||
| Stevem123 |
Thanks Hughlysses! Much appreciated and also thanks for the documented work too! Steve | ||
| Argentcorvid |
The regular kind are junk. The 3M ones with the heat-activated sealant in them are great, though. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Made some more progress tonight: Uncrated the "new" engine:      Good shot of eccentric pulley on throttle to give gradual opening at part throttle. If you've got an 06/07, note the difference in how the cables are attached as well:  Closeup of fuel injector wiring for later reference. If you've got an 06/07, note the different attachments for the intake manifold:  Closeup of some left side wiring for later reference:  Closeup of wiring under the transmission output sprocket cover- MUCH cleaner than 06/07 wiring:  With the engine uncrated, I could detach the wiring harness and get it out for comparison. 07 Uly harness in front, 09 Firebolt harness in the rear:  09 Firebolt harness in front, 07 Uly harness in the rear:  Here's a closeup of the front end of each harness. Uly on left; Firebolt on right. That'd be a LOT of crap to cram into the Uly cowl:  Here's where I think I'll have a real problem trying to use the Firebolt harness. Here's the wiring that goes around the headstock on the Uly:  Here's the same section of the Firebolt harness:  There may be fewer wires in the bundle, but the multiple locations where wires split out from the bundle makes this really fat in this area. I'm not feeling too optimistic about either using the Firebolt harness as-is or trying to modify it to move the major components to the stock Uly locations. I think I'm gonna sleep on this and give it another look tomorrow, but I suspect I'll be paying my dealer a visit on Wednesday to inquire about ordering an 09 Uly harness. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Oh yea, I really like the crinkle black finish, but as I learned with my 2000 S3, I'll need to buy a large can of S100 Engine Bright, the only thing I found that'll keep the black looking dark and clean. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Well, as per usual, your writer is still agonizing over how to proceed on the harness issue. I sat down with both harnesses laid out on the kitchen table last night and studied them for half an hour. "I could...no. Well, I could....no." and so on. I found this photo of a dissected XB12R wiring harness at the buellxb forum last night, that gives an idea of what I'd be looking at if I decide to modify the R wiring harness:  Wow- what a rat's nest. This guy was fitting an S fairing to an XB12R- he gave up and bought the S wiring harness. I spent some time studying the details of the Uly harness as well. I have the plastic "shield" removed from the center section (to make it easier to snake out of the frame). There are a significant number of wire splices in that section of the harness- 1 wire coming from the front splits into 2 half-way back, or 2 wires from the back split into 2 going to the front. I think the main driver on my decision now is going to be time. I'm ready to get this freaking bike back on the road; prime riding weather is wasting. I e-mailed a Badweb sponsor yesterday morning to see if they could give me availability and wait time on a new XB12X harness; no response yet. I e-mailed an internet used Buell parts dealer to ask about a used XB12X harness; I'd previously filled out their on-line request form and heard nothing, so I'm not optimistic about a response from them. Still watching ebay; there are 15 XB wiring harnesses listed at present but all are pre-08 and ~13 of those are from Firebolts. If I don't hear from someone today, I'm going to my dealer this afternoon and see about ordering the 09 X harness. I just don't want to plop down $360 and then find out it'll be months before my new harness comes in. I'm just a little worried the only way I'll find that out is well after I place my order. If I find out up front it's gonna be a several month wait, I guess I'll stock up on heat shrink tubing and solder and get to work. | ||
| Hughlysses |
OK- the waffler has finally made up his mind. I just placed an order for a 2009 XB12X wiring harness with board sponsor Bumpus HD/Buell. The parts guy says it shows up as a "standard" part and it's not back-ordered, so he's hopeful it'll show up in about a week. He should be able to confirm that when he actually orders the part in the morning. I also ordered a new air filter element (Buell is "right proud" of those as they say here in the south) and two fresh bolts for the kickstand (don't want to risk those breaking). I forgot to mention I did a "swipe" of the inside of the swingarm yesterday using a handkerchief on a piece of welding rod. Unfortunately, a very slight smearing of fine metallic particles is still present in the bottom of the reservoir, so I need to do a little more cleaning. What I found was so fine I don't think it'd hurt the pump, and the filter would take it out after that, but I don't want to take any chances. That'll keep me occupied for a day or two. I found a local powder coating place that says they can coat my muffler for $40; I might as well do that properly while it's off. I also want to thoroughly clean the inside of the frame rails and apply the rest of the Thermotec I bought a couple of years ago. I'm also working towards a cosmetic upgrade- hopefully it'll all work out. Stay posted... | ||
| Skifastbadly |
They day you get back on that thing is going to be the best ride of your life. I admire your tenacity, I could never have the patience. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I admire your tenacity, I could never have the patience. Ha- it's amazing how you can "ease" yourself into something. If I'd known what a CF this was going to involve on February 27, when the problem showed up, I'd probably have done like you and bought a 2008 or 2009 in the next week and parted this bike out. Still, I think it'll be cool to have my "old" bike with the "new" engine. It's gonna be the Johnny Cash version of a Buell by the time I'm through with it (obscure musical reference). | ||
| Skifastbadly |
I've been everywhere, man. Parting a bike out is way harder than I imagined. It's exactly like the yard sale I had once, after which I looked at the amount of money I made and the effort involved and swore that the next time I'd just pile it all in the back yard and light it on fire. | ||
| Stellaglide |
"Well, It's '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56 / '57, '58' 59' automobile ..." Been following your posts since the beginning and certainly looks like you chose the best option for the wiring harness. At least this way you won't be chasing electrical gremlins from a modded XB harness. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
Where's Hunley? She gets my vote as your rebuild mascot. .. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I did a little more work tonight: stage 1.5 of swingarm cleaning (previously flushed with charcoal lighter). I rigged up a heavy duty "swab" using a piece of ~1/4" all-thread and a scrap towel I got from my wife. I'd cut a chunk of towel off, wrap it around the end of the rod, and secure it with a zip tie. Here's the first swipe, which doesn't look too bad:  I'd swab a while and then replace the piece of cloth and go again. The amount of material I picked up seemed pretty constant with each swab. I bent the rod to allow access to the corners of the compartment but it's hard to tell if I'm hitting everything. I finally grabbed a refrigerator magnet to verify if the material is magnetic and confirmed that it is. I then switched to swabbing, pulling the particles off with the magnet, and swabbing again. Here's the magnet after about 20 swabs of the swingarm:  This is apparently gonna take a bit more work. These particles are VERY fine (too fine to feel between your fingers), but I'd like to avoid getting them into my new engine. I'll probably try refilling the swingarm and agitating with air as previously suggested. The swabbing is a good way to check whether the tank is clean though. I'm also gonna get some on Q-tips (the kind the CSI folks take mouth swabs with) and use them to reach in through the hose connections so I can reach some more areas. More work to do here... | ||
| Electraglider_1997 |
Hugh, Timesert that oil plug hole. | ||
| Whisperstealth |
Hugh, you the man. Smart choice on the harness! Why did you spend the $ on the Buell airfilter, they are right proud of the thing. Why not a K&N? | ||
| Hughlysses |
Hugh, you the man. Smart choice on the harness! Why did you spend the $ on the Buell airfilter, they are right proud of the thing. Why not a K&N? Yea, I probably should have just bitten the bullet and ordered the harness the day I bought the engine. I was just reading one of Etennuly's posts in another thread about the problems he had with his stock 06 Uly harness. It obviously took some effort for Buell to work that harness out so I think it'd be very difficult to extensively modify one and have it still be reliable. I've always been a little skeptical of the filtering capabilities of K&N's, mainly due to a post on an old Audi e-mail list I used to belong to. IIRC the recommended replacement interval on the factory filter is every 50k miles. I'm only replacing this one because it had some oil on the inside that got there before I did the breather re-route. "New" engine will start out with breather re-route. | ||
| Thesmaz |
Hugh, Try flushing the swing arm with kerosene. I've used it a couple of times when cleaning out intercoolers, works pretty well. | ||
| Swampy |
Also, hot soapy water will clean things really good, rinse well with hot water. I just received an order of spare parts for the Uly from Bumpus(remember they were the Winner in getting parts to my siberian waste land dwelling correctly and fastest with no drama) so for good measure, I called them again and ordered some more, anyways the conversation came around to some guy installing a 09 motor in his 07 Uly.....Your famous! | ||
| Hughlysses |
the conversation came around to some guy installing a 09 motor in his 07 Uly.....Your famous!  | ||
| Hughlysses |
Try flushing the swing arm with kerosene. Thesmaz- I already did an initial flush with charcoal lighter fluid, which is basically really pure kerosene. I think the problem is I can't agitate it much while the swingarm is still hooked to the bike. Also, hot soapy water will clean things really good, rinse well with hot water. Swampy- I'm beginning to think that might be a good tact. At this point I've decided I'm gonna have to remove the swingarm so I can take more drastic measures to clean it. The only things holding it in place are the rear shock (one bolt) and the rear brake hose/caliper (~3 bolts). Then I'll have to take out the axle and remove the wheel. I'll have to hang the rear of the bike from the rafters to accomplish this, but there's really not much weight back there so that won't be a problem. I think a couple of tie-down straps can be used to secure it so it's perfectly stable and suspended. I've got a pressure washer; I may shoot that up in the oil tank to try to knock all this stuff loose, followed by hot soapy water and lots of shaking, followed by hot rinse water, followed by kerosene, followed by more swabbing, etc., until I'm sure that thing is operating room clean inside. One good thing about removing the swingarm is after I've cleaned it, I can go ahead and bolt the swingarm to the engine, install the belt, and hook up the oil lines, which will save a lot of time on the reassembly process. This will speed things up because I'm waiting until I can install the wiring harness before I install the engine. | ||
| Rdkingryder |
Hugh, I would spray the insides of the swingarm with BrakeKleen and keeps spraying until what's running out of the drain hole is clean. Use long air nozzle and blow out till dry. Should work out. On a side note, the guy with the crank isn't really responsive and waiting for him to give me a price. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Roland- that's certainly worth a try and would be one easy way to direct a spray at all the inside surfaces since I could go in through the suction, return, vent, drain, and fill openings. I'm thinking that these particles are so fine that anything like kerosene or oil seems to adhere them to the metal of the swingarm. Maybe brake cleaner would do the opposite. I've already got a can or two; I'll try that the first chance I get and see what results it produces. | ||
| 04buell |
how bout putting bb's in with the kerosene? works for cleaning gas tanks. jerry | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Hugh, I think your best bet is pull the swingarm and do it right. Pull it, plug the openings, put in some kero and BB's. close last hole.. shake like hell. Lighter fluid is usually naphtha, kero is different right? Brad | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I don't think BBs are a good idea. The BB method is for removing rust from the inside of a steel tank. Kerosene and sloshing should be good enough. Followed by an early oil change, you should be good. |
