| Author | Message | ||
     Jespo_m2 |
Hi, I'd like to post the resolution to an electrical issue which plagued my Buell for about 1 year. Symptom: Occasionally my 06 Ulysses engine will stop running, no engine light, no fan and will not start until waiting 5-10 minutes. No error codes. Behavior of bike when turning the key off then on and toggling the ignition switch: tach and speedo sweep, no engine light, no fuel pump prime. Engine will turn over but will not start. Switching out relays made no difference. Wait 5 - 10 minutes, turn key and ignition to the on position: engine light turns on, fuel pump primes, bike starts and runs, all is good until the next unknown time this issue arises. Strange eh? In the beginning, this issue would happen once in awhile but started getting worse in recent weeks. Started dying on me twice a day. I spent A LOT of time trouble shooting this one and have become VERY intimate with the Buell's wiring harness. I exhausted every electrical troubleshooting issue on this forum and was able to complete many preventive maintenance steps along the way. Cause: A light coating of corrosion formed on the ECM's male pin connectors. The corrosion was hardly visible and I had to remove the ECM and scrape one of the pins with a small screw in order to actually see the corrosion. Resolution: I cleaned all the pins, put dielectric grease on the ECM connectors and the bike has not dies in over 300 miles (a new record). | ||
| Rays |
Thanks for posting the info - did you take note of which pin had to be scraped? | ||
| Jespo_m2 |
Hi Ray, All the pins needed to tbe scraped. Each pin had an equal amount of corrosion. Rode my Buell another 100 miles this weekend and didn't have any issues. I think I nailed this one!  | ||
| Supamotard |
Thanks! I have been having intermittent electrical gremlins with my 06 for the past 3 months also. It runs fine 99% of the time, but stalled out randomly in rush hour traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway 3x. I'm lucky to be alive because there is no shoulder on the majority of that overused/undermaintained road. Of course, it would start right back up after 5-10 mins. I will try cleaning the ECM pins as soon as I get home tonight. I also have replacement relays on order from the local HD dealer. Been thinking of just getting rid of the Uly for a Triumph Tiger but would much rather keep her for a long while. | ||
| Motor2wheel |
I will try this for my problem, also, which I mistakenly posted in the general area just now, before looking around the site and finding this area. (Still learning) Thanks. | ||
| Supamotard |
Jespo M2: you're a friggin genius and i would kiss you if you were nearby. So I'm in NYC and we've had some rain and humidity since yesterday afternoon. This morning, for the 1st time ever, my 22k mi 06 Uly wouldn't start: I turned the key, the lights came on, fuel pump whined, and needles swept as usual. Hit the starter: a click/buzz then all electrics died. Toggled the ignition again, no go. What a dreadful feeling. Plugged in the battery tender on the original 06 battery and it showed green. Tried again, still dead. Fiddled with the battery connectors, checked fuses and relays and tried again and she started right up and got me to work 22 mi away ok. Coming home after sitting through some afternoon showers, she was running like crap. Terrible throttle response and couldn't hold a steady rev. I was reluctant to take her on the southbound FDR drive because there's no shoulder so I took local roads. I had to keep the revs up and slip the clutch. The entire time, she felt a carb'd bike just before it runs out of gas. There was at least 3 gallons of Sunoco 93 in the frame. She died halfway across the bklyn bridge, but luckily had enough momentum to make it to the middle crest, coast down and engage the clutch to "push start". Crowded suspension bridges are a BAAAD place to break down. Staying on local roads, she died again but this time all electrics died. Pushed her about a half mile to an autozone (thank god for the blackberry) in a sketchy part of bklyn near the gowanus. Took your advice about the ecm contacts: picked up some sandpaper (320grit), rolled it up to about pencil thickness, and rubbed the male ecm pins tops and bottoms free of some oxidation. Then I dabbed some electrical contact grease on the female plug ends and also the fuse/relay pins for good measure. Not only did she start right up and run like a champ, but she was running better than she had in a while. Throttle response was noticably improved. And on top of that, an annoying hesitation at about 2900rpm nearly disappeared. I had spent hours trying to smooth/massage it out by tweaking the fuel map in ecmspy last year but gave up after marginal improvement. She's been perfectly reliable up until 3 months ago when the mystery stalling issue began. (except for pulsing rotors and clearance issues between the jardine GP1 slip-on's tip agains the swingarm/sidestand/passgr peg that have been fixed) She's stored indoors overnight, but spends most weekdays street parked in midtown manhattan. I guess at 4.5 yrs this isn't so bad. I wonder what the next surprise will be. Thanks again. Everyone should probably look into this. It might be as mandatory as rerouting the breather. (Message edited by supamotard on June 11, 2010) (Message edited by supamotard on June 11, 2010) | ||
| Court |
>>>So I'm in NYC You're not one of the two Ulysses that I see parked on 4th Street in the East Village all the time are you? I left a couple Buell shirts and key chains on the bikes one day but have no idea if they stayed or not. Glad you got it fixed up. | ||
| Supamotard |
Court: nope, I'm in midtown-east between grand central and UN. I've only seen 2 ulysseses (ulyssi?) in NY. Once was on the cross bronx and the other time in midtown - was an XT with Oregon plates and 2 orange parking tickets. I had problems starting up again this morning and it took me only 30 mins to trace it to the kill switch. D'OH. Otherwise, she's still running great! Do you do work for Buell? | ||
| Court |
>>>>Do you do work for Buell? Nope . . . live and work right here in NYC (did the security system for the UN after 9-11-01, the electrical for Times Square Tower at 42nd and Broadway and now doing power plants) since 1998 and teaching at Columbia. | ||
| Court |
Hehehehe . . just laughing as I reread your "between Grand Central and the UN". I'm still ticked they tore down our favorite parking garage on 43rd right next to 2nd Avenue. For the years my wife had her offices at 330 Madison those guys, when she worked late, would always bring her car to the front door of her building 5 blocks away. Nicest guys in the world. During those, pre-9/11 days, I used to have my full access UN credentials and would park in the UN for a whooping $3 for as long as I had the truck in there. No need to tell you that parking a pickup in Manhattan for less than $100 for the weekend is like stealing. I love this town! | ||
| Supamotard |
Yep - right nextdoor to the Indian consulate. They took that down last year and I heard they ran out of $ so it's still just a hole in the ground. If the alternate side residential street parking in tudor city went away, I would have to find some place else to work! | ||
| Pso |
So to break into this "my town" dialogue  , how is the best way to get to the pins in the ecm? then back to the regularly scheduled program. (Message edited by pso on June 12, 2010) | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'd say clean them once (light sandpaper if you are having a problem, contact cleaner if you aren't) and try and get them nicely sealed up (I put a little dielectric grease around the rubber seal on the ECM connector). If you wanted to go a step further, you could try packing dielectric grease around where they go into the connector. Basically, you want to keep moisture out of there. | ||
| Supamotard |
To add to Reepicheep's sound suggestions, I think it would also a good idea to unplug the battery ground or remove the 30a battery fuse before messing around with the ECM contacts. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Chicken!  (You should see the box wrench I welded to the rear rocker box on my M2...) | ||
| Jespo_m2 |
Wow!!! Glad to help out Supamotard! I couldn't imagine I was the only one that had this issue. I think you are absolutely right about adding the ECM terminal clean to the maintenance.... unless you added dielectric grease to the connector when the bike was new. This issue just happened to me again a few weeks ago. I was able to quickly resolve it by re-seating the ECM connection. I think I have some corrosion on the female side of the connector as well. My next plan is to take a small drill bit and lightly clean out the holes by hand. The ironic thing was... I was leaving a BMW shop when it happened. O.. Buellers... do I have a 'feel good' story for you. I gave my buddy/neighbor a ride to the BMW shop to pick up is 2004 GS1100. His bike had broken down due to a serious brake issue. (I never knew BMW's can break down too until now) About a month ago, his ABS/front/rear modulator doohickey (I forgot what the part/module was called because I almost puked when I saw how much it cost on the receipt) failed causing his front brakes to apply and stay applied all on their own... thus preventing the bike from moving. He had to pry the pads away from the rotors to get the bike home. He later told me that this is a known issue with 2004's but has been resolved in later models. Not knowing what was going with the bike... he brought it to his BMW dealer. 1 month later and $3100 he has his bike back. The part (mentioned above) cost over $2400!!!!! The rest was labor. I felt so bad for him. First thing I thought was.. man... he could have bought a nice tuber for that kind of money. Needless to say... I didn't feel too bad about reseating my ECM connection while the BMW guys jokingly picked on me.... O believe me... I had some good come backs. I even met a guy there that had a Buell 2004 Firebolt (at home) and offered to sell me his stock ECM for $100! (Of course I'm going to buy it.) These Buell have issues from time-to-time but they are usually not too difficult or expensive to fix... especially with having access to the BadWeb forum. So I hope this story makes you feel REAL good about your Buell... I know I do. | ||
| Jespo_m2 |
Ah... sorry for not getting back to your question Pso. I too got caught up in the 'my town' dialog. The only way I was able clean the ECM pins was by taking the ECM off the bike. On the Uly's, its underneith the seat.. only held on by 2 bolts. I had to take take it off to even see the corrosion... It was my last ditch effort in validating that ALL connections were clean. As part of my 'process-of-elimination' troubleshooting techniques... I discovered that my symptom was I dentical to the result of unplugging the ECM then trying to start the bike. | ||
| Supamotard |
$3100?? Ouch. But it seems all GS riders have deep pockets anyway. For that much change, I would pick up a nice used (CARBURETED!) SV650 to get me to work when my Uly's acting up. | ||
| Jespo_m2 |
I hear you about the carb model bikes. Thats what I like about the carb tuber Buells. I cleaned a set of jets on the side of the road once. They may have their weaknesses in accurate air/fuel mixute but their strengths lie in simplicity. | ||
| Pso |
Jespo-How do you get to the front bolt, mine just spins, I cannot get a wrench up to hold the nut, no problem with the back vack bolt. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Paul, That nut SUCKS!! I can't help you get that stupid nut out, you'll just need to struggle with that for a while. I cursed at mine for an hour, wedging things in there until I finally got it out. BUT, once you get it out, go to Home Depot and get a Coupling Nut. Basically it is just a really LONG nut for joining two threaded rods together. But it sure makes installation and access to that nut in the future a heckuva lot easier. Al (Message edited by al_lighton on June 16, 2010) | ||
| Pso |
Al to the rescue again. I attepmted to get it out when I got the spacer block for the 06 seat back in 06. I couldn't, so I shaved the spacer and put it on the back bolt. Thanks | ||
| Jespo_m2 |
Hmmm... I though it was just an allen bolt with a nut at the bottom. Maybe I used screw driver to stop the nut from spinning. I do remember it was a pain to put back together. | ||
| Beatnick_fly |
OK, my '06 Uly has been doing something similar for the last 3 weeks. Took it to the dealer, (H-D), after $188, i got 2 new spark plugs and still runs ratty around 2000-2300 RPM. I have the original battery, which I'm changing today. Had an OLD (1984) Superglide that did the same thing 'till the battery crapped out. So I figured it's time for a new battery on the Uly. Now I can take a carb apart blindfolded and re-jet it, but I have NO idea what or where the ECM is. Under the seat?? Do you disconnect the battery before you pull any terminals out?? Any chance of getting some instructions?? should I get a service manual?? I'll try out the new battery tonight, if that doesn't cure the hesitation at that level, I'll be callin' out for some more help. Thanks! | ||
| Froggy |
Beatnick_fly, yes pickup the service manual, it is great to have for reference regardless. The ECM is under the seat, you don't need to disconnect the battery before removing the ECM, but it is good practice. That said, I doubt a new battery will cure your issues. | ||
| Beatnick_fly |
Froggy, you're somewhat right. I put the new battery in last night, trickle charged it a bit, (I don't know how long it's been sitting on the parts shelf, the parts guy says, "gee this is the first Buell battery I ever sold, and I've been here 3 years), not too encouraging. Anyway, it idles better, tach needle not fidgeting around so much at 1000 RPM, but I still have that nagging "leaness" (for lack of a better term) at around 2000- 2300 RPM. If it were a carb, I'd say it was the needle and needle jet at that level, like "changing the clip position would fix it, but I don't know sqaut about fuel injection. Runs Real strong after that, I can live with it but I'll definitely pick up the service manual. | ||
| Froggy |
You probably need a TPS reset, which can be done easily by anyone with an ECMspy cable. Post up on NJbuellowners.com and find someone near you to help out. | ||
| Kalali |
"Took it to the dealer, (H-D), after $188, i got 2 new spark plugs..." Hmmm, $94 per spark plug! Were they made out of gold? Well, kidding aside, where abouts in Toms River do you live? I have a buddy who lives in Island Heights and I visit him regularly. In fact I rode my X1 down there yesterday (I live right off exit 105 GS parkway). Drop me a PM and I can give you a call next time I'm coming down that way. I've got ECMSPY on my laptop and could give you a hand... P.S. Do you take your bike to Ocean HD guys on route 70? I strongly recommend the folks at Long Branch. Much more Buell friendly crew... |
