Posted on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - 11:55 am:

The Uly has been plagued with rear wheel bearing failures, some with disturbingly low mileage. It has never been clear why. Buell switched to a different bearing in 09, which is reported to have a better seal. Hopefully this fixes the problem. The near bearings are about $20/set. Press in a set the next time you change the rear wheel.

The forks bang on the throttle cables and wiring harness at full left lock. A guard was added to protect the wiring harness in 07. It also seems to protect the throttle cables even though they are not directly covered by it. The 07 guard will retrofit onto an 06. It is a little difficult to order as it is not shown in the exploded parts diagram in the 07 parts book. It is listed in the parts list on the facing page. Part# Y1000.2AK

Also, if you have an 06 Uly, and the throttle does not want to snap shut, your cables may have already been damaged. Replacing the throttle cables (there are 2, make sure to order both) will fix this.

Picture Here

The connector where the voltage regulator plugs into the electrical system sometimes melts. This is due to the contacts corroding and increasing the resistance of the connector. It has been found that filling the connector with dielectric grease will prevent this from occurring. More info here. ¹ Adding some sort of charging indicator (voltage meter) is also prudent.

The cooling fan in the Uly is prone to bearing failure. In particular, the early 06 models seemed to have been built with particularly bad fans. If your fan sounds like it is grinding rocks, put a new one in. The fan costs about $70. They will usually grind for a few thousand miles before failing, so you have some time to plan.

This is not a particularly common failure, but it does occur. The rod containing the throttle body butterfly will sometimes snap in half. A replacement throttle body is about $500, which is obscene. People are currently investigating solutions which do not require throttle body replacement. Pictures and discussion.

The brake pads are prone to leave deposits on the rotor, which will cause it to pulse when the brakes are applied. This can be fixed by lightly sanding the rotors with 220 grit sand paper (there is no need to remove the rotors to do this) and replacing the pads. It is generally accepted that switching to a different brand of pad will make this problem better, and Lyndal Gold Plus pads are the popular choice. There have been reports of Lyndals pulsing too. Not applying front brake as you sit as stoplights has been recommended as a way to reduce the occurrence of pulsing.

The Uly has marginal lighting. There are a lot of different ways to supplement this. The most popular include wiring the bike so the low and high beams can run at the same time, and replacing the OEM bulbs with Sylvania Silver stars. Other options include HID conversions, auxiliary lights, or replacing the stock light housing. Treadmark's deathray setup is my favorite.

Your muffler is going to rust. Paint it, Coat it, or replace it with something else.

The fuel pump wiring chaffes inside the fuel tank, and eventually shorts. Depending on which wire shorts first, this will either cause the pump to run continuously (bike runs fine), or blow the fuse (bike runs not at all.) The wiring on the pump can be reinforced to prevent or correct this failure. Excellent writeup by Sanchez located here.

The initial revision of the Journey bags that came on the Ulysses had a fragile latching mechanism which would fail if too much force needed to be applied to the latch. This typically occurred when using the latch to force shut an overstuffed bag. There is an update for the latch, which corrects this problem. The new latches cost approximately $25 and install easily in place of the originals. Unfortunately, the latches appear identical (to me) on the outside, so it is not possible to tell if you have the old or the new latches.

Another option is to simply use different bags. Buell came out with the outdoorsman bags in 2009, which are much sturdier though somewhat smaller than the original Journey bags. It is rumored that other Hepco Beker bags, the manufacturer of the Buell bags, will fit on the Ulysses luggage racks. There are also bags from other manufactures which can be fitted to the Ulysses. links?

Near the front motor mount and the connection of the front exhaust header to the cylinder, there is an attachment point for the clutch cable. This attachment keeps the cable from melting on the exhaust header. Affected Ulysses used a wire retaining clip for this, and the clip fails frequently. During the 08 model year, this clip was replaced with a much sturdier stamped metal retainer. Bikes using the wire clip should be upgraded to the stamped piece. It costs about $14. A picture of the failed clip.