OK I found this amazing location, and I have been reading for hours now. Thank you for all the great information that has been posted. I know I will get the answer here. I own a 2000 Springer Softail (Concord Purple) We live in Hemet, California and drive a lot of mountain roads. PROBLEM: ELECTRICAL?? I ride behind my husband, and after about an hour of hard riding and the bike gets hot, it shorts out. The front lights flickers, gauges flickers, engine cuts in/out. If we pull over and let it cool down I can ride again. We have had it to two H-D repair shops. Today the mechanic rode it for 30 min. without any problem. Any idea’s? We are leaving for a month vacation and want the bike in tip top shape. Thank you in advance for your help
I would start by checking the ground and positive cables running from the battery sounds like you got a bad connection that is getting hot. Pull on them pretty hard and see if there ends are loose on the cables, like I said that is where I would start. Loose connection here would cause arcking and create heat. So sorry for the speeling but I'm sure you get the point.:s
If the lights flicker, I would check like mentioned above, the battery cables, but more so the main breaker too. Generally when all systems act up, it's a breaker causing the problem but not always. These types of problems can be very evasive until it is in this condition and you can trace it them with better results. With the hard riding like you mentioned in your post, it creates some additional heat which further aggravates the breaker weakness.
When My Sporty Did That They Had To Replace The Cam Sensor Or The Crank Sensor They Also Had To Replace Battery Wires Because Of Corroission Whis Is Commom On Sportster. I Would Have Them Check All That. Also The Circuit Breaker May Have A Short In It And I Would Also Check The Voltage Regulator