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2003 Ultra dies while riding

toyotatech348

New Member
My 2003 ultra dies while riding , new breaker ,battery,relays. It happens very randomly, may happen 3-5 times in 10 miles or not at all for 100 miles. The bike has 12k , voltage regulator replaced at 8800 under warranty 3 years ago. I had the time to get the seat off when it dies and measured battery voltage at the battery 13.6 v. I then checked the load side of the breaker and it was very hot to the touch and no voltage on the load side...I need a diagram or if anybody knows where I can upload one would be great...

Has anybody had this problem? I know the recall was done and I replaced the breaker again.

I also have an issue with the fuel guage, when it works, it only works for 2 miniutes. I put an Ohm meter on the sender and sloshed the tank... It works !

Thanks in advance. Mike
 
Mike

Either you have extra load on the circuits than it was designed for or the breaker is weak. Over time they do go bad and trip easily leaving you with no power. I would upgrade the breaker to a 50 amp from the 40 in there now which was done by the dealers on other touring bikes.

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Does it start right back up or do you have to wait a while? Does the fuel pump cycle when you turn the switch off then back on? I had a ecm relay that acted like that. Very erratic.
 
It does have the 50A breaker and I recently replaced it ... I cleaned the battery terminals and the terminal at the starter ( very rusty) I was thinkin high resistance but why so intermittant?... No extras ont he bike basically stock.

Thank you !
 
It does have the 50A breaker and I recently replaced it ... I cleaned the battery terminals and the terminal at the starter ( very rusty) I was thinkin high resistance but why so intermittant?... No extras ont he bike basically stock.

Thank you !
sometimes cleaning isn't enough. Could be as simple as "replacing" you cables instead of cleaning them.
 
I had a very similar problem with an 06 E/G/classic. The dealer said battery so replaced it under warranty. Not the problem. I found that the ground cable was not grounding due to corrosion of the star washer under the head of the bolt at the inner primary. I removed the bracket and scapped the paint off of it and the inner primary. I put it back together with stainless steel star washers under the bolt head, between the cable and the bracket and between the bracket and inner primary. I assembled it all with silicone grease to help prevent a reoccurance. Never had the problem again. Don't just put a wrench on the bolt and check for tightness. Pull the bolt and look at it. My bolt seemed tight but was obvious what the problem was when I pulled it out.
Good Luck. Electrical can be a bear.
Bob
 
I had a buddy that had a 03 soft tail, same problem. They traced it back to a switch that they replaced a couple times as the defective part. they tried a whole different type of switch and it worked.
 
I was going to suggest looking at ground connections as well, especially considering the heat at the breaker.....technically, though, you said that it just "dies while riding". Do you really know that it is an electrical problem? Could it be that the fuel pump is shutting down and perhaps it is bad? I know sometimes that if a fuel pump gets too hot, it will shut down and then begin to function again once it has cooled. Just food for thought.
 
If this is an intermitten problem, you have a broken wire in the system. Check for any pinch points or real flat spots on all your wires to the ignition and from the master switch. A broken wire will show very little signs of even having a problem. Next is to check all grounding points in the harness assemblies, this is a very time consuming job, but you will be surprissed at what you might find.
We had one of our riders who was experiencing this very problem, after several hours of chassing, it was narrowed down to the ignition module being bad. So, to help make it better have the ignition module checked out too. :s

Good luck,

Maximo
 
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