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Header Install then Check Engine and Battery Light

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BigBluePearl

New Member
Just finished installing the Jackpot 2-1-2 and competition baffles in the 4" Jackpot Mufflers this morning. Loaded the custom tune from Jamie at Fuel Moto. I started it this morning, heated it up, cooled it off, and rechecked torques. I put about 5 miles on the bike this afternoon, it started a little hard, but sounds great and seems to have improved real performance.

A few minutes ago, I went for another ride. It started smoothly, I got a 1/2 mile down the road, and got a check engine light and low battery light. The volt meter was at about 11v. I have searched the threads and have seen the posts about voltage regulator problems (mine is a 2012), just wanted to be sure that there was nothing I could have screwed up in the header install. Any one else see symptoms like this following a header install?
 
Regulators on my bikes are located on the front of the frame with a connector on the front of the primary to the alternator and a main feed line that runs along the frame near the front header pipe then up under the seat the regulator is grounded through its mount bolts
I would check all that stuff as any of it could have been disturbed during the install of a new header pipe

Brian
 
Check battery cable connections. They have two ends. check, clean, tighten them all.
 
So, I was set up to take it in this morning with the wife following (that way I could sit in the car waiting on the tow truck if I didn't make it). The bike started hard, on a rev of the engine, the volt meter came right up to 14.5v. No check engine light, no battery light. Drove it about 5 miles to the dealer and turned around and came home, all was good. Rode it into work and everything is good. Maybe checking connections seated something that wasn't fully seated.


I am going to keep driving it, I have towing on the HOG membership, if it stops working, I'll call the tow truck. Thanks for the help.
 
You could go through those connection checks again if you think that helped. Only this time, look for rust/corrosion/battery leads discoloration. I would think there's some sign of trouble. I'd feel better about heading out for a long run after finding it for sure. $0.02! Good luck! Steve
 
So after suffering with intermittent codes, I was led to believe that the issue was the Voltage Regulator. The battery always recharged when the voltage returned to normal, I know this because when it dropped down to battery voltage several times during a ride, it was always right at 12 and would slowly drop, sometimes as low as 11v (kicking the lights on). When the regulator would kick back on, it would go up to 14.5v or so, recharging the battery prior to the next cycle of the problem. It does not seem to me that a stator failure would act like this, it would either have current flow or short.

I was going to go with Cycle Electric, however, the lead time was not something I was up to waiting for, it was looking like at least a week or to. I called the Harley dealer and order a regulator. They told me they had one in hand and to come get it. They called me back 5 minutes later and told me the regulator they had was superseded and I would have to wait a day for the correct one from another of their dealerships.

When I picked up the VR the next day, the stock number on the unit was listed as 74505-09A. Switched out the regulator, pretty easy work. I did undo the mount for the oil cooler for better access. Took about 30 minutes total, start to finish. The unit that came off the bike was labeled as 74505-09. I have been running the bike for the last week, about 400 miles or so, and have had zero issues.

I thought it interesting that they still had the old unit on the shelf, thank goodness the parts lady looked further to ensure I was getting the right VR. If you are having these issues and replacing the voltage regulator, make sure they give you the 09A VR!
 
We just had a similar problem with my son's '06 Ultra. He eventually found that the barrel connectors inside the plug on the output side of the VR were broken and intermittently making contact. Replaced the plug and a short section of the wiring harness and the problem went away.
 
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