intermittent electrical problem

[elk258]

I am new to the Harley family, just bought an 07' Electra Glide Standard with 13,000 miles on it. Have been having an intermittent problem. It began with the stereo which would work perfectly (HK with hog tunes amp and speakers, subwoofers in the lowers) then occassionally when starting the bike will get interference through the speakers or they will not work at all. If I shut off the bike and just turn on the stereo it will usually work perfectly. Then on Sat. the bike stalled when idling, I restarted it and it stalled again and all electrical went dead with no power to anything. After sitting for several hours the bike started and ran normally (still have issues with the stereo speakers) I checked the battery and all appears to be fine, also showing normal charging rate when operating the bike. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[glider]

Did you check the battery cables. Don't just look take them loose and clean all surfaces, use a little dielectric grease when reassembling.

Agree with what Don said, neg off first and on last to prevent any sparks.

 

[R_W_B]

I guess it's the static emittantence from the loose connections getting into the radio waves ?

Funny how diverse electrical stuff can be. If you add a blown main fuse, it sounds very similar to another recent thread.

 

[HDDon]

I guess it's the static emittantence from the loose connections getting into the radio waves ?

Funny how diverse electrical stuff can be. If you add a blown main fuse, it sounds very similar to another recent thread.

Cleaning the battery cables and tightening them down will probably not fix the radio problem. Cracked coil tower, faulty sparkplug wire, cracked sparkplug, bad radio ground maybe? I was just going after one problem at a time. Seemed like keeping the bike running took precedence over the radio. JMHO, Don

 

[R_W_B]

Cleaning the battery cables and tightening them down will probably not fix the radio problem. Cracked coil tower, faulty sparkplug wire, cracked sparkplug, bad radio ground maybe? I was just going after one problem at a time. Seemed like keeping the bike running took precedence over the radio. JMHO, Don

Oh ok, yea agree with that. But you know how us tunnel vision rednecks think, I thought the battery connections might have cured up the whole shabang.

I should have known better though, I've had radios in my truck where I could actually hear the engine winding up as I drove. I put new plug wires on and it went away. Guess all kinds of things can get into the radio waves and cause distortion.

Craziest thing I ever had happen is once I was talking with someone on the portable phone (has a base unit that plugs in wall) and we had a small TV sitting in the same room that was on. Well I got a call waiting beep and told the one caller to hold while I spoke briefly with the current call waiting caller.
So I switched and just told the call waiter I would call them back and they acknowledged and hung up. I noticed I could hear my voice coming out of the small TV as a spoke.

When I returned to the previous caller, and starting talking, he said Dave you still there? I said yes. He said he heard the whole exchange with the call waiting party and almost thought I was telling him I was going to call him back.
True story, wasn't drinking or anything.