My wife's 1998 EVO Dyna dies. All elect shuts down. Then usually one minute later, turn key off then back on all is fine. Problem occurrs after about 50 miles so might be temperature related. Perhaps a relay of some sort.

Really appreciate some advice. Don't want her bike (and her) to die in some street intersection.

Thanks.

 

Had a similar problem with my 85 WG. Like yours shut off ignition and turn back on and it would be ok. It turned out to be the main circuit breaker. Try changing it out and see if that stops your problem.

 

my copy of the HD parts catalogue for the 1998 Dyna lists

74587-94 Circuit Breaker 15 amp. (4)
74599-77B Circuit Breaker 30 Amp (1)

Is there one that should be changed, or all?
Should the 15 Amp and 30 Amp be retsined at oem amperage? I have read that some softail years the owners moved to 40 Amp claiming that HD used the incorrect cB specification.

Thanks all

 

It's not that they used the incorrect amperage breaker. Circuit breakers in your home, car, bike, etc. are rated for the wiring in place. In the home, code calls for 14 gauge wiring to use a 15 amp breaker, 12 gauge wiring is a 20 amp breaker and 10 gauge wiring is a 30 amp breaker. (That's on 120VAC.)

If you add more accessories to your bike to where you keep blowing the 30 amp breaker, then changing to a 40 amp might fix the issue of the breaker blowing but then you are running more current through the wiring than it is rated for.

A better solution is isolate the high current draw onto its own circuit thereby removing it from the 30 amp circuit. In your case, it might be the new light that is throwing the breaker. This would involve running a wire straight from the positive side of the battery to a new breaker or fuse to the input side of a relay (pin 30). Run the output of your high beam switch to pin 85 and ground pin 86. The high beam wire from the headlight will go to pin 87 and the low beam to 87a.

This will do two things. First it will isolate your high draw headlight from everything else. Second, which will not have that much effect on a bike but we do this a lot for four wheeling with high wattage lights, is that you will be running the headlights directly off the battery/alternator which will be sending around 15 volts to the headlights instead of running them through the wiring harness and headlight switch which has some current loss. In this case, the lights will actually burn brighter than when run through the wiring harness.

Edit: If you run your low and high beam to the relay, you will need to switch the feed from the battery since your low beam would then always be on when the ignition was off. The other way to do this would be to have the low beam run off the standard wiring and just run the high beam to the relay or else you could run two separate relays, one for the high beam circuit and one for the low beam. IMO a headlight on a Harley shouldn't be drawing that much and I would think your problem would actually be a short somewhere.

 

I tried testing my 30 amp by bypassing it and mine would still kick out so I ended up finding my issue elsewhere.

 

Thank you all for your comments.

Went to the local HD dealership and bought a new 30 AMP Circuit Breaker. Also bought a 15 AMP at a parts store chain because the HD dealer was out stock. Installed both. Bike lights up fine, but always has. Proof will be on a 50 miles out from home on a hot day.

One post somewhere wrote in reply to a similar question to feel the circuit breakers and replace the warm one. So the 15 AMP second from the left in the box was replaced. Don't know why someone wrote in that thread a warning against buying circuit breakers from both the HD dealer and shrinked wrapped from a chain. I can understand caution about HD since the circuit breakers were 2x the price at the auto parts store chain.

 

Update - I replaced 30amp CB and the warmest 15amp CB. Wife rode her '98 Dyna for 100 miles. No issues. Situation normal. I will have a look again at the wiring.

Thank you all!