I got home one night last week and had to stop to move my girlfriend's car out of the way of the garage. When I went to start my bike again to go up the drive, it died the second the starter began to turn. All of the electrics were dead. I pushed it inside and left it as I was way too busy to play with it at the time. I noticed yesterday that when I turned the ignition switch on and back off I could hear a sound almost like gears turning inside my dash and the speedo dial kind of vibrated for a few seconds. If I turn it to the left, then the mileage display sometimes will come on for a second or two, but then it dies again. A similar scenario happened several weeks ago too, but the next time I went to ride it started up just fine. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to ride or diagnose the problem because I am in the middle of moving. I have checked the battery cables and they look fine. I am thinking that maybe it's the ignition switch. If that turns out to be the case, does anyone know how long it takes to get a new one keyed for my bike from Harley? Any other thoughts on what it might be? I have been swamped with rennovating this house for the last two months, which has been mostly non-stop beautiful riding days that I have no time to ride. Now I am almost done moving in, and I am just itching to ride. This is very frustrating timing for my bike to break down!

 

Sounds like it could be a faulty ignition switch...

Turn switch to ign, and if the odo display flickers or is blank, Lightly tweak the switch back and forth...

If the display flickers on and off, along with the back lighting, the switch is faulty....

 

Sounds like a bad ground or a dead cell in the battery. Check the ground and the positive terminal on the starter as well. Could need to clean the terminals on your ignition switch. its not that hard to take them apart and clean the contacts with Electrical contact cleaner.

 

As soon as I get done with the last of my move, I am going to take apart the switch and clean it. The dealership agreed that it sounded like the switch is the problem. I thought "why not just get a new one?" Then I heard it was $110...

 

H-D Hundreds of dollars, nothing new here

 

Sounds more like a low voltage issue, either by bad ground, uncharged battery or faulty battery most likely. Check voltage at battery should be 12 to 12.5 then check voltage when ignition switch is turned, if it drops when trying to spin the starter below 10 volts you have unsufficient amount of energy from battery most likely. When you get it started check voltage to make sure charge system is working voltage should be between 13.5 and 14.5 when running.
Of course it can be other things but those are what I would check in my garage first.

Good luck and hope your riding again soon.

 

I hear what you're saying about the low voltage, but not so sure that it is the problem. It's not that it just won't start. It's that it went instantly from having power one second to having nothing the next. I mean NOTHING had power. No dash lights or anything. The last time this same thing happened, I came back the next morning and it had plenty of power to start after the problem had magically gone away. This time it is still dead in the water. I will check the voltage just to be sure.

 

This sounds exactly like a battery connection problem. Take a wrench to the battery bolts and ensure they are tight first and go from there. I had this exact problem and it was a loose battery bolt.

 

Mine did the same thing last spring when the battery crapped out, running fine then stopped at a gas station and when I turned the key on the lights came on and then went out. Then I spent an hour waiting for someone to bring me a battery. Glad it wasn't on a Sunday.

 

Ditto to connections. Repair by replacement is costly and you could end up buying parts that don't need replacing. Got a DVOM and a service manual?