Hello all,

I have an 03 FLPHI

Dealer found a few shorts in my main wiring harness and repaired them. Bike still not behaving well, was told it may be the battery.
Replacing the battery I connected a continuity tester between the frame and the positive battery lead - and got a light.

To me that means there is a connection to ground somewhere in the positive side of the system (I'm connecting one end - there has to be another end connected to the frame to complete the connection).

I narrowed down the short to the circuit with "Security System" in the fuse panel and the solid red lead from the circuit breaker in the battery well.
Remove the fuse for "Security" and there isn't a ground issue. Of course there is a lot to that part of the system!

I've looked at the wiring diagrams and the only wire I see going to ground are the black wires in the harness.
I'm hoping someone can confirm that.

I'm seeing the solid blue and solid purple lights in the lighting system, white in the high beam all showing a connection to ground - and all of those systems have a dedicated ground.

Any advice to try and troubleshoot the problems appreciated, I'm just getting the gas tank off so I can look at the entire harness...

 

morning gork.

What kind(s) of problems are you experiencing when referring to "bike still not behaving well" and we can go from there.

Not sure I'm following your short test procedure. If you've got both + and - cables connected to the battery you will see a ground. With the - cable disconnected from the battery, there is no possible way there could be a ground present.

 

I'm experiencing intermittent misses/power loss while riding, especially when engaging my driving lights. My accessory connection under seat is not working (have the Harley accessory connection, old style "cigarette lighter" type connected to the "customer accessory connector" under seat). Headlamps going on/off (dealer found 2 main harness shorts and fixed that) while riding/turning the headlamps. Also the dealer said the battery needed to be replaced and the charging system needed to be reviewed.

It's a retired service bike (FLHPI) so it's had some 'revisions' made to it. One is that the power relay has been relocated a little forward and a (black, fused) direct connection has been made and a few of the wires spliced. I've included pix but they are hard to see. It does not appear this relay does anything/is currently working.

My initial test was with the battery out and disconnected running a simple continuity test from the positive battery lead to ground with a continuity tester bridging the connection from the cable to the frame. The positive battery cable was clearly grounded somewhere - I cannot imagine a reason for this and was considering open relays and even lightbulbs, etc. and have no power sources like radio memory, etc.

I've tested this on other FLH and have not found one in which the positve side is grounded, they appear to be closed loop.

Looking into the wiring I found that one red lead from the circut breaker shows that it goes to ground somewhere. Looking into the cabling I found that if I disconnected the "security system" fuse the ground went away. I also found that blue wires and the white wire from the headlamp also went to ground somewhere as does the ignition switch red with black stripe wire, oil pressure wire (green with yellow), solid orange and a few other wires.

So far I've removed the battery, headlamp, driving lights/turn signals, dash, horn, and disconnected the rear connection to the turns/brake lights, front handlebar connection, etc. I've seen a lot of splices that were made to repair issues. Some are filled/sealed with silicone which I'm not sure was done at the factory or not.

I've yet to take the gas tank off but have cut away the outer covering on the front of the harness near the steering neck and going from the seat to the tank to take a look at the wiring. There are a lot of exposed wire ends where, I assume, the FLHTP connectors would have gone, I'm going to heat shrink the ends.

I'm going to re-wrap the harness with self sealing silicone tape to replace the factory seal, the dealer used electical tape with looks terrible and will fall apart, provides no protection.

At this point I'm looking to test each main and interconnect harness for continuity (end to end and any grounds/crosses inbetween) and will use my multimeter to test function while I put everything back together.

Clearly in the harley service manual ground always seems to be black (unless talking about the starter positive connections) so I want to eliminate any wire known to go to ground and focus on the positive side wires first.

If the positive-side ground is typical I guess I have to live with that but I certainly don't want to burn out my stator or strand myself somewhere.

 

Any help appreciated trying to find the short(s)...

 

flpI, I being injected, right?

Actually there WILL be a couple different 'grounds' on a couple different systems. The fuel injectors will use a 'ground' from the ECM, itself, as an example. Unplug the ECM from the harness, and if you see any "grounds" still happening (with battery completely disconnected), you will want to chase those down for sure. You may also wish to pull the tank and CAREFULLY go over the wiring under the tank. Sometimes, the main harness has been tie strapped so tight that injector wires have been know to 'snap' INSIDE of the outer coating. The wires will LOOK good, but they will NOT be worth a crap. Don't be afraid to pull and tug on wires. Also be really careful while looking for ANY bare spots on wires!!! If this happend right after you have added or changed a Doo Dad, I would look to that. If you have done NOTHING to the bike, and now it just popped up? Look for ANYWHERE a wire could have been rubbed and the outer coating is now gone.

It's a time consuming process for sure! Remember, ANY switches left on... any lights left on, will show though the meter as a ground. The current from the meter will flow right past lamp filaments. If you are serious, you may wish to remove as many lamps as possible.

Good Luck, Sir!!!

 

Thanks, I've traced nearly every wire to a sensor, injector, blub and switch, etc. and I'm still looking for broken wires... slow process.

Biggest issue, cutting out the bad patches/additions and splitting the wiring harness - what do you wrap it with afterwards as the factory wrap can't be reused...

 

Heat Shrink after soldering.

 

Absolutely solder and heat shrink tubing, on mine there are already repairs in which they injected silicone sealer into the shrink tubing and then heated it up. Never seen that before but thought that was interesting.

My concern around re-wrapping the harness is replacing the outer plastic/rubber covering that wraps all of the wires and makes them look really neat as well as goes under the gas tank (and can't be too thick) protecting the wiring bundle from chafing.

I'm going to use silicone sealing tape (non sticky, cures together in 24hrs) to replace the original sheathing so that I don't have to cover it with electrical tape which will fail and get really sticky...

 

My 2007 Dyna Wide Glide had a bad ground wire that took me 2 weeks to find! Bike would cut out and die while riding, at times wouldnt start, and when it finaaly wouldnt start at all the low oil light stayed on. Turned out to be the ground wire from the battery to the ground stud on the trasmission. Seems the batter ground wire went to the transmission and crimped in that larger connector was a smaller wire (8 ga) that went to the ground stud that went to the ECM. I cut and recrimpped new connectors to each wire. Problem Solved! I also replaced the battery as it was the original that came with the bike.

 

yeah wasn't thinking about the power (+ & -) that is retained by the ECM.