I went for a short ride today and after about 160 miles, I realized that the battery cover on the left side ('08 XL1200R) had popped loose and was hanging out in the wind by that tiny little piece of plastic at the bottom.

I've had nothin' but trouble with this dang thing since I got the bike and I almost lost the cover today. How are you folks with newer Sporties keepin' this piece on?

For my money, I'd much rather have steel screws than those cheap plastic clips. But that's not the Harley Way, I guess...

 

i had trouble with the plastic clip up front popping out of the hole. I took the seat off, repositioned the plastic clip where its supposed to be and then used some superglue to keep it there. Havent had any trouble since.

 

This is a common problem. See info in this thread:
https://www.hdforums.com/m_1783110/tm.htm

 

Drill a small hole on the top of the cover and zip tie it to the frame.

 

There ya go...at least you didn't totally lose your cover....some people have had that happen.....[:@]

Edited to point back to the thread that cHarley posted.

 

Dealer knows it's an issue and will replace, though as you'll see in the other thread, wouldn't want more of the same cheap clips or a repeat of the problem...zip ties solve the problem, and what I'll go back to if the dealer fix fails again...

 

Thank you kindly for the information.

I found the clip had been shoved into the frame (most likely by my ham handed attempts to put the side cover back on at 85 mph...) I reseated it in position, but I am still horribly disappointed in the quality of this connection.

I have a whopping 500 miles on the bike and I'm already sick of the lack of detail on the mechanical aspects of the machine. Looks great, rides great, but wtf good is that if I'm droppin' crap every 50 miles?

I should have bought a Ural... At least the Russians still use honest to goodness nuts and bolts to hold **** on.[sm=bomb.gif]

 

I'd like to find the guy that designed that contraption. Tie him to a pole and have Harley pay for everyone to come out and do a B-slap drive by!
And while were at it, find who is responsible for the glued together plastic oil tank and do the same thing. Hey, put the pole on a circle track so we can b-slap
them multiple times. Ok, I feel alittle better. My cover fell open coming back from a bike classic last week. I'm going to do that drill hole/ zip tie thing myself.

 

SOme engineer probably had some brilliant idea of how to attach it that wouldn't fall off and be easier to remove in the dark. But, some knucklehead in an expensive suit clutching his MBA thought it was too expensive and said "make it for less than two cents" and the engineer proceeded to bang his head on the desk and opened the "RED BINDER" before pulling that plastic POS out of the *****enshit catalog.

I think we should all knock some smarts into the MBAs in suits. Leave design to designers.... (sorry, I'm at work and my work load is quadrupled any time some self important yahoo in a fancy suit opens his mouth)

 

Yeah, I had that issue on my 07 sportster. I ended up fixing it with a Dyna.