Hi everyone, I just joined after buying a 2008 Harley Davidson Electra-Glide Classic with maybe 33,000 km on it, and coming upon what I find is a strange but hopefully simple and easily fixable problem. The bike ran perfect for a huge 20,000 km trip last summer, other than some pinging, and it burns a L of oil per oil change, and around town for awhile before driving it into the unheated shed. I`m ashamed to say I took no storage precautions but its pretty dry here. The battery was strong when I tried starting it, though my keyfob battery died over the 8 months and it wasn`t recognized so the alarm went off a few times and it wouldn`t even turn over until I figured that out. With a new battery in the fob it cranked and cranked but nothing, so I opened up the throttle and after a few chugs and huffs it started running extremely roughly (perhaps on one cylinder I`m not sure) but ultimately died just when I thought I had it. This may have happened twice, I forget, and I cranked it quite a bit more with the occasional hint that the same thing might happen again (a huff here, a huff there) without going too long each time to avoid starter damage, sometimes with and sometimes without the throttle wide open in case it was flooded despite being EFI. Any `huff`I got was when the throttle was wide open, or I wouldn`t have done that, given the ageold advice that EFI`s don`t need throttle (which is apparently BS as my TDI needs it floored to start in winter or I`d kill the battery routinely). Then I let it sit 5 days and tried again with no throttle, but zilch, so full throttle and still zilch. By now my battery in the bike was getting worn down as I must have cranked it 100 times (tough batteries!), and though I should have done this right off the bat - my garage is a disaster and crowded and I`m used to a bike that has near impossible access to plugs and didn`t realize the Harley`d be so easy - I removed the plugs and was surprised they weren`t soaked since I smelled gas in my tiny garage but maybe its just exhaust in the confined space (though if it didn`t fire there shouldn`t be exhaust.....) but they were pretty dry/damp but not wet for sure. However when I put them in the caps and grounded them and turned it over there was zero spark. Not a hint. The plugs didn`t look too bad, plus, why would it have ran a bit 5 days ago, and ran absolutely flawlessly when I drove it into the garage last fall? Is there some reason you could lose sparkplugs or coils just from cold storage (some -40C but mostly -20C) for 8 months? If the plugs don`t look all crudded up or wet, and don`t fire, could it actually be that both plugs need replacing? Certainly I`m going to try that but the stores are closed today on July 1 and it`s bugging me what to expect. Sorry for the long post, but sometimes every detail possible can help provide an answer, and yes the tank was pretty empty over winter and I added fresh gas (half tank) partway through the cranking....I forget exactly when but before I got too carried away cranking, in case it was starving a bit for fuel or something. Hopefully I also hear from some who have had this exact experience, since I really don`t think I did anything that out of the oridinary. There must be many riders that merely drive into and unheated shed for the winter, as my dirt bike does just fine and it has a big 600 cc single four stroke, and snowmobiles sit all spring/summer/fall though I start them up once a month or so just to get oil circulated which you can`t do on a Harley in 40 below so I just let it sit.

Thanks in advance, and the sooner the better for any answers/suggestions because I HAVE to get it running for Tuesday morning as I leave for vacation and I have another huge trip all planned out. I never imagined after buying a $20k or so 2008 Harley I`d be having problems already....hopefully this is something preventable in the future and my fault (not the bikes).

 

Fuel injected engine do not respond like carbureted engine by opening the throttle. Sounds like you may have bad fuel or maybe varmints chewing on wires. I would suggest using a small squirt of starter fluid.

Are both spark plugs getting fire? Read the failure codes.

 

Yes about EFI and open throttles, but I tried with closed and got zero response, the only response I did get (it started but ran incredibly rough then stalled as described) with with WOT. Plus my TDI absolutely has to have the foot pedal floored to start in cold weather. I`d crank forever and kill the battery if I didn`t touch the pedal and it appears to be the same with this engine at least after storage. Then again I never got it running, true, but no throttle was even worse (no life whatsoever).

Could be varmints, I`m taking the seat off to charge the dead battery now so I`ll look around though all lights, horn, stereo etc. is perfect unless they targetted my plug wires.

Both spark plugs are stone dead, zero sign of spark, not even a weak one, so starter fluid wouldn`t help in this case. The little gas that was in there at the beginning would have been 8 months old, but I added half a tank of fresh over that so I wouldn`t that should be the problem now, not when I have zero spark at least. I don`t see any failure codes on my dash so maybe you mean I need a code reader which I don`t have and there`s no Harley dealer here are anywhere close which has my slightly panicking due to my impending road trip in 5 days.

 

You dont ned a scanner to ull the codes. Just turn the run switch on the handlebars to run, hold your odometer trip set button in while turniong on the ignition switch. The speeo will do a full sweep and then let off the odometer sitch. Now you can use the odometer switch to go through the different banks and it will tell you what codes you have if any in odometer readout. to clear the code, just hold the odometer switch in until the code clears. You need to have something to write on to record the codes if any pops up.

 

My friend, you have BAD gas and most probably CLOGGED injectors. Drain the tank, put fresh fuel in with injector cleaner. If that don't do it you'll have to clean the injectors.