On vacation in Miami with a bunch of guys in my club and my bike overheated in traffic. She wouldn't start up until in cooled down. Took about 15 minutes. Embarrasing cause I'm the only one on a Harley, and the only one who overheated. To be fair, we were in bumper to bumper traffic for about an hour in the Florida heat, so it's not the bike's fault. Wondering if the 2014 or 2015s with the liquid cooled heads would still have this problem? Don't want this to happen again.

 

Buy a set of parade fans. They are supposed to work very well. Jims and wards are two that make them. Way cheaper than a new wethead.

 

when riding a harley (or any other air cooled) do not idle, move slow for prolonged periods, walk it. kind of goofy but rebuilding an overheated engine is expensive

 

How do you know the things is overheating? I ride in 100 degree weather all the time. On the open road, no problem I suppose, but going through in town traffic the ETMS or whatever that thing is always comes on at a light. I assume, it is managing the temperature fine. But how do you know? Its not like we have a water coolant temp gauge.

 

an Oil temp gauge is available, I have one. I usually don't recommend them, as if you really see just how hot the oil is, it is quite possible for you to have a serious heart attack!!! And you will not stop worrying about oil boiling within your cases!! there are things you can do. The fans by wards work excellent, and are highly reviewed. tuning your bike via dyno or some other quality tuner (power vision, ect) also helps greatly. oil coolers, so many things, or a collection of some or all.
just because the cylinder shut off engages, it does not mean it is "managing" the heat. It is doing all it can to try to keep the heat down, but only can maintain a minimum engine temp by doing that, the max engine temp can get quite a bit hotter!

 

A riding buddy of mine toasted his Road King in a 100 degree traffic jam.
It can happen.
Too much idling not enough moving..

 

something wrong with the bike.
It should have gone into parade mode.

I live in south Florida and have never had an issue.

Bike Week can be very hot in Daytona and you can be basically stopped in traffic for an hour doing Main Street and the bike never overheated.

(I'm guessing you were on A1A down by the Grove just south of Miami proper. Am I right)

 

I've gotten my bike hot quite a few times but never to the point of stalling.

How's your bike running now?

 

the othr thing that could have happened is the crank sensor got so hot hat it went to open, (No resistance in windings) Merceds crank sensors do this all the time, leave a fault code, we replace them because they are junk in the first place, harley ones aren't all that much better, but hot is hot, no matter what, but might want to run a scan to see if there is a code for the crank sensor

 

Bike overheats you'll know it they start acting real ignorant , sputtering, stalling and making noises an air cooled engine never should. Dealt with a number of fried harley engines back in my midwest days, worse case is pistons start to seize then let go and skirts break and you throw a rod. What usually happens is scores hell of the cylinders walls and the piston slap starts, weakens rings were they won't seal and valve guides gall up, seen more than a few get so bad the guides break loose in the heads.

This was all shovel's & evo's which run cooler than these new big inch ball cookers you guys ride.