strange problem today - any ideas
 

Was on a ride and stopped after about 75 miles. Started the bike back up after about 10 minutes and it was idling real high so I shut it down. Then when I went to re-start it, nothing, no clicks, nothing. Had lights, power etc but nothing when I hit the start button. Thought it was the battery, took it out was going to try to find a place near by to buy one. Closest place 25 miles so decided to try it again. Put battery back in and it started and ran. Got two blocks and bike shut down while riding but started right back up as soon as I pulled over. Got to parts store and took out battery, checked OK. Volts and load test. Put back in bike and road another 150 miles with a few stops for gas etc. Everything is working normal now. By the way, the terminals are very clean. No corrosion. I happened to have cleaned them last month while doing misc. maintenance. Bike ran fine before and after this incident.
Getting ready for a long weekend ride next week and prefer to figure this out before leaving.
1995 Ultra w/ Fuel Injection

Sounds like an electrical problem, so check all the connections/ wire/ relays and switches to ensure that al is as it should be. With fuel injection it could also be a fuel pump or relay problem. Check these out and let us know what you find.

I kind of thought the same. Going to look at all wires, grounds etc. You also mentioned the fuel pump? What could that have to do with it.

Do you have one of those gremlin bells? JK

I think if the fuel pump is grounding out then that might be why it shut down on you. It does sound like you have a loose ground or something. I just recently pulled my fairing and the ground block that has about 8 ground wires running to it had a bunch of very loose terminals. The connectors were so old that when I would crimp them a bitt to tighten up the connection, they would just break off. I had to strip and replace each of the female spade ends. You might have something similar in there.

check electrical:
check battery voltage with bike off and then running.(d/c voltage) give it a bit of gas
consider check of voltage at stator(a/c voltage)
if these check out OK
then there may be a short someplace that is triggering a breaker by the battery.
any possibility that you added something or removed something from bike that could have pinched a wire or will pinch wire when you hit a bump?

Do you have the manual for this bike? If not you need to get one good info in it for trouble shooting your bike. Most shops do not have the tools necessary to work on these old bikes anymore I found out the hard way. I'm in the process of changing out all of the things on the bike so I can do my own trouble shooting. Mainly the fuel injection,ecm(went to a thunder-max with auto tune) you can hook up a computer to it and see what going on with the bike. This also really made the bike runs better.
Look at the synchronizing the ecm and idle speed control actuator . Here is what it says from the manual for the 1995 to96 shop manual.
page 9-96. Key ON for 5 seconds and then key OFF for 10 seconds. Repeat this step a second time. "Key ON" means only that the ignition/light key switch is turned to IGNITION and the handlebar Engine Stop Switch is in the RUN position (although the engine is NOT running). When you disconnect the battery your supposed to do this. This might help with your high idle problem. if one of the sensors is bad or a loose connection on one of the sensors then this process probably won't help.
As for the bike not starting it sounds like a bad ground could be the ground wire internal corrosion in the wire its self or connection. I had a head temp sensor go bad it would run fine for a while then die or run very bad along with black smoke way over rich it would run fine cold but once hot it did very strange things until I changed the sensor One other sensor that will make your day is the crank sensor it can do the things your describing if the sensors are the factory original ones now might be the time to change them to new ones.Something else these bikes have a lot of relays could be one of them flaking out or a dirty contact switch. I think I'd look at the switches first and the starter solenoid as you had power everywhere else but no cranking when you hit the start button. Right? One guy said something about a gremlin bell.I'm not flaming him, I don't have one but been thinking I could use all the help I can get but a bell? Nope, I'll take the manual over a bell any day.
Norman
1973 of 2000. 30th anniversary edition 1995 ultra classic

Thanks for all of your input guys. I'll start with the basics and keep looking until I find something.

Sounds like a problem I had a year ago with my 96 FLHTCI. I would be riding along and it would just shut down. No power. I would turn it off and let it set for about 5 mins and it would start up again as though there were no problems. Took it to the dealer and they replaced/upgraded the circuit breaker and I haven't had any problems since.

A local friend just had that problem a week ago on a dinner ride one evening. The curcuit breaker was the problem.

Sometimes mine does the same thing....shake the ignition switch....works for me