I seem to be having my fair share of electrical problems all of a sudden. I also have a 2000 Fatboy that has run great for years. Just recently it has been loosing all electrical power as I'm crusin down the road. The speedometer, lights and gas gauge start blinking and acting erratic then it just dies and there is no power. I have taken it to Harley and they can not find anything wrong with it, never the less it keeps happening. I pull over on the side of the road and turn it off for a minute or so and it starts up again. Sometimes I can go a block and it quits again or sometimes it will go miles and get me home. (It has only happend twice, but it makes me nervous not to mention dangerous) The battery is original and I'm sure it is just a part that needs replacing, but which one? Any suggestions as to where I should start to conserve on money?

Thanks for your help.

Stoked

 

Replace the battery. If you want, take it somewhere and have a load test done on it. But if it was mine, and especially if it is a "maintenance free" battery, and 5 - 6 years old, I'd replace it anyway. They have a habit of suddenly dying with little or no advance warnings or symptoms. Seems to me you're luck and getting some advance warnings as it is.

 

Stoked,
You may well have a stator going South on you. I would eliminate everything else though first starting with the battery. Your local battery shop or the dealer should have a very nice little tester that will check the entire charging system to include the stator and they will usually do it for free. It is totally automated and all the tech has to do is stand there and follow the directions on the digital display. First it load tests the battery, then it checks the entire charging system. It takes about 5 minutes and is fool proof. Give that a shot and see what you get. Good luck, Spiderjim.

 

Could be a bad battery connections, remove them, clean them with a wire brush and reinstall, and don't forget that the cables have 2 ends

It could also be the main circuit breaker being you are loosing lighting and engine, cheap enough to replace it, there was some problems with some of them also. The dealer would no doubt test everything OK if it were this unless it just happned to overheat the breaker when they were testing.

If you could catch it in this condition and had a test light handy , you would only get +12v on one side as opposed to both if the condition was present at this time. If you care to test it when you ride, you could use a very small 12 volt bulb in a socket taped to your bars that is wired to the output side of the breaker. If it is the breaker , the light would also go out when it happned, this would tell you if it was a problem after the breaker but would still go out if it was a battery/cable problem also. This would rule out any problems with the rest of the harness on the bike.

These are the only things that come to mind if you are loosing all power , then it comes back on again.