Give it a year and Harleys will come up with a cover, as an expensive extra.

 

I haven't noticed it on my Heritage, but haven't looked in a while. Also mostly dry conditions so far. Just make sure whatever we put there doesn't get sucked into the wheel and take us out. Don't want the remedy to be worse than the problem.

 

Just washed my bike after the first time on wet roads. Dirtiest yet. But I didn’t pull the seat off. I’ll do that today and have a look, and keep an eye on this. It’s jam-packed with sensitive, critical stuff under there. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

Believe it or not, those connectors that supply power to various electrical components are water proof. This isn't 1970, you can simply use something like Gunk engine degreaser and rinse with something like a flower watering pot, not a hose!

Once you're finished and everything is dry use a product like Gunk engine protector that doesn't contain silicone and spray everything down and let it dry. It will may the next cleaning 10 times easier.


I've done it dozens of times without ever having an issue. If you think your electrical can't handel water then you've never ridden in the rain. Try putting down 400 miles in downpour 14 hours of riding and see if your electrical is somehow dry and protected by your seat, trust me it ain't.

Touring bikes have a snap on plastic cover over the ecm data port and other electrical components, everything is exposed and it gets wet everytime you wash your bike.

Trust me, I'm a fanatic when it comes to cleaning my bikes, the bags come off and I clean in areas people never think of.

 

There’s a (not too) subtle difference between getting wet from rain and road spray in a semi protected space and being directly bombarded by salt, gravel, water, leaf mulch, sheep sheet etc straight off the back wheel at 80mph.. it’s a brilliant bike but this is shoddy design and if Harley are serious about aiming for new customers they need to up their game. fortunately, to paraphrase Free, I’m alright now.

 

Got it. Thanks!

 

If Harley is indeed "serious about aiming for new customers", some instructor out there had better tell them how to shoot...

 

Well, I guess all the electrics and everything important on my Dyna got many, many serious soakings and bombardments of all kinds of ****. Plus I used to take the seat off every time I washed it and rinse everything out under there as well with a hose.

Bottom line is these bikes are built to be properly waterproof.

However - once i took the seat off my 2018 Softail Fat Bob, I WAS very surprised about the amount of dirt under there. Definitely could be improved upon with some form of mid frame water/spray deflector.

I use ACF50 liberally on my bikes, so not particularly worried, but I do agree it's not good design - and I will either make or buy something to mitigate it.....