Some have mentioned a smell when the stator fails.
Before my troubles I noticed a smell like when a car is leaking ant freeeze. Is that what it’s like?

 

It's hard to describe, but I had it happen twice with my Sporty and I could detect the smell when the Fatboy was starting to go a month ago. Remove your derby cover or drain the primary and I don't think you'll miss the smell if it's going. It's strong and unmistakable. When I changed mine I had the garage door open and a fan blowing toward the door. I drained the oil and immediately took it outside but the odor spread throughout the entire house and took a couple of days to dissipate. The OL wasn't happy.

You can also check your voltage at the battery with a Powervision or a voltmeter with the bike running. Mine was putting out ~12.8V before it shorted completely instead of the ~ 14V I should have been producing. When it failed completely my battery icon came on and the voltage was a flatline no matter the RPMs.

If you find that your stator is fried, I'd recommend going with a Cycle Electric stator and voltage regulator rather than an HD replacement. Cycle Electric is built with military grade components and doesn't dump the excess current to ground like HD does. Another word of warning -I don't know the year and model of your bike but the rotor on my 2012 would not come off because of a raised edge along the inner primary, something the HD manual failed to mention. Check out my thread for more details on how I got mine off. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...ator-died.html

 

A bad stator smells burnt; because it is. As mentioned above, Cycle Electric is the only stator and R&R I'll bolt on to a motorcycle.

 

It smells like a mixture of burnt electrical insulation and oil. Given its location, I don't think it's likely you would be able to smell it though..