I am going to try and explain this as well as I can with my limited mechanical knowledge and hope someone can tell me if I may be heading for a major or minor issue. My bike is a 2005 heritage softail with EFI.

So here we go. I was riding to work this morning when all of a sudden the bike cuts out like I had let off the throttle. Did it for a second then picked back up. Went a little further and it happened again only this time it didn't pick back up right away. Actually hit the throttle 3or 4 times with nothing happening. I was to the point of trying to find a place to roll off of the road. Then it backfired loudly and picked back up. No further issues for the remaining 25 miles to work or on the 50 miles home in the afternoon.

Does this issue sound familiar to anyone? If so is it something serious or not and what is the solution?

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

Sounds like you may have had some crud or something in the fuel line, and it spit it out. Or, could be some bad gas.
Unless it happens again, I think you are okay.

 

Thanks. That's what I was hoping to hear and really hope that turns out to be the case. The bike has been running awesome otherwise.

 

You didn't really say what else you had on the bike though... could be what was stated. What other mods do you have on the bike. I had a situation similiar but if you don't have any of the same mods... not worth mentioning. Do you have a tuner on it? air ride? ect...

 

Or your ign. Switch going bad. Also check battery cables, they need to be clean and tight.

 

All the items above and also check the connections on the controllers under your seat.

 

Had the same thing happen on my springer a couple of months ago... Check your battery connections. My ground wire was loose and it was cutting off and on sporadically. Two seconds to fix!

 

No tuner came with it and the only mod I know of is a stage one kit has been added. I did add a battery tender cable a few days ago and from listening to others I may have loose connections at the battery. I've had no more issues but am going to check this out and hope for no further issues.

 

The battery connections not being tight enough is a high probability cause. Most people rightfully don't put too much torque on those battery bolts, fearing that they will strip them. But, there is enough vibration on a bike to require the bolts to be as tight as possible consistent with not exceeding the recommended torque.

Since you need to be right near or at the recommended torque, but most people cannot judge the amount of torque accurately unless they are a mechanic, it is smart to use a torque wrench of appropriate working torque range (i.e. don't use a torque wrench marked 0 to 100 foot pounds for a 10mm bolt that needs maybe 30 INCH pounds = 2.5 foot pounds!).

On my last model of bike, a Honda VTX 1800, insufficient torque on the battery bolts was the cause of the vast majority of problems similar to yours.

Jim G