I've been looking to get a Harley for awhile, and looking to find the right one in my price range. I'm wanting to get my wife into riding two up, so I've focues on looking for a touring bike and came across a 2001 FLHTPI, with mid 20k mileage for a decent price. It's got ABS, and indicated it was fuel injected. Now that I'm starting to research it, this would have been one of the early FI bikes? Should I be concerned about?

 

harley switched to the Delphi fuel injection system in 2002. the 01 will have the MM system which by most accounts was pretty awful. rough idle, impossible to tune properly, etc.

 

I wouldn;t get that 2001.

as for spouse riding- ensure that this is something she really wants to do.

I have seen more than once where one member of a household loves riding and the other(s) just don;t care...or hate it.

My wife occasionally rides on the back- mostly I go solo.
In her case she grew up around bikes and She even took the course and got her license.

we have always been a multi=-bike household and she rode the FXR, the BMW and the Honda...

one day as we returned from a ride- she let me know that she found riding stressful and not-fun...and she pretty much gave it up.

and that's fine.

some take to it, some don;t- and for the ones that don't- that's where the rest of us find our deals. unused bikes in the garage.

don;t be one of those

mike

 

I hear ya there. My last two bikes, I never could get her on them. (A 2001 Suzuki Intruder 1500LC, and then a 2008 Big Dog K-9). The latter was understandable. She's showing an interest now, and had said much of it was fears that if we both went down our kids would be orphaned. Also understandable, but they're older now.

For me, my last bike was a pretty extreme raked out chopper with a 119" engine and I've never had a bagger. Never had a windshield for that matter.

Unfortunately, it's hard to find a decent Electra sub $9000. I'm learning about the different options though. There are a couple low mileage Dyna's in the area that are in the range, but I'm holding out for now. Even looked into what it would be to replace the MM EFI. Not something that'll be in the budget for awhile.

 

a carb conversion runs about $600 if you are handy.
many have done it not so tough

have a look at the bikes in teh forum classified section

mike

 

If that 01 runs well, I would not hesitate to buy it. My 99 with the MM fuel injection has 90,000+ miles now and the MM works just fine. A mechanic has told me that if it works it works, he said about half of them were good. I would expect that more that half would work fine. My main concern now is will any of the other electronics fail, and should I need service are there any tech.s left who can fix it. Another thing to consider is that 01 is the last year of the forged bottom end; and that's a good motor to have.

 

I bought my 99 FLHT for $8,000 and it had 32,000 on it, was a carb, great solid bike, I got rid of the chain tensioners and went gear drive, it now has 83,000 miles on it and runs great, 99 to 02 have very good engines, as said if it is 01 or earlier FI I would stay away from it unless you get a great deal and as Mike said convert to carb.

 

02 was the last year for the Timkin crank bearing and forged bottom end