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I have a 2013 FLHTK. Three days out of warranty an intermittent electrical problem surfaced when I went for a 45 mile ride. It was dark out so I noticed that my headlight was perfectly fine, but for about 15 miles the auxiliary passing lamps were blinking, the backlight of the speedometer and tachometer stopped working, the idiot lights in the speedometer stopped working, and the cruise control didn't work. To clarify, the speedo and the tach continued to work, it was just the backlight and the idiot lights in them that went out. The rest of my gauges were fine. After about 15 miles or so, everything returned to normal.
A few days later I went for another ride. Everything was fine for the first 100 miles, then the same thing happened. It went back to normal after about five miles and continued to work fine for the remainder of my ride (approximately 30 more miles).
A few days later, I went for a short ride, the same issues appeared again intermittently, but this time the tour pack running lights stopped working. The brake lights on the tour pack are working as are the regular tail light and the fender tip tail light.
My thought is a ground issue, but I don't know where to start. Would appreciate some help. I checked all the fuses and they're fine.
Ouch, too bad you don't have ESP. Sounds like a ground issue to me as well, but I don't have the service manual for your bike to be able to offer you any help. Hope you get it worked out!
try swapping another relay in place if the lighting relay- there is a commonality among most of what you describe at the lighting relay
it is under the left side cover and will be marked on a diagram- on many models the same type relay is used for a few functions, so you may be able to just swap with another relay with same type markings ( start or brake relay)
You may be 3 days out of warranty, but I would still contact your dealer, as they may be prepared to help.
Worth a try.
Did you have any codes?
The Aux lights get power to the switch from the low beam of the headlight and the ground is the case and brackets bolted to the triple tree. There is a ground wire attached to the upper fork bracket, in one drawing it's called GRD 3. On a 12 limited it's a spade terminal, left of the head light, maybe it got pulled loose. This ground wire and the ground for the tour pak both go to Left GRD 1 Stud Dirty. Might check it and clean it but I don't know why it would affect a few lights and not all, the tour Pak brake light uses the same ground.
The cruise has several codes that can send it an "off Request"
Like MK said the power for both circuits, Headlamp and Lights come from the lighting relay. This relay is a bit bigger in size than the others.
Maybe time to hook the trickle charger up and turn the lights on and start wiggling wires.
I don;t have a diagram for your model- the service manual does ( I have an 09 so similar but it could be just different enough...)
always good to have a manual
please post back after check ground ( and you could just run a temp wire from battery neg post to the chassis up front to check this) and if you swap relays
if your ground went away it may have blown the bulbs in your instruments- the bulbs may be black inside from carbon
Is it possible that the voltage regulator is about to go? I had the speedo bounce, lack of cruise, then engine indicator. Next thing I know, I basically had to pray my bike home before it shut off. I replaced the voltage regulator and it was good from there.
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