Just purchased a 'new' 1996 Road King Classic with 16,500 files.. Had it about a month now and I am having some issues which the dealer is not being extremely helpful with diagnosing (I purchased it privately, so its not like they are obligated to fix it). Anyways, it started recently after I filled up with some 87 octane gas by mistake.. I realized it a day later when the bike began sputtering a bit at slower speeds (30-40mph).. and occasionally hiccupped quite a bit. I put in some 93 to hopefully fix it, which seemed to help initially, but now the bike is continuing to do it. I road on the freeway for 10-15 miles, got off, got stuck in a little stop and go traffic, and as I was cruising along at like 25mpg, the bike just up and quit on me.. I thought it was overheating.. so I let the bike sit for a good 2 hours, still wouldn't start.. After the tow truck got there, about 3 hours later, it started BRIEFLY, ran and sputtered for maybe 100 yards, then quit again. So I had it towed to the dealer.

Get it off the truck at the dealer, the bike fires up and runs perfectly! I explain the problem to them and they think it sounds electrical, and not fuel related, but it seemed strange that this happened after I put in some new gas. Anyways, road the bike home.. That night I drained all the fuel out, and put in fresh 93 octane.. THe following day I drove it again, and it didn't die, but it sputtered slightly when cruising at 40mph or so, at constant throttle. If I accelerate hard it seems to run fine, its only running at constant rpm at an average speed it sputters. So I brought it back to the dealer, they road it around the lot but could not reproduce the problem, I wanted them to take it on the road but they did not have time.. they put a fuel pressure guage on it and said the fuel pressure was fine.. but thats all they could do, and they have a 1.5 month wait for scheduled service.. [:@]

So anyways, anyone got any ideas what this could be? Besides the gas fillup, I recently changed the plugged, got them direct from harley and they were gapped at the specs in the service manual. I also replaced the air filter. But the problem did not occur until a week or so after I did those items, so I'm not sure they are the problem. The plugs look normal.

Any help is appreciately, I'm afraid if I have to have the dealer figure it out I may be waiting forever, and I am paranoid to take the bike on longer trips for fear of it dying again and having to have it towed.

**See Updated Info Post #7**

 

Recheck anything you did,if you have the old plugs and wires try them back on it again, I would suspect that you may have picked up some water in your gas from your symptoms , you say you emptied it out but how did you do it, it's FI so you must have siphoned the gas out, so the possibility that the water still is in the tank is pretty good as the water sinks to the bottom of the tank and you cannot siphon all the contents out to a point where it is completely empty, which leaves the water in the bottom of the tank.Just a thought.

I would remove the tank from the bike and empty it out by turning it over and it would also clean the tank out, all tanks accumulate some debris in them and this would be a good opportunity to check that out also. Do a thorough job and you can put that behind you as a cause.

If you don't know how to remove the fuel line, you remove the fuse for the fuel pump and crank the bike, this relieves the fuel pressure in the line and then you use the quick disconnect on the fuel line at the bottom of the tank to seperate it.

 

I am going to guess at this and say you have a carb model based on the year model you stated. It is possible that you have water in the bowl of the carb, which can temporarily keep the carb from getting fuel. I would recommend draining the fuel bowl on the carb, and collect it if possible to examine. Also I would use a spark tester (which you use inline of the sparkplug wires to check for fire). You may also want to pull your sparkplugs for a plug reading. Plugs should look brown (paper bag like) if the running condition it correct. Any smoke or backfire, from either the carb or the exhaust when the bike doesnt run right?

 

Actually, I should have been more specific.. it is Fuel Injected..

 

>>>>they put a fuel pressure guage on it and said the fuel pressure was fine..

Says it all[:-]

 

mine did pretty much the same thing.....wasnt a problem with the gas it was a cam position sensor. when it got hot it would sputter and shut down sometimes it would crank back up in 2 minutes sometimes 2 hours. good luck!!

 

Ok, got some updates on things I have found. It seems to happen more frequently when its hot out, not sure why that is.. Also, I found oil in my air filter, not a ton, but enough for it to drip when I took it off. When I pulled the air filter off after riding for a while white smoke was coming out of the 2 holes under the air filter (Forgive my lack of a technical name, the big air intake holes).. Oil smoke perhaps? I'm thinking I shouldn't have oil in my air filter area.. Whats also strange is it doesn't seem to happen at high speed, or high rpm.. The bike will sputter and pop usualy when I am just cruising at like 40pm and just barely on the throttle.. but sometimes when accelerating slowly. If I accelerate hard it doesn't seem to do it.

Any help would again be appreciated trying to figure out what this is.. its not happening extremely frequently so its tough to take it to the dealer and say 'fix this' because every time I do, it runs fine. Please check the first post for some additional info as well.

Thanks guys for any help..

 

What does your oil level look like. Too much oil will cause the oil to pass into the air box via the crankcase breather. Other than that, do you have any FI light coming on?

 

No FI light, not even sure where that is.. But when it was sputtering hard last time, the engine light was coming on briefly while it was doing it, then go off once its stopped. I'm going to try to get it in to my dealer's same day service tomorrow to see if they can find anything.. but I'm trying everything I can think of before I do.

As for oil, level seems ok? When hot its right to the top of the full hot line, but not over.. should be OK with that? I just changed the oil as well (It was having this problem both before and after the oil change.. )

 

I just signed up to this forum to research a problem i am having with my 2002 roadking, it sounds like me and you are having the same issues. I have put some gas neutralizer in mine and it seems to have helped it. But rode yesterday about 100 miles it sputtered a couple of time at low speeds but then died when i pulled in the driveway. when mine dies it will crank right back up, but no indicator lights come on or anything. I took mine to the HD shop and they plugged it up to the computor and said there was no codes showing, so i have been running the gas treatment through it, but i would really like to know what you find out and If i find anything out i will do likewise.