On the weekend, my 99 Ultra suffered a series of weird events-wondering if any of you could link them together.
Left a restaurant to return home after a 120 mile ride, average temps-all good paved roads and immediately noticed a burning oil smell.
Pulled over and sniffed around the bike and located a strong oil/burn smell near lower front of frame/rh side area. There was a wisp of smoke from a big gob of oil/grease accumulated under the motor. Cleaned it out as best I could and looked like one or two of the regulator wires popped out of a small guide and contacted bottom of motor. I popped wires back into guide and started ‘er up-no smell, no smoke.
When I went to pull away, I noticed the clutch engaged right off the grip, whereas when I stopped it was at least a ½” off the handle. Limped it home basically with no clutch and ran fine for 120 miles. Last intersection/red light before home I stalled it and battery was dead, starter just clicked-had to get a boost and a push start to get home.
After a good cleaning, it looks like the clutch cable housing is split and frayed but no damage to wiring can be found.
All 3 oil levels are good, battery is dead, voltmeter shows 8/9 volts. I put the charger on overnight and will try again tomorrow-had to order clutch cable and wont have till weekend.
1) Any ideas if the 2 failures maybe related somehow? And 2) there is a threaded hole under the nosecone housing that has no bolt in it-is it supposed to hold a wiring guide clip or something for the clutch cable as it looks like the
cable got pinched between the frame and the motor. And 3) what would all that have to do with the charging system?

Weird….
Thanks

 

Could the stator frying take out the clutch?

 

The regulator wires you located and put back in sound as though the came off and rested in some collected oil and debris causing a short in the stator, and it's failure. Or you did not get good contact when you placed them back in the receptacle and you failed to get a charge going to your battery. Often you can ride a bike for a while with a dead battery or a loose connections. Stop the bike and there won't be enough juice to turn over the bike until it's recharged. A weak or dead battery can put too heavy of a draw on the recharging system and cause stators to melt, and regulators to short, or burn it out and have an open (not connected) circuit. Typically you only smell a damaged stator in the primary case, the oil will stink with an electric transformer melt down type smell.

I don't think you can smoke (melt / overheat) a stator and have it cause issue with the clutch. You say you have a brake in the shield but can't see anything wrong with the cable inside. My best guess is the cable has damage in the unseen area and stretched while it's unraveling. That would throw off a clutch adjustment. Only other thing on the clutch that may break and give you a dramatically altered adjustment is when the throw-out bearing fractures.

 

Thanks guys, turned out to be a busted clutch cable housing, cable frayed and snagged one of the regulator wires and split the cover off the wiring, causing a short.
All cleaned up, cable replaced and wires fixed-good as gold
Cheers

 

Thanks for coming back with the cure. Glad it's fixed for you. Now get out and enjoy what's left of summer.