Today while riding with the wife, 80 miles from home. We had just left Bloomington Harley, after the wife had bought so new HD clothing, anyway, I pull out of the parking lot, drove about 100 yards to the main road, light turns green, no power, bike was in limp mode.

I was able to drive down HGY 46 about another 100 yards and limped back to the dealer. They took it in with no questions ask and did some dianostic work, came back with the erroe code P2101. TCA motor circut actuator error. What the heck! The tech on duty cleared the codes took the bike for a ride and could not duplicate it, but he did see the bike when I came in with it. He said that the book tells him to replace the ECM unit.

It's a 2013 ultra limited so I would have the shop do the wrenching, so that I keep the warrenty intact, about 2 weeks before they can get to it. I have a trip planned to indy next week for the red Bull motor cycle races at the indy 500 track.

I was hopping to get to take my bike to Meridian street for all the partying that goes on there, they close the whole street down to nothing but bikes for a couple of days. Anyway the tech said it might happen again might not. I am also going to NC, in late Sep to take in all the good riding out that way. So I really don't want to crap out 400 miles from home.

Anyone have anything like them happen, and any idea on how to fix it? Or I wait for two weeks to get it into the shop, and hope that what they say it is, actually fixes it. Thanks.

 

Use some dielectric grease on the pins of the ECM & the connection on the plug attached to the left side of your throttle body. I thought HD had the limp mode issue resolved with gold tipped pins but maybe not. Not saying this will be a 100% fix but it's a start. Also make sure your seat is not pushing down on the ECM.

If the issue is something unrelated to pin fretting/corrosion, Im sure someone will chime in.

 

Lot's of threads going on similar problems. Mine never did go into full blown limp mode but has been turning on the check engine light and throwing the codes P1510, P 2127, and P 2138. So far the twist grip sensor has been swapped a couple of times and the throttle body changed out. The wiring harness has been ohmed out extensively and now there is more troubleshooting planned for the harness. Harley is having similar problems on touring bikes from 2008 to present that employ throttle by wire operation.

The problem seems to be with wires breaking internally in the harness. There have been several bikes with the same wires breaking as well as "fretting" on the pins of the connector at the throttle body itself. Seems Harley is well aware of the problem as the throttle body has a five year warranty under the emissions system coverage so this repair should be covered under warranty.

 

Ask them to pull an ECM off of a floor bike while they're waiting for the warranty ECM to come in. That takes care of you ASAP.

 

Are you sure HD will eat the cost of the new pin install? If so my 2009 will be at the end of that window in a week or two and I will try to get the work done before that. My bike has only gone into limp mode once since Aug 2008 but why take chances...

 

Whether MOCO would eat the cost of pin replacement or not would depend on if the bike is in failure now or not? Can't speak to that as whether stuff gets covered or not depends on your relationship with the local service department. So far of all the stuff they have done to troubleshoot my bike, they have not yet replaced the pins in the TCA connector. They are focusing on finding wires broken internally in the harness as this is the problem that seems to be most prevalent according to what the shop doing the work is being told by HD.

Seems like there have been problems in three areas that I have heard of.
1. Fretting of the pins in the TCA connector at the throttle body.
2. Internal breakage of the bottom two wires at the TCA connector at the throttle body due to the sharp angle they make on installation.
3. Wires internally broken in the main harness near the steering head at the fairing mount point.

 

I hope no one gets run over before HD recalls these bikes

 

How many of you had this happen more than once? I know the mech at the shop said that it might not every happen again, but then he also said that it could become more frequint.

 

Mine was throwing codes with increasing frequency. Codes would reset and bike would run fine for quite a while but then it would toss the codes and performance would be off. Reset the codes through the odometer and things would be fine again for an indeterminate period (never the same twice in a row).

 

I had it happen once, 400 miles from home coming back from a trip out west. PCH and was taking route 66 back home.
Here is my post:
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...de-my-fix.html