Hitchcocks Forum

I have a 2004 bullet sixty-5 with an electrical problem. The bikes electrics will occasionally die, but only while idling or not running at all, never while running at speed. This seems to happen when the wiring harness is jiggled a bit and is usually mended by moving the harness around a bit more. I have peeled back the coating on the harness where the seat was rubbing against it, which I suspected had caused a wire to break but I can see no problem. I also have a fully charged battery, a working alternator and have double checked the grounding on the frame. Any thoughts on what might be wrong?

The standard fuse holders are pretty crap. Best replaced with blade type fuses and holders.

Moving the harness around to make it work is the best place to start looking, it will be in that area somewhere

My Electra-X lost all electrical power one dark night a couple of years ago. One journey home on a recovery truck, and a quick investigation revealed the power lead from the battery had failed (snapped) by the headstock, with the broken end just poking out of the wiring bundle. I put this down the the ageing of the plastic insulation and the fact that the wiring loom is subject to contact flexing on that part of the bike. Rather than replace the loom I just ran a new lead from the battery fuse to the ammeter, all sorted. Might be a good place to check. A.

Sorry, **constant** flexing, can we have an edit option please, Mr H?

I had same thing, found it was the top screw that holds the battery carrier, the nut had come loose. The frame to battery earth is held by it and was only making intermittent contact. I replaced the bolt with an 8mm one and a nyloc nut.

Solution to this turned out to be that the lead coming from the battery was striped and shorting against the frame, thank's for the help.