New Harley won't start? Try this first.

[banquo]

Standing in rain at Crieff, waiting for a classic bike event to start, when Pete come up and tells me this story. He bought an '08 model 883 Sporty for his good lady, and all goes fine, until one day it won't start. Switch on, usual clicks and buzzes, hit the starter button, and nothing. Not even a click.
Pete knows what he's doing, and trys all the usual things, finds nothing, so phones the supplying dealer and gets, "It's your battery." but it's not, and a full charge makes no difference. It's not the earth strap either, nor the starter relay. A Jap rider comes round and says, "You need to pull the clutch lever in." and the mate says, "Don't be daft. This is a Harley, and they don't have stuff like that." The other guy jumps on, pulls in the clutch, thumbs the start button and... it starts?

Weird.....

So he gets the good lady out, and asks her to have a go at starting. She hops on, no clutch, hits the starter, and it starts...

What's going on here?

To cut a long story short, after much messing around, they find that the bike does have a lock-out, not on the clutch, but on neutral. The bike is in neutral, they already checked that, but the neutral light isn't on. After messing around for a bit, they find you can snick it gently into neutral when rolling, and the neutral switch doesn't engage. If you give the gear lever the usual Harley boot, it does. And pulling the clutch lever in was enough to engage it too.

So, if your newish Harley won't start, first check that the neutral light is on, before wasting your time on other stuff.

Might apply to all models, not just the Sporty; don't know which models have this new system...

Thanks to Pete for this tip.

[naz-t]

happened to me on my trailey the exact same thing,

[Ukkid76]

Well i never knew that!!!

Why dosent my Road King do that then?

Is it because people with big bikes knows better that to start it when in gear

[mojito]

hi they all do that i mean the o8 models on th 08 dyna even warns u on the display if the side stand is on, its all this safety devices harley has to move up with the times and incorporate all this gimmicks to their new bikes , but old experianced riders shud know that its not right to start bike in gear , and if in newtral , the light shud show, cos if its not showing something will prevent it from starting

[Shifty]

So Harley are fitting stupid numpty-switches as well now? Oh well, just another thing to disconnect then

Glad mine's not got it. It'll be bloody side-stand cut-outs next.

[panheadpete]

NEW??? Bloody hell, my '72 Electra-Glide had that - no neutral, no start. Yet my Y2000 Road King doesn't. Wierd.
Cheers,
Pete.

[banquo]

Originally Posted by panheadpete

my '72 Electra-Glide had that - no neutral, no start. Yet my Y2000 Road King doesn't..

Forward thinking?.
No bad thing - anyone can make a mistake, but the point is, it can activate to pevent starting, even when in neutral...

[Shifty]

Originally Posted by banquo

the point is, it can activate to pevent starting, even when in neutral...

And that's the thing, one more thing to go wrong - and it probably will. Just to stop numpties trying to sue 'em - load of old arse in my opinion.

[panheadpete]

Originally Posted by banquo

Forward thinking?.
No bad thing - anyone can make a mistake, but the point is, it can activate to pevent starting, even when in neutral...

Surely, though, that's a case of either the switch isn't correctly indexed OR you're not quite in neutral and the bike will jump into gear when the engine turns....ouch...
Cheers,
Pete.

[Phil260]

Nevertheless, it's a really good tip. Anyone could presume they were in neutral and not notice the light wasn't on.