First off, let me just say, Sorry for not posting for a while! I took a longer than anticipated Christmas break.

So, back to the bike story. The dealership discovered that the engine would have to be completely rebuilt, essentially, which was an expensive job. But, since the issue never should have happened in the first place, they thought that the Uly would be a good candidate to ask H-D to pay for the repairs, even though the bike was well out of warranty (over 50,000 miles…).

While at the dealership for the 1125R test drive, we saw another ‘06 Uly that had been traded in, that they were selling, with 40,000 fewer miles on it. Making a mental note, we headed back to wait.

And wait we did! It was weeks before we finally learned that H-D would cover the repairs. As soon as we heard it, Jim decided to ask if he could trade the bike in on another. He wound up trading it in on the ‘06 Uly we had seen. So, with that and a few thousand dollars changing hands, he managed to remove 40,000 miles from his bike, and we could ride again.

Unfortunately, the wait for the new bike happened to be during the last of the really nice fall riding weather. Therefore, we haven’t been out recently as much as we would like. But… I got heated pants and chaps for Christmas! We might just get a bit of riding in after all!

Jim enjoys nothing more than a good problem to fix, so he was looking forward to getting his hands dirty with the bike. I was there to document the process, as well as lend a hand when needed.

He started by checking the 77 connector – this is a frequent point of failure on Buell Ulysses motorcycles. His was fine.

Buell Ulysses 77 Connector

On to checking under the primary inspection cover. This is where he found the problem.

Buell Ulysses Clutch Adjustment

Rotor and clutch basket with cover off

This picture shows the rotor on the left and clutch basket on the right. The gears on the left perform the same function as an alternator on a car. The only difference is that on a bike, the rotor is on the outside and stator is on the inside. There is a great picture of this here.

The inside of the left wheel has magnets glued on the inside – extremely strong magnets. These rotate around the assembly of copper wires called the stator. One of the wires in the stator had shorted out, and the battery was no longer charging because of it. That’s why the bike had died in the driveway.

Since the stator problem usually takes out the voltage regulator too, Jim replaced all of it at once. That got it running fine again. The weekend after Suches, Jim was planning to do some riding out near Asheville, which is about a 2 and a half hour drive, up in the mountains.

Halfway there, somewhere outside Greensboro, Jim heard an odd noise from the engine, like something breaking. Then, the bike cut out.

Next: Bigger problems… the Uly goes into the shop.

It took me forever to finish this one — sorry about that. Life has been busy!

We went to this beautiful little town Jim knew near Suches, called Helen. It is done up as a Bavarian style town, and is in fact a sister city to a town in Germany.

Helen is the sister city of Fussen, Germany

It turned out to be Oktoberfest while we were there! So the place was packed, but being a cycle-friendly town, there were bike-only parking spaces. We love you, Helen city planners!

Jim and I had lunch at a nice little German restaurant which had waitresses in dirndls and hosts in leiterhosen, as well as a guy on guitar taking song requests. We sat out on the deck and took in the gorgeous weather and the people walking around.

The town of Helen, Georgia

Town Square, Helen, Georgia

After buying a tee shirt and a few other souvenirs (there was a fantastic leather shop downtown – not an expected find in a place like that!) we headed back to Suches. The next day, it was time to take the loooong ride back to Raleigh. With no detours like the ones we took on the way down, we were able to make the trip back in about 8 hours, with stops. All told, we rode 1045 miles on the Buell that weekend.

As we got to within 5 miles of the house, Jim pulled up his visor at a red light and said to me, “That’s odd.” The engine light had come on, on the bike. We continued on toward the house… and the bike died at the top of the driveway.

Jim took a look, and said he thought it was the voltage regulator. This was apparently a relatively easy thing to fix, so I (and he) thought nothing of it, and he said he would fix it the following day.

Next Post: It wasn’t so simple… bike repairs.