03ultra45385
Active Member
I had speedometer issues last year. Replaced speed sensor and the problem went away till this year. It's an 03 Ultra 114K + miles. As the temperature has gotten into the 90's the last few weeks the symptoms of a bad speed sensor had returned. Had a stored check engine code, intermittent erratic speeds. Took it to the dealer to read code ( speedo was erratic on the short trip to the dealer). Hooked up computer to the bike and no stored code. Speedo would work normal for a few days then got worse. It would completely die. Rode 2 hours with everything working fine (cruise ect.) , stopped to eat, speedo became erratic as soon as we left the parking lot. Then stopped working totally as we got on the highway. Over the next several days I started to see a trend of air temp and speedo malfunction. Also if it stopped working and I turned handle bars fully to the right speedo would start working again till yesterday, it was really hot when I left work and speedo was not working. turning hard right wasn't lasting more than a few seconds. I had a theory that I was looking for a broken wire near the steering neck. I had a wire for the rear audio jack break at the metal cable strap near the steering neck a couple of years ago. Removed the fairing , cut open the main harness back to the gas tank. Located the 3 wires going to the speed sensor( Black, red & white) and followed them back towards the gas tank. I separated them from the rest of the wires and bent them looking for a sharp bend in one of them. Found the place where one of them had that telltale sharp bend and pulled the wire apart, the copper strands were broken. I checked the other 2 wires and same thing , same place. Three broken wires. It appears as thought when the harness was made that those three wires were kind of twisted and laid along side the rest of the wires and were a little tighter than the rest of the wires. Add in the movement of the whole assemble when steering at low speed and you have broken wires. The wires were spliced farther back from the break and up in the fairing. Really glad it wasn't another VSS or the Speedo.
