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[Puzzled]

Bike:
2013 CVO Road Glide Custom
16" rear wheel with 1" shorter tire than stock
PM/BDL belt drive
Hydraulic components from the primary to the trans have been changed to cable parts.

Symptoms:
No sixth gear indicator/cruise control

Fact:
Cruise and sixth both worked with above posted changes at one time
Exact same setup on a second bike works perfect

Checked:
Clutch switch at the handlebars
Master cylinder fluid level
VSS (sensor)
Fuses

What I've found:
With the bike on the lift and the rear wheel elevated I can "fan" the clutch lever slightly and the sixth gear light will come on. This only happened while on the lift and after cleaning the VSS. This did not work while on the road (consistently) except for once prior to me realizing there was a problem. With the sixth gear light on I can engage the cruise however it won't hold. Now I don't know if the cruise won't hold as there is no load against the tire and it's pouring outside so road testing is out for today. The RPM's gets erratic when the cruise is engaged on the lift than it turns the cruise off.

Questions:
Why if I pull the clutch lever in just a little than release do I get the light on?
Does there need to be a load against the bike for the cruise to hold?
What should I be looking at as to why the lever action activates the system?
What am I missing? 

[Steve Cole]

One needs to understand the HD way. While not what most of us would think, it's what we're stuck with. The ECM calculates what gear the bike is in based on engine speed and the speed sensor. Anything in-between those two points can cause your issue. The 6th gear light and cruise control are automatically turned OFF if it cannot figure out what the gear is!

With that said you've put a belt drive on and you need to see what the primary ratio is on the belt drive. The stock ratio for a 2013 is 1.353. If you fan the clutch your getting lucky enough to match the engine speed to the speed sensor such that the ECM says it in a gear it understands. Another words you created enough slip that the ratio came out correct. You rear tire and rim only effect the speedometer reading and not the 6th gear light problem.

[Puzzled]

From what I can tell, 69 tooth rear and 52 tooth front, 132 tooth belt. 1.3269 ratio.

From everything I've read it keeps coming back to the ECM.

Currently the only reason I don't accept that is the duplicate bike works without issue, same parts, year and color!   

On the flip side I think I've read that the TTS can correct this... as well as my speedometer (off 10%).

[hd-dude]

I had to play with the setting in the tts software to get my speedo accurate and the cruise to work with the belt drive primary as well. I have the Rivera belt drive kit which has a much lower primary gear ratio. I ended up increasing my secondary pulley to a 34 tooth to compensate for the reduced ratio.

[Puzzled]

Was the pulley change needed for the cruise to work or for the RPM range you desired?

Sounds like the TTS can adjust for the difference in drive ratio. That would be helpful. 

[hd-dude]

Pulley change was for rpm desired. The primary ratio was a big difference and the transmission  pulley was increased to compensate for it. 

[grc]

From what I can tell, 69 tooth rear and 52 tooth front, 132 tooth belt. 1.3269 ratio.

From everything I've read it keeps coming back to the ECM.

Currently the only reason I don't accept that is the duplicate bike works without issue, same parts, year and color!   

On the flip side I think I've read that the TTS can correct this... as well as my speedometer (off 10%).

A similar kind of issue is present with the 7 speed Baker transmissions.  The cruise will work only in 7th on some bikes, while it will work in several gears on others, all on seemingly identical bikes.  I'd suggest that the cause is probably just another manifestation of the variability of the Harley components.  Harley took the cheap way out to determine which gear the bike is in, rather than use dedicated switches they just programmed the ECM to compare RPM and road speed as reported by the VSS.  Obviously some bikes report those two pieces of data slightly differently, enough to affect things like the 6th gear indicator and cruise control.  Your change to the primary drive ratio has most likely moved the rpm/road speed relationship just enough to fall outside the parameters in the ECM. 

Jerry

[Steve Cole]

Was the pulley change needed for the cruise to work or for the RPM range you desired?

Sounds like the TTS can adjust for the difference in drive ratio. That would be helpful. 

TTS can adjust both the primary ratio and the speedometer, so the question becomes what is causing it. My guess at this point is that the speed sensors position relative to the gear it's reading, is where the issue comes from. No proof yet, this is the issue but the stock HD's have enough trouble in this area to begin with. If you start having issues on a stock bike many have taken the sensor out only to find metal shavings on the sensor. Clean the sensor off of all metal reinstall and it all starts working again! Also they changed from a straight cut gear to an angle cut along the way and I'm not so sure, that too, hasn't played into some.