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[Leon Novello]

Get a can of CRC electrical contact cleaner or similar, from you Auto Accessories store or Computer repair store. It comes with a plastic tube which can be poked down into a switch. It also works to waterproof a switch. Also handy if your TV or computer is not working properly; whole circut boards can be sprayed safely after disconnecting from the mains power.

[bikerhifinut]

yeah norm, I think I may have to go that route.

This contact cleaner, is it the same as Servisol? I have a lot of that with the lubricant/anti corrosive additive. Or I have an aerosol of servisol IPA (isopropyl alcohol) both of which I use for cleaning electronic component contacts. I suspect however that the actual contacts are moving/vibrating out of physical contact.

A.

[Frank]

There is also the Common Key Set, P179 of the new catalogue if you can't live with different keys.

[bikerhifinut]

Well I had a spare hour today so I decided to try and dismantle the switch as the problem was getting worse.
The good news is that it can be done with care and luckily no little springs and ball bearings shot out!
On inspection I noted one set of contacts were very badly blackened with what I assume to be a form of corrosion and/or a build up of hardened denatured grease. After a thorough cleaning with a few squirts of IPA and some elbow grease with fine wet n dry and a brass wire brush I could see that the contact spots and the contact sliders were basically sound. The spring on the sliding contacts was good and made good pressure and contact. So I put it all back together, and used a good wrap of self amalgamating tape at the base to hold the 3 locating lugs in their slots as I had to carefully cut the slots to get the sleeve loose. The rubber boot and tie wrap went over this and it seems very secure. I tested it again once it was back in its hole in the nacelle and I could not induce the fault however hard I tried. So I gave a generous squirt of ACF50 down the keyhole to preserve and lubricate the works and contacts and another test showed it to be just fine.
So I'd say its worth pulling a modern Ignition switch apart if it fails, you got nothing to lose.
I think the principal cause of the problem was moisture getting in, possibly from the bottom as the solder joints on the red and black wires were faily dull and showed a small amount of corrosion. Which I cleaned up and inspection showed the joint to be sound so I didn't "fix" it!

Andy.

[Scalyback]

Quite often with a bad or very light pressure contact, it will work after a fashion, but as the current increases (Turn lights on) various things can happen, but suffice to say, it usually ends up with the contact becoming self isolating (not work) when you wiggle , jaggle, shaggle, shoogle, or fiddle the key with the lights on, it may say on, or may not. It may say on for a short time, then suddenly go off, without even touching anything.



If this sounds like your problem, then it's new ignition switch time.



If you know a good engineer, sometimes they can swap the key barrel over to the new switch so that you can keep the old key, not sure if this is easy with bullet switches, never done it yet.

[bikerhifinut]

Scalyback,
I see where you are coming from.
However as I said in the previous post, I gave the switch a good going over and was satisfied that the contact springs were good and the pressure on the contacts was sufficient. The evidence pointed at moisture getting in and causing tarnishing/corrosion of the contact surfaces. The bad contact was due to insufficient conductor area so that turning the switch on was a hit and miss affair. I'm happy that the switch is performing as well as it was when new. The bike isn't 3 years old yet and has only done 1400 miles from new, most of them this year. I have a feeling that a long period laid up without the regular "wiping" action of switching the ignition on and off contributed to a build up of an insulating corrosion deposit on the brass contacts.
The switch innards are very simple and it's not a difficult job to pull the unit apart and examine and clean it.
The switch barrel stays inside the housing and the switch wafers simply pull off the shaft. So if you were sufficiently bothered you could swap over the innards of a new switch into the original housing. Can't see why though. If you were going to buy a new switch you'd just swap it out and live with 2 keys, hardly a major inconvenience.
My point was, that it's possible to strip and overhaul the ignition switch assuming that its in good enough condition to benefit from the attention. The whole job took me less than an hour, the hardest part was getting the infernal multiway plug out from the jumble of wires in the headlamp shell! It was certainly simpler than some of the switch overhauls I have done on old audio equipment where you don't have the option of a new spare part.

[Norm]

My first one failed withing a few weeks from new being used daily and was replaced under warranty, second one lasted ok

[Scalyback]

I prefer having just one key for all the locks. I learnt that a bunch of them, hanging from the (toolbox on mine) switch did two things. The weight and continual bouncing upset the lock itself, whilst the other keys upset the paintwork.



Thanks for the info bikerhifinut, if the toolbox type switches as easy to repair, I will take a look at the original one that came with Tornado in a box of spares and replaced parts.



I used to use 'Electrolube' for contacts. seemed to keep the damp out quite well.