Hitchcocks Forum

Lovely day so went out to wake the 350 up after the winter. Discovered that the ignition switches on....and then off. As soon as the key gets to the end of its travel everything goes off. Of course you can't take the switch apart to see why, so have had to order a new one. No doubt it will rain for a month when it arrives. Rats and double rats.

I'm pretty sure it was someone on here who had the bright idea of wiring up an ignition switch connector block with loops of wire in such a way as it mimics the ignition switch in the "on" position. So in case of an ignition switch failure, he could pop the headlight open, unplug the switch, plug in the connector block and ride the bike. Kind of like an emergency bypass.



Struck me as a pretty handy idea, you could keep it in one of the toolboxes. Obviously you'd want to ensure you had some other way of stopping the engine in an emergency. So don't just throw out the old one, that connector block could still be useful. It'll be easy enough to work out which wires need connecting together to rig up such a device with the new switch in your hand.



It's not something thiefs haven't already thought of anyway. A mate of mine found just such a thing plugged into the loom when his stolen (Hinckley) Triumph was recovered.

Sounds daft, but try waggling the end of the wires where they're soldered onto the switch in case of intermittent contact, my Electra-X switch had this problem, the switch could be made to work until its replacement arrived.



A.

Squirt some contact cleaner in there?

Thanks, stinkwheel. The new switch has just arrived so I will see which wire does what and make an emergency bypass as you suggest. I was rather hoping that I could find and old style switch like I had on the Huntmaster, with no key at all. Nowadays you'd have to hide a cutout switch somewhere to stop the engine and make the bike a bit thiefproof.