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Before I take apart the left handlebar switch....

dorkburger

dorkburger

Forum Guru
Past Site Supporter
Hey all,
My high / low beam switch is goofed. Both beams stay on simultaneously unless I push down on the switch pretty hard. Im assuming a trifecta of age, wear, and corrosion will be found. And I'm also assuming that there will be tiny parts inside that attemp to make a freedom run.

Any particulars I should look out for?
 
Work inside a large zip lock or other clear bag. There are parts that go, "sproung" and vanish....

Also, assuming it is like the 1100e, the left/right up/down button can be broken quite easily.
How it comes out/apart is not readably apparent, and it is easy to snap the button off.

I wish I more details, but it has been a decade or more.

A broken turn signal button is how I met Joe Nardy....good story.
 
Last edited:
I did mine once and it was packed with super fine dust. One thing to be extremely careful of is the bits that see your work as a chance to escape back to the land of the spring and tiny steel ball.

Do the work in a old pillow case. If something sproings it'll be contained and easy to see.

Oddly Suzuki used some really good copper or copper alloy back then and I saw little in the way of parts destroyed by corrosion. They had a patina but werent eaten away.
 
Yeah, if I remember right, a bit of a puzzle in there. Take pictures before and as you take things apart. You have a camera, right Glen? :p Springs will want to leave and they're finicky to get back in place. Clean the horn button well while your're in there. If you have a choke lever on the bottom, good time to clean that up as well. Good luck.
 
If this is the square button hand control, you have to rotate the main button 90 degrees (or something similar) to get it out of the housing. Don't force anything. There are photos in my flickr account, and others on this site in the archives.
 
Hmmm. Just looked at old pics of a parts bike I have. It has the cluster on, so I may have a plan B if things go wrong.
 
Wow, there?s a lot of pieces in there. Once I realized that there was a screw under the wiring harness, things unraveled... quickly. All parts accounted for. I found a random piece of small plastic inside. Not sure if it broke off of something or not. I don?t see where it would have come from, but maybe it was jamming up movement. It was surprisingly clean inside only needing a touch up with a green Scotchbrite. I?m having a heck of a time putting the board back into the housing and lining up the switch handle. I?m taking a break and figure that I might as well get some detail shots to share. I couldn?t find much here on a search. Ed, Flickr your pics were helpful, and man, you do some top notch resto work.

More to follow...
 
Hey Glen,

Got some dielectric grease? Slathering it on the sliding surfaces works great, plus it helps keep corrosion at bay.
 
Ed, I gave everything a light coating. After dinner yesterday I took some detail shots, then after a few more attempts everything went together. Tested ok, everything works as it should. I found some oxidation at the plug connection, so while the tank is off, I'm going to check out all of the plugs / connectiors under there.
 
dorkburger said:
Ed, I gave everything a light coating. After dinner yesterday I took some detail shots, then after a few more attempts everything went together. Tested ok, everything works as it should. I found some oxidation at the plug connection, so while the tank is off, I'm going to check out all of the plugs / connectiors under there.
Click to expand...
Good deal!

I need to go back into mine, as the left/right directional is hanging up.
 
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