Starter button or kill switch?

[davit]

My starter button has failed intermittently for the last couple thousand miles, leaving me in the awkward situation of praying a Harely owner would not ride by and witness me push starting my Honda.  So this time it failed in my garage, and with no need to bump start it to get it home I decided to do take it apart and clean it up as described and illustrated by Rattlebars in Shop Talk.







The switch contacts were so corroded I figured this had to be the problem, so with a scotchbright pad scrubbed them until they were shiny, pulled the shunt, stretched the shunt spring, put it back together, hit the starter button and nothing.

Discouraged but not defeated I unscrewed the kill switch from the housing, pulled it apart and looked it over.  The contacts looked like new (sorry no picture).  So I pulled the shunt, cleaned it up, stretched the shunt spring put it back together hit the button and bam! it fired right up.

Near as I can figure that little spring had lost shape after 16 years and just needed a little stretching.

Thought I'd share my experience in hopes it can help someone else.

[Tfrank59]

so it wasn't the starter button?...that's odd considering it had been intermittent and how it looks in the photos.  Glad you didn't get caught pushing her!

[h13man]

Never had issue with my starter button until I visited a Harley riding friend to show him my bike and low and behold the damn button failed. Bad JuJu them thar HD folk. 

[salty1]

Man that was correded!     Just finished cleaning mine.  Thanks for the post.   

[MarkT]

You might want to lower the power going through those switches as clearly they are arcing and carboning up.  There is already a relay for the starter.  You need the same for the headlight.  BonS has the soln with his "Smartswitch" which is basically my headlight mod ( http://www.horseapple.com/Valkyrie/Tech_Tips/Headlight_Upgrade/headlight_upgrade.html ) in a nice plug n play package. BonS ad appears above frequently.  

[Jess from VA]

If the starter switch was not the culprit, you should not feel bad about cleaning it anyway.   

[Chrisj CMA]

Did that brass contact bounce up and down on the spring, or did it sort of stick there in its slot?

[davit]

Did that brass contact bounce up and down on the spring, or did it sort of stick there in its slot?

The brass contact which Rattlebars refers to as a "shunt", did move up and down on both the starter button and the kill switch.  The action was much smoother once cleaned up with a scothbrite pad.

[da prez]

A touch of silicone  dielectric gives you an air tight connection and helps prevent arcing. I recommend the upgrade by Bon s.  Easy install and helps stop future problems.

                                  Da prez