Horn mystery solved

[Guest]

Neither horn worked consistently. I would get a ragged beep and took them both off and cleaned the contacts. Still nothing. Then I tested the ORANGE/GREEN wire that provides voltage to the horns and got voltage when the key is turned on as expected. OK... this puts the problem at either a bad horn(s) or ground. The ground starts off the main ground system and goes through the horn button and when the horn button is pushed the grounded connection complete the circuit and the horn should blow. First I tested both horns by removing and connecting wires direct to the battery ground and positive and only one of the two horns worked and it is fine and loud.. That leaves me with a ground problem Wiring was good from end to end into the switch as I tested with a multimeter on Ohms scale. That pretty much left the horn button as the culprit and due the sporadic nature of the horn bleating when I jiggled and wiggled the horn button I attempted to open the switch and remove the guts to get to the contacts. I couldn't figure out how to pull out the guts without damaging the turn signal/hi-lo beam knob on the front so I noticed there was a latch/hook that the case hooked onto the guts... There is an opening and you can see the spring that the button loads onto. Anyway, I took a dental pick and scratched the back of the button; there is a metal stud contact inserted and then scratched where the stud contacts on the switch and then sprayed with contact cleaner (probably useless) and put it back together and it worked like new. No disassembly was required. Thought this might help someone. Will probably work with a variety of left hand switchgear but mine is from an 1980 GS1000GL and the part is Suzuki 374-6 Tokairika P/N 37400-45373... there are various 750, 850, 1000, 1100 and 1150 models using this exact switch. Mine doesn't control the choke; that choke knob is in the middle of the triple tree.

[phydeauxmutt]

Nice to hear about a successful repair.

The "choke" on the left handgrip did not show up until the '82 models.

[geol]

Go to a parts site and look up 37400-45373. That is the part number for the left switchgear AND a bunch more bikes as late as an 86 GS1150 and that part is shown with the choke gizmo on the switchgear for those later bikes but the same part number for bikes with the triple tree mounted choke actuator.. I don't understand this but I guess the switch must be the same except for the choke actuation location. I don't think it would be all that simple to use the wrong choke location as the enrichener (choke) arm on the carb assemblies is in a different place for the later models.