Looking for a turn/horn switch

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have an extra (that is willing to part with) turnsignal/horn switch? :? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Does your bike have the joystick looking one? Where the turn and the bright/dim are on the same control? If so I can tell you how to get a more reliable one from a later Katana to work instead, can't help you with the older switch tho, sorry.

[fastpakr]

I'd be very interested in seeing what you did with the Kat parts. Would you be interested in taking some pictures and writing it up? MIght make for an interesting article on the main page if Frank wanted to post it.

[Anonymous]

Can try to do that in the next couple of days, Kat switch is a huge improvement over the older versions. I'll pull the tank and try to get pics of the harness also.

[fastpakr]

Outstanding, I'm looking forward to reading it when I get back from Pendleton in mid August.

[Anonymous]

It has a slide button that moves left to right for signals and up and down for the headlight. And below is the horn button. I guess that is what you call a joystick type. I was having problems with the harness and headlight. I move that to a toggle switch and then the signals went out and the button came off. So its shoot. I would like to know what you did. thanks cj

[Anonymous]

Here is what I did to change my bike over to a newer and more reliable switch. First of all a few facts to point out.

1. My bike is a 1981 GS1100E.

2. The self cancelling function did not work before this modification.

3. My bike has the choke in the middle of the steering stem, not on the signal switch.

4. The donor switch is from a 1993 GSX600F Katana, but any 88-97 vintage Suzuki should work.

5. Katana harness is six inches shorter than factory turn switch harness but with some routing of the factory main harness it works out alright.

6. Katanas also have the choke on the turn signal switch, might be able to hook your factory cable right to that assembly.

7. You will have to drill a hole in the top of your bars, Katana switch has a location pin in the top of the switch.

8. You will have to trim some of the plastic off the switch for the choke if you don't use it for your bike (your mirror bracket will not sit against it if you don't).

9. These switches are on ebay all the time for relatively cheap price.


OK, here it goes. My wife has a Katana that needed work. We purchased a 1993 katana for parts. My turn signal switch was shot, you could breathe on it and the turn signals would be on. It was a five minute ordeal to get the dims and brights switched then get the signals off. I was getting bored watching her work on her bike. Gotta love a woman that fixes her own motorcycle! I looked at the extra turn signal switch and said what if? I removed it from the Katana to find that it has the same connector as my bike, awesome! Only one problem, my bike's switch has eleven wires and the Katana only eight. I plugged it in anyways. Everything but the headlight was a go.

Now what do the other three remaining wires do you ask? Good question. I broke out my Clymers manual for the schematics and tried to find out what was up? Two of the remaing wires were bullet connectors that were not included in the actual nine pin connector. There was a red with a yellow tracer and a yellow with a white chaser. The red with a yellow tracer went to the check panel, I could live without this function no problem. The yellow with the white chaser came from the kill switch. The ninth wire that is missing in the katana wire connector is for the self cancelling option, no big problem here they did not work to begin with. NOTE: Katanas of the newer vintage do not self cancel anyways.

This leaves us down to this yellow wire with the white chaser. This is the main power for the headlight. This wire needed to be hooked to the switch somehow to power the headlight. I go back to the donor Katana to look at its wiring system. Same wire but is included into the nine pin connector. I get a brainstorm, I cut the bullet connector and about six inches of wire off of the old GS1100E turn signal switch and graph it into the Katana switch harness to the wire of the same color and viola the headlight lites up. The old GS ran the power in separate from the headlight wiring and the Katana runs the power directly to the headlight and switches the power to brights inside the switch. Now the brights and dims work like they should. Horn also works great too, about forgot that.

I will try to get pics of everything and post a link to them when I get time. In the future I will see about adding the Katana kill switch so that they match side to side also. This gives this bike a universal styled switch that will be a lot more durable and easy to use than the old style it had before. I hope this helps some of you figure out how to do this on your bikes. I cannot guarentee that it will work on your bike like it did mine but its worth a try.

[fastpakr]

That's what you used? Looks decent. How does the choke control work exactly? Mine has a handlebar mounted control so that would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

That is the switch but that is from a Katana 1100, hence the power windshield switch on the very top. The choke is on the right hand side of the switch and rotates around the handle bar. The cable runs up through the bottom of the switch.

[fastpakr]

Ah, I was trying to come up with an explanation for how that top button controlled a clutch cable. Makes a lot more sense now, thanks!

Ok, so this must be it:

[Anonymous]

Here is the one that is on my wifes '95 katana. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/vinz33...21.jpg&.src=ph

Was hoping that showed the picture but I am not that smart yet. Guess that you will have to click on the link.

That one in the last picture looks like a newer than a 1997 bike but if the connector looks the same it prolly works the same.

[Anonymous]

Hows come your picture changed to a later model from a katana 1100 switch?

[fastpakr]

I'm actually surprised it did that. I deleted an image from my CarDomain site and uploaded the correct one, but I though the file names they gave it were created incrementally, rather than re-using old ones.