Brake light switch

[Anonymous]

I discovered today that the hand brake switch isnt working. I will be taking a look at it tomarrow, any insight?
Thanks

[redliner1973]

there is a little spring inside that will shoot out and go to the land of the lost when you remove the 2 screws. Clean teh contacts and reassemble, if it works, great, if not, they are about 12-14 bucks from the local bike shops. :twisted:

[earlfor]

Re: Brake light switch

All it is is two metal tracks/rails and an adjustable slider that you can set to activate the light at any point of your brake lever travel. The parts are rather small, so I usually loosen the pinch bolt that holds the brake assembly to the handlebars and rotate the brake assemble 180 deg so that the small brake switch is on top. Then when you open it, nothing falls out. :-) Its also MUCH easier to clean and assemble. Do NOT squeeze the brake lever though while you have the unit inverted. Put the switch completely together, rotate the assembly back to the normal position on the handlebars, then adjust the slider on the switch.

Earl

I discovered today that the hand brake switch isnt working. I will be taking a look at it tomarrow, any insight?
Thanks

[Anonymous]

Re: Brake light switch

The parts are rather small, so I usually loosen the pinch bolt that holds the brake assembly to the handlebars and rotate the brake assemble 180 deg so that the small brake switch is on top. Then when you open it, nothing falls out. :-)

Brilliant! However, I've mastered doing it the hard way. Now I feel good about myself each year when the thing greens-up and needs cleaning. All this leads me to ask: Where were you when I needed you, eh? Please consider posting this to Tips and Tricks.

[earlfor]

Re: Brake light switch

Funny Al, I've been doing it that way so long, I never considered it as being "tricky" :-)

Earl

Brilliant! However, I've mastered doing it the hard way. Now I feel good about myself each year when the thing greens-up and needs cleaning. All this leads me to ask: Where were you when I needed you, eh? Please consider posting this to Tips and Tricks.

[Anonymous]

thanks I will tackle it tomarrow

[Anonymous]

8) One other thing, I thought it was my swoitch once and didn't check the bulb first. I had a new bulb in, but also had a power surge and it blew only the brake light and not the running light.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. It was the switch, corrosion. It works great now. Then I found ot that the foot brake is hanging a little, enough to keep the light on sometimes. I will pull the shaft out and clean it. Hope that will do it

[SqDancerLynn1]

Another thing you can do is to replace the banjo bolt where the front lines join with a pressure switch to operate the brake light. K&L Supply
makes several different versions so check with local motorcycle shop or any of the online stores

[Anonymous]

Re: Brake light switch

I discovered today that the hand brake switch isnt working. I will be taking a look at it tomarrow, any insight?
Thanks

I found out the hard way that these switches can be a little finicky. I trashed my front brake switch - broke the little plastic slider.

Rather than try to buy a new one, I got a master cylinder/front barke lever assembly off of a scrapped honda cb125 and it fit nicely. THe honda's switch doesn't come apart in as many pieces. True you can't clean it, but its easier to replace and harder for me to break!

The funny thing is even with a different master cylinder then front brake feels about the same.

Sam

[Dink]

I got sick of replacing these front brake light switches and changed the banjo bolt, I got an Earls brand one in M10x1.0 pitch and it has removved the problem
Dink

[moto_dan]

Also when shopping the salvage yards...the clutch safety switch is the same type switch which doubles your chance of finding a good used one.