Electrical motorcycle switches can fail when you least want them to.

Keeping electrical motorcycle switches clean and in working order is key.

One of the biggest pains is rolling up to a light and stopping then having some inattentive driver tap tour rear end or even worse see the cops lights in your mirror. "A ticket for no brake lights? Heck officer I checked them out this evening!"

Come to find out the foot brake works fine but when you grab the front brake, no lights. Okay so I'm stretching things a bit here but you get my meaning. Switches are exposed to the elements and can get gummed up pretty easily.

The best thing for them is good ol WD-40. I use WD-40 instead of contact cleaner since the contact cleaner can ruin your paint job. And how many of us have custom paint jobs on their bike?

Okay so the way to really get things clean is to remove what you need to so that you can get right to the switch itself. Not just the little button but the switch body.

A good example of this is the reverse switch on the 1800 Goldwing. The switch is way inside the hand grip housing and the button you see is actually about a half inch from the switch body and there is no way to get to it without splitting the housing.

So, do what you need to do to get to the switch. Once you have it, get that little red straw that comes taped to the can and put it on the nozzle. This will help to get the spray way inside the switch.

Spray the switch down real good and make sure to press all the buttons, levers, posts, etc. In other words, operate the switch through a number of times. Then spray it again. Once it's good and clean. wipe off the excess and reinstall the switch. And don't forget to check it out to make sure it's working correctly.

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