Gear Positon Indicator Misbehaving – No Neutral Light, no LH Indicator

[tyclyd]

My 2002 R1150 GSA with ~139,000 miles on the clock has developed an annoying fault so any advice would be welcome. When I put the bike in the garage at night it’s all working fine, parked up on centre stand - gear position indictor (GPI) showing neutral with the green natural light on…

Get it out the next day and go to ride to work the GPI shows a random setting (normally 1st or 2nd) and the neutral light is not green and of course she will not start unless I pull in the clutch. Start the bike and ride and for the first 15 minutes or so the GPI / RID will show 1st, 2nd and third then gradually 4th and 5th and 6th will appear and the neutral light returns… By the time I am at work maybe an hour later (~53 miles) all is restored and left for the day (10 hours) she will generally behave on restart but does not like the overnight layup. At the same time my LHS indicator switch is also intermittent – maybe these are completely unrelated but I am going to lift the tank on Saturday and check the loom and have a 2nd hand switch assembly from Motorworks to install.

Access to the GPI switch is “difficult” I am aware of that, so before I get drastic does anyone have any advice or ideas as to a cause / cure, riding the bike seems to fix it and I generally ignore the RID so it’s not vital, its just annoying… no other changes to the bike and no HID or other bits to cause interference and to cap it all its been dry up here for the last few weeks so no water ingress to note and certainly no pressure washing or cleaning…

Any advice welcome - cheers

Thanks Gary

 

[fatnfast]

That does sound like a faulty gear indicator switch. If you have a y-piece fitted then it not that difficult to change, otherwise you will probably need to remove the cat.
It's held in place with a thick spring clip. I used zip ties to compress the end of the clip which makes it easy to remove/refit.

You could first check the wiring of course. It runs on the left side of the bike. Removing the plastic starter motor cover let's you see the start of its route, then just follow the cable to the connector. Removing the tank made it easy to follow as well. I remember on mine the cable was pretty tight behind the cover and with your mileage maybe it's chaffed through?

 

[tyclyd]

That does sound like a faulty gear indicator switch. If you have a y-piece fitted then it not that difficult to change, otherwise you will probably need to remove the cat.
It's held in place with a thick spring clip. I used zip ties to compress the end of the clip which makes it easy to remove/refit.

You could first check the wiring of course. It runs on the left side of the bike. Removing the plastic starter motor cover let's you see the start of its route, then just follow the cable to the connector. Removing the tank made it easy to follow as well. I remember on mine the cable was pretty tight behind the cover and with your mileage maybe it's chaffed through?

Yes that's what I was thinking, maybe a poor common earth and as I have the standard exhaust that makes access hard (plus I have fat hands)