sytheii

Hi,

This is my first post on this forum, as well as my first question about my first apparent problem i have had with my first bike ever owned that i have been riding for about 2 weeks now.

I purchased a mint nighthawk 750 from a guy out here in Los Angeles, as far as i knew it was in great mechanical condition, i had a mechanic run an eye over it, the guy i bought it from was straitforward, cool, and looked like a dude who knew how to take care of his machine.

I have been riding it for over 2 weeks now without any issues, loving the experience, but this morning after starting it up i have noticed some weirdness.

Actually, back track, the weirdness started last night.

Last night, after fueling up and resetting the tripmeter, i noticed that myheadlamp wasnt coming on. Now head light = bad. At first i was freaked, so i just rode close to the car in front of me using his lamps to guide me. After a little riding, my lamp came on, i switched back and forth from normal to high beam, all was working well. Then later that ride home, i tried to switch between normal to high again, and the highbeam wasnt working. I switched back to normal, it was fine, then tried the high beam, and no go.

I said to myself, ok, thats something, and didnt worry about it. (stupid.)
So i go to start it up today to head to work. Normal operation, key in, turn to on, check to make sure bike is in nuetral, turn the ignition switch from off to run, and then hit the starter. It started up no problem, i put the choke on a bit, and let it warm up.

Then i start to hear this little noise, continuous coming from the right side of the bike, down near where the rear brake pedal is. I wasnt sure what i was hearing at the time, and thought it just normal strange noise, no biggie. It happed that after i got the bike going, the noise stopped.

I thought, huh, thats weird. (stupid!!)

So i get to work and work, and then i get ready to head home, same procedure, key in, turn to on, put bike in neutral, ignition switch from off to run, hit the starter. Bikes starts up, but i hear this god damned noise again! I'm like, what the heck is that? Ok, dont stress, get going home and worry about it later...But its dark, and as soon as i get going, i realize that my headlamp is out again, so i pull over and try to do some things to get it to go on, like, switching back and forth from high to normal and such.

None of that is working, so i kill the bike by turning the ignition switch from run to off, and for some reason the bike then dies, but keeps on making the sound like its trying to start the bike like 6 times, and then finally stops.

At this point im feeling like something is really out of whack.

Then i go through the whole process again. Key to off.
Then i put key to on, bikes in neutral, ignition switch is in the off position, and its trying to start the bike again! continualy, ricket! ricket! ricket! ricket! ricket! ricket! uhhh!?? then i flip the ign switch to on, and then the bike runs but i still hear this noise coming from the bike, and my headlamps still are not on.

At this point i make the connection that the noise i am hearing is the starter continuously trying to start the bike, it just has not stopped.

I dont know why this is happening, but if anyone has had any problems like this with their bikes, or perhaps owners of the nighthawk could chime in, any info on this situation would be greatly appreciated. Also i think the the kickstand being up or down is adversely affecting things, but i cant be sure at the moment, becasue i felt so lost when all this was happening, that im not sure where it was when all of this weirdness was happening.

Thank you for taking the time to read this if youve made it this far, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ian.

sytheii

Well,

No one seemed inclined to chime in on their thoughts as to the above mentioned weirdness, or no one knew what to say to my post.

Regardless of that, i found out what the problem was.

I took it down to my local dealer, they said wow, thats really weird, the mechanic had not seen anything like that before. Turned out that the contacts inside the RUN-OFF ignition switch were just really dirty, the starter button was sticking in the closed position, therefor constantly trying to start the bike! A little cleaning and some lubricant for the hinge like starter button, and now no repeats of that special kind of weirdness.

I hope if this happens to anyone else, that this thread will help in the future.

Ian

gvronnie

Did that also take care of the lighting problem !!!