Intermittent Headlights

[Hawkeye Driver]

My first electrical issue in a long time. I think i know the solution but wanted to check here before I dug in. Bike is an 02 and sat most of the winter. I did take it out a couple weeks ago for about half an hour and life was good. Sunday night I pulled it out to ride from where I live in VA to where I work in MD (~200 miles). Sun was out it was warm, all good until I hit traffic on I-64. North of Richmond it got dark and I noticed the head lights going from dim to high. I didn't want to think too much about it because of traffic. Turned off to route 207 which is a dark rural road so got a chance to mess with it. If I switched from low to high sometimes it would delay switching even though the high beam indicator came on right away. If I hit a bump it would go dark for a second then go to low, back to high like it had a mind of its own. At times I would switch from high to low but the high beams would stay one (indicator light off). With low selected, as I ride, the minor bumps in the road would cause the high beam indicator to flicker. All this is annoying to me and I am sure frustrating for those in front of me when it goes to high beam all on its own.

I am near certain it is the high/low selector switch to which I will dig in when I get back to VA on Thursday or Friday. That said, with the way it is acting is there any chance it could be the low (or high) beam relay? It is almost as if low beam relay is not triggering correctly and hitting bigger bumps in the road is moving the internal connector within the relay coil.

I've had the bike since new and with the exception of a few months in 2006 has always been out of the weather and stored in a garage.

Thanks in advance.

[MarkDetroit]

Sitting in a damp garage - like mine - can really accelerate switch contact corrosion. I had an issue a few weeks ago with the shut off switch when i resumed riding for the season. I used a contact cleaner and didn't have to completely take the switch apart to get it to work as it should. Hopefully this is the same with your high/low switch.

I used a spray contact cleaner and then used deoxit. I did also lube the mechanism so it would actuate more forcefully. I would not use WD-40 - it's primarily a solvent.

Good luck