Dead Ignition Button Replacement

[petitemoose]

My LED died on my 05 SB so I had no idea if the ignition was armed or not. I decided to simply install a toggle switch down by the key to bypass the Mini Switch and dead LED.

Well this was not as simple as I imagined it would be. After a couple hours of scratching my head and probing wires with my Ohm meter, I finally figured it out. The wiring part of this ( what you will be doing ) is pretty simple and very easy. Making sure I was doing it the right way and not messing up the ignition system wiring was the difficult part. LONG story short, if you want to replace your handlebar ignition button and LED with a toggle switch located somewhere else. This is what you do ...

Under the tank in front of the air cleaner you will find three plugs. 2) six hole connectors ( plugs ) for your 12V accessories ( turn signals, brake lights, horn, etc. ) and a 3 hole connector for your ignition circuit.

On the 3 hole connector you will need to tap into the white wire and send that to one side of your toggle switch. You cannot cut that wire because it also feeds your start button. Cutting it will render the start button useless ... not a good idea.

On that same plug you will see a black wire in position A (Position A is labeled on the plug itself). To be sure you have the right one you can follow it up to the wires going into your handlebars. I had the controls on the handlebars apart so I simply ohm'd the wire on the ignition button itself to verify I had the right wire. Cut that wire from the harness going into the handlebars and re-route it to the other side of your toggle switch. To be clear, the wire needs to go from the connector to the toggle switch, NOT from the handlebars to the toggle switch.

Mount the toggle switch in a solid location ( I put it on the Key Switch plate ) wrap ( insulate ) the connections and you are done.

The toggle switch I used has a red LED on the top to show it is active. If and when that dies, I will still know when it is in the ON position simply by how the toggle is switched. MUCH better than guessing if the ignition is active or not because of a burnt out LED light on the handlebar controls.