Corrosion in motorcycle ignition

brummoi, May 23, 1:02am
Turn key clockwise and it lights up but then goes off as key reaches maximum rotation. Little bit of fiddling with the key and the electrics stay on but key has to be left not at full turn, if you see what I mean. It's like there's a connection point that it should be able to securely click past but now loses electrical connection when it does so. I had this happen a couple of years back and it gradually got worse until I finally took it to the bike shop who said it was a bit of corrosion in the switch, and fixed it. From memory, it wasn't expensive but I'm sick of taking the bike in for annoying Chinese crapiness so am wondering if it can be tackled by someone who can undo screws and bolts but doesn't want to be dismantling his bike? Sachs X-Road 250. All advice gratefully received

muzz67, May 23, 1:15am
So have you put some light oil/CRCin it and wriggled key for a while?

brummoi, May 23, 1:18am
yep, squirted CRC in this morning and wiggled. Bike has been doing this for last 2 or 3 days. I could just keep squirting CRC each day and see if anything improves, I guess. ?

tub4, May 23, 1:25am
If you feel happy to pull the switch apart you could give it a good clean up and coat it with grease to keep the corrosion at bay for a while

skin1235, May 23, 1:29am
you'll find it will help for a short time only, its due to the cheap contacts in the switch, more robust ones use silver plated nickle, chinese use silver or chrome plated iron, once it is worn off the iron deposits rust, and rust doesn't make electrical contacts work better, can you not just replace with ( dare I say it ) an old lucas switch - at least they didn't have that problem

brummoi, May 23, 1:29am
I guess that's what I'm asking about. No real idea where to start pulling it apart or how many ways I could unintentionally screw things up. Will have a look in daylight tomorrow and see if there's anything obvious I can do

brummoi, Jan 16, 12:02pm
thanks for the info and suggestion. I might ask the bike shop if they have one knocking around they could replace it with. Presumably, dousing with CRC isn't going to get rid of the rust then?