Finally !!!!!

https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...g-wrong-38641/

 

After days of blowing the main fuse again and again....found a relay that had rattled loose...it would sometimes click when I hit the starter (used the sound to find it)...plugged it back in...fuse blowing seems to be gone, for now...
As for the magic button....the spring that makes the contact is made of copper! It is now pretty flat and jiggles around, randomly firing the starter while running, obviously no good!
Stopped at the dealer to show them. The dealer is a husband(mechanic) and wife(everything else) team, totally awesome, I told her the problem, she says,"I'll order you one now." Really? No hassle about how did you break it, what did you do wrong, etc. The bad news - BACKORDERED, DOH!
So it seems I'm not the only one with trouble, can't be everyone has the same problem or that so many people have broken the control pod to use up all the spare parts? Maybe Kawasaki realized having a spring made of copper is not good long term? Mine really looks like a coil of wire not a spring.
So in the meantime, got to start a bike with no button...hmmm.
Took the pod off the bars, opened it up, unscrewed the switch, caught the flattened spring upon pulling out the switch from the housing, tried starting w/o the spring is a no go (spring is also a contact).....hmmmmmm.
Ended up pushing out the hinge pin on the starter button (love my tiny screwdriver set) and taking it off completely. Next, I put it back together sans button, but all the button internals still in there. So now I have access to the 2 contact pads to the starter, it looks like a bullseye of sorts, two brass circles one inside the other separated by an insulator.
To start the bike, I grab my trusty short handled phillips screwdriver and jump the gap between the two circles and off I go.
So now I'm going for the kick starter just to be safe. If I can install it and then manage to reliably kick start the motor, I might remove the starter.
Time to hit the books and find out if I can find an engine cover with no starter hole in it, thinking KLX300?, but we'll see if it's possible.
And I'll look into a photo hosting site so I can add pics to show all this.

 

Hey Max, just asking, did you try the Hillman fastener and spring bins at your local Ace hardware or other big box store? They have a good variety of springs. Also, is it possible to "wind your own" (as opposed to roll your own ) spring; maybe a temporary fix until your part comes in?

 

The lack of kick start is an interesting deal. Back in '88 when i bought a new KLR650 with no kicker, I pulled the guts out of my wife's '86 KLR600 with a kicker. I also had a previous '85 KLR600. Since owning that '85 model, I've never "HAD" to kick any of the four big KLR's I had. I've never had the battery to fail on my '06 KLX either. I don't wait until the batteries are dead or near dead, however. I closely maintain my battery during periods of non-use. I like the warm, fuzzy feeling of having a kickstarter, but in nearly 30 years, I've never been in a situation where I had to have it on these DS bikes. I ride my bikes. They don't sit year round on a battery tender in the shop. At the first sign of a battery showing its age with slow cranking and/or slow charging, it's out of there. The current battery on my '06 is about 3 years old and still going strong. Nothing wrong with having a kickstart too, but it's amazing how little they're really needed anymore when things go anywhere close to normal. I did have to jump off durielk's KLX on our Colorado trip a few days ago, but it was because he left the key on and not a bike/battery problem. His battery charged backed up just fine on the day's ride without any further trouble. He was having a heck of a time trying to start a cold KLX by push starting, however.

 

Thanks for that idea, been busy putting zip-ties around all my relays trying to keep them semi-permanently attached.
Also been threading them though any electrical connectors I can. More prevention now than anything else. Been totally broke down, stuck and puzzled in the dark, abandoned the bike (my old EX-500), came back in the morning and immediately saw the disconnected plug, plugged it in and rode away feeling dumb (kinda like running out of gas).