Does the horn work OK? It shares the earth with the kill switch

 

typically I don’t have the horn on it to try. Where do they Earth at?

 

Hello

I have 2017 450 EXC-F and both my kill switches stopped working. I did the same as you and traced the wires to headstock. Initially every thing looked fine until I found, that indeed there was another wire that connected both kill switch wires, that had come adrift. Re-attached and both kill switches work fine now. Perhaps have another look for a 'spare' wire?

 

You can’t remember what colour the wire was off the top of your head can you?

looks like the single wire from the switch is white/grey and I can trace it all the way through to where itjoins everything

 

Just checked and found the following;

The main kill switch on the right side of handle bar has a brown wire and blue/white wire (2 wires).
The kill switch combined with the horn switch has a yellow/black wire (1 wire).

The yellow/black wire and the blue/white wire are joined together (this join was broken on mine, rendering both switches useless).
The brown wire from the main kill switch runs under the tank.

 

Cheers, will take a look this weekend and hopefully have a way to stop the bike again!

 

So it seems I have different wiring...my kill switch wire is white and grey and that is all I have, guess the 4T’s are different.

I watched avid about putting an extra kill switch in and they mentioned that if you touch the grey/white wire to frame and earth it the bike should die. Tried that and still not killing it...so should I assume a break in that wire somewhere?

 

If you are sure that the grey/white wire is the kill switch wire then find the CDI unit, try to push a bit of 'jumper lead' wire into the back of the connector where the kill wire goes into the connector, fire the engine up then dab the jumper wire to the frame, it should kill the engine. If all of that works as described then it should be easy enough to stick a multi meter on the actual grey/white wire (disconnect the CDI). Then check for continuity of the wire as it travels up to the headstock and off to the switch. You should be able to work out where the break in the wire is. Dunno about your bike but my 2013 300 had shockingly bad wiring, it has taken many hours to sort it all out and heat shrink decent insulation on the entire loom.

EDIT..Just checked my bike and the kill wire is black/yellow, of course my bike is not your bike but you do need to be 100% that you have the correct wire otherwise you could damage something expensive!

 

Have a look where the wiring loom is clipped to the right hand side of the headstock.
The way it’s clipped causes the loom to be bent sharply when the bars are turned. I had broken wires there on my 2013 350exc. I cut and opened up the sleeving, repaired the wires and re-sleeved it with a more robust type of cable covering, clipped so it would follow a more gentle bend.

 

Made some progress tracing the wire back...the white/grey one connects with a bullet connector near the mapping plug, if I undo the plug, start the bike and touch the wire from the loom to the frame it kills the bike, so break is obviously between the connector and switch with the Earth being ok.

so even though the wire looks unbroken there’s obviously something not connecting, whether that’s the actual connector or a break in the wire under therubber sheath I don’t know.Job for tomorrow!

cheers guys 👍🏻

 

The break may well be near the headstock like 'newsh' said, in my humble opinion KTM's wiring looms are shite!

 

Agreed! The wires are thin and the insulation too stiff, also the sheath they use is really brittle and cracks where it bends..
Then of course most of the connectors are not waterproof!

 

All sorted, rather than mess on with the existing wire I just replaced from the connector near the map connector and ran a new wire up. All working finally.

Just the speedo to sort now and I’ll have run out of lockdown things to do...

cheers for the help 👍🏻