sporadic neutral indicator failures

On my 81 750 LTD, I've started having a problem where the neutral indicator does not come on immediately. Until recently, I'd put it in neutral and the light came on instantly. Now, I'll put it in neutral and the light will not come on unless I rev the throttle a little. Any ideas?:huh:

Hi Jay, The neutral light system works like this... there is power going to your idiot light bulb all the time. Then, there is a wire connected down on your left hand side by the shifter to a "neutral light switch". this switch essentially is a contact that makes a GROUND when there is contact between a longer pin on the end of your shift drum and the switch contact. Geesh, this sounds complicated but here goes... take off your left countershaft cover. Under it is an inner cover. You will see the wire I am talking about connected to your neutral light switch. It should be green. Anyway, if you remove the INNER cover (there is a gasket and oil in there so you may need to drain the oil), you will see a ROUND disk. There is ONE screw in the center. NOTE that there is a RAISED area on the disk. This RAISED AREA is under the neutral pin on the end of the shift drum. When you are in neutral, the shift drum moves that pin to the 8OCLOCK position and it touches the raised part of the outer disk. This outer disk in turn touches the inside contact on the switch. If your light is flickering, CLEAN the outside of the disk where it is raised and the inside contact on the switch. You can also remove the disk by removing the center screw. If you do, there may be a fluted lockwasher. Make sure you reinstall it with this lock washer. If there is NO LOCKWASHER, use loctite on the screw when reinstalling... anyway, you can clean the INSIDE of the that round disk and the end of the pin. The issue is bad contact so there is a sporadic ground... something is dirty. Don't forget to torque the cover bolts for the inner countershaft sprocket cover and outer cover.

Thanks WG. I was afraid it was going to be one of those cases where putting up with the problem would be less of a PITA than fixing it. But I think I'll go ahead and take the extra time at the next oil change.

Let us know how the fix works out. My neutral light has not worked in at least 4 years. I dont find it a big deal. In fact I dont even think about it. If the fix is not to bad I might just have a go one of these days.