skifreak

I picked up a surprisingly clean 1998 Hawk for $1800 with the intent of it being my track ***** bike so I could keep my VFR off the track (my avatar) and mainly keep the VFR set up for sport-touring. What I didn't anticipate was how much the Hawk would grow on me. I love the V-4 growl of my VFR, but the V-twin pulse of the Hawk is positively addicting. Thanks to the awesome posts on this forum, I have already cleaned out the insane amount of grease that was causing my turn signal switch to malfunction, mounted some good flush mount LED turn signals and an ebay sourced LED taillight based on what I read from you guys, and I am picking up one of E.Marquez's lightened flywheels. I just dropped in a new set of thrust bearings in the steering head, and repacked the mufflers since they had exactly 0 muffler material in them. A 905 stunt cage is next to protect it on it's future track days, since I am so fond of it now that I could not bear to see it laying sparks down the pavement as it slides beside me, looking back at me, puzzled...

I would include pics of the bike, but our recent 6" of snow is kind of keeping the bike in its current spot.

Thanks again everybody for such an informative and helpful site.

Floyd

I also just redid the turn signal switch!
It was night and day difference. I had to literally scrap the old crap off the parts.

E.Marquez

My brand new Old stock European left side switch was filled with crusted white lithium grease that kept the turn signal switch and high/low beam switch from working correctly.
Note, if you have the EU left hand switch, use a good electronics cleaner to flush, do NOT remove the lighting ON/Park?Off switch to get to the head light hi/low beam switch. Re installation is not fun or easy / possible perhaps without damage.
You can remove the turn signal switch to clean with little hassle.

skifreak

The grease in my turn signal switch was so old and crusty I am surprised it worked at all. But, a full disassemble and thorough cleaning, sand the contacts a bit, and the right amount of dielectric grease in the right spots and it was good as new. But again, something I was able to diagnose easily by searching for key threads on this forum.