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That's the odd thing. Mine would only act up when the bike was first started, too. Never DURING a ride. In any case, it's something to check and costs nothing but a bit of time.
I didn't think it would fix my bike either, for the same reason, but it did. Sometimes logic doesn't seem to apply when hunting electrical gremlins in a Harley.
A couple years ago I had a similar problem. I'd start up the bike, and no headlight. Take it apart and try the bulb-worked perfectly. Put it back together and it would be fine until the next time it acted up.
What fixed mine was removing the contacts from the connector inside the headlamp shell, squeezing the contacts a bit tighter with some pliers, and reinstalling them. Apparently, the contacts weren't making good connection with the tabs on the headlamp all the time. It seemed to happen when I'd first start the bike for some reason.
Since I did this, I've had no more trouble.
Had the same problem and did this to the RK. Headlight would flicker only after the bike would sit overnight. At start up in the morning a good smack to the headlight bucket would stop the on and off for the rest of the day. Squeezed the contacts tighter and didn't have the problem again.
A couple years ago I had a similar problem. I'd start up the bike, and no headlight. Take it apart and try the bulb-worked perfectly. Put it back together and it would be fine until the next time it acted up.
What fixed mine was removing the contacts from the connector inside the headlamp shell, squeezing the contacts a bit tighter with some pliers, and reinstalling them. Apparently, the contacts weren't making good connection with the tabs on the headlamp all the time. It seemed to happen when I'd first start the bike for some reason.
Since I did this, I've had no more trouble.
As a follow up I did as suggested above today.
Headlight now seems to work fine.
Of course while taking off the headlight it slipped out of my hand and went bouncing across the garage floor.
I wonder if that helped any.
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