That will buff out. Seriously, that sucks.
Ron

 

maybe a wire was bare some where and it grounded out on that it looks like that was really hot fire to melt that plastic.check your wires

 

it was not a wire issue or it would have burnt the acc side of the switch. the burning was inside the switch making the terminal hot enough to melt the plastic and send flames and sparks and smoke out the switch. i have the switch removed and will see if national safety board wants me to send it to them

 

About the only thing I can think of that might cause what happened to you is that the contacts inside didn't make a solid connection. Then the normal current loading would have heated things up and with the power loading that goes through that switch, like damn near everything on the bike. It could easily have heated up enough to start cooking the contacts and insulation inside the switch.
The worse part is that its a vicious cycle in that the more it heats up the worse it makes things and the worse it makes things the more it heats up.

Your going to have to cut those wires back at least 3" to make sure you get back to good clean copper wire or its going to happen again. This time back wherever you make the splice in the lines.
If you cut the wire 3" back and the core wire looks black don't bother screwing around with it, just try again another inch back and keep doing it until you see clean copper.

 

thanks for the info. i checked the wire and the connector and they are clean. only the switch terminal and the connector are discolored. i am hoping also that this was the cause of the poor fuel mileage and the head lamp flicker.

 

Glad this didn't alter your life or your scooter's life! Save all your communications, notes, photographs and parts that you can for any future dealings! I hope this turn out to be just a one time deal and all of us others with that ignition don't end up with the same or worse problem. I'll be pulling my switch in the morning for a close look see.... So glad your ok man!! I still wonder, why didn't the main fuse blow? Maybe your dealer can give you an excuse as why it didn't blow....

 

Odds are that if you put a 15 amp fuse in there its going to blow the first time you hit the starter if not sooner.
Remember that line is fed by a 40 amp fuse, the ignition is only one of five circuits that are fed off the back side of that switch and each of them has its own 15 amp fuse.
That means the total current loading on the switch contacts could go up to something like 75 amps.
They can't do that because its fed off of the one 40 amp circuit, but it still tells me that the constant loading is going to be higher than the 15 amp fuse your looking to install in the input line.

The bad connection is undoubtedly why your headlight was flickering, and the bad gas mileage may well have been caused by the poor power input to the ECM. I know you have a Thundermax installed and if I were you the first thing I would do after you replace the switch is double check the installed map.
Its very likely that the intermittent and lower than needed power input it was getting just before it went up in smoke confused the hell out of the ECM and subsequently screwed the map up and that's why the mileage suddenly went down the crapper on you.

The reason the main fuse didn't blow is that the switch went first. 40 amps at 12 volts is a serious amount of current, its the same amount of current put out by a wall socket putting out a lethal 4 amps at 120 Volts and any imperfection in the contacts is going to make them heat up.
Its really not that hard to figure out and you can easily test it by putting a short length of smaller 24 or 26 gauge wire between the wire connector feeding the switch and the switch itself and turning the bike on. I guarantee its going to start to heat up and if its small enough its eventually going to start glowing like a light filament without ever blowing the main fuse. The wire will go first, exactly the same way the contacts in his switch did.
I wouldn't bother doing anything more than checking the wire connectors on anyone else's bike. First of all because I don't think you can actually see the contacts inside it and even if you could I doubt the average person could tell if it was good or not unless it has already started cooking itself. And secondly if there is abnormal heating because of bad contacts the heat shrink insulating sleeve over the connector will in all probability show it first.

 

Thanks for letting us know. I hope it doesn't become a larger problem, but there are thousands of bikes with switches just like yours running around (and my train is one of them). Could be a time bomb.

Watch Harley try to blame it on the Thunder Max.

 

Exact same thing happened to a friends Heritage last summer.

 

did they report it to the national safety board? if not do it now.
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/index.cfm