Today is oil change day, trying to get them all knocked out and I've run into an issue I've never seen before on my ZX-6R. Ran it to get it up to temperature and drained the oil, fitted a new OEM filter and 3.3 qts of fresh 5W40 by the book. I cranked it up and I got an oil pressure light that won't go out after 10 seconds. I shut it off, waited a few minutes and tried again, same thing, oil pressure light is still flashing after another 10 seconds. Normally after an oil change, it takes 6 seconds to establish pressure on this bike and turn off the oil pressure light if I fill the oil filter cartridge with oil before installing, which I did. I'm baffled, it should come right up on pressure. What do you think is going on? I'm not going to try it again until I haved an idea what has happened. I've done a zillion oil changes over the years on many, many motorcycles, this is a first.

Sorry, I'm like 17th best below the Hub. But, in this error like situation I don't really believe it, I usually disconnect the battery and see if it comes back. Don't know if the ecu stores error codes on ram memory or not on these bikes. Sorry buddy hope it's just random noise errors

I leaned the bike over to the right about 45 degrees after Googling it and finding several threads on this, apparently a common issue on the ZX-6R due to the location of the filter high on the left side of the motor above the water pump and generator cover. I had lost my oil pump prime, can't explain why this never happened before after 8 oil changes on this machine but it did. I hit the starter button and the light went out after about 4 seconds, tried a couple more starts and it shut off the light after about 2 seconds.

Possible air cavitation being that high up. The leaning over will not help prime the pump. That level above the pump blades is pressured by [oil level] static alone. So you'd think not at the pickup entry. Somehow the engine tilt... moves the bubble out of that pressure switch tunneling to the switch. That switch is pressured off mechanically. It sits by itself like a brake switch. Pull the brake switch pin and the contacts light the bulb. Just the opposite for the switch. Push the plate, coin, washer, against the single [hot] wire out the switch, the switch body acts the ground once the contact is pressured, thus completes the circuitry to turn the light off.

Thanks for the explanation Hubster, what can I do to avoid this in the future? I can't think of anything I did differently than the last 7 times, filled the new filter with oil and let it sit until it was saturated, maybe I let the oil drain too completely and starved the oil pump pickup/air bubble mode?

the switch body acts the ground once the contact is pressured, thus completes the circuitry to turn the light off.

OH shit! Does this mean I should NOT use PTFE on the threads of the switch and the multi-port adapter I am using??

I was just about to go and tighten these in?

How about brass adapters? Brass does not conduct electricity well.

I believe the switch completes the ground. There's only one wire to the switch.

damn, what the hell next?

You're fine. Think: 'Wire-in-wire-out.' Said another way; Wire+ to resistor/jobber {bulb/switch) -Wire out. Either the jobber remains hot (bulb) or the circuit is broken manually (toggle/brake switch) or by oil pressure. So if that switch has just two prongs, it's hot in-ground out. If three prongs, the third goes to module/ecu/box/etc. Conductor wise, copper/brass act like a waxed floor (non-magnetic) sending E up that wire.

Thank you, Hub. Shwew! That's good because I just tightened the adapter in. I figured the even with sealant, enough surface of the threads should make contact to make the the ground.

Here's the ring terminal. Under that rubber boot , it connects by a screw and washer on the end of the oil pressure switch. This looks like just a + wire to me.

* Last updated by: Rook on 6/25/2017 @ 1:29 PM *