oil light

[ASHZ]

Hey,

Im a new rider with an '03 katana 600 with 8300km on it... The oil light keeps coming on, but the oil is fine. The battery, however, seems to be dying and has to be recharged a lot......could that be the reason for this light?

Thanks

[macgyver]

Yea that's a good possibility, replace the battery and see if it still does it

[AMorgan]

Mine is on whenever the bike is on but not running. Dunno if yours is quite the same thing. I figured it was just kind of a "light check" like the car does when you first start it up.

[suzukisportrider2004]

my light is very picky try adding a few more drops of oil maybe

[The CyberPoet]

The oil light comes on when the oil pressure switch (right side of the engine under the front cover, just below the timing signal generator) doesn't register enough oil pressure to trigger the switch. This is also the level that would normally spell damages to the engine from lack of adequet lubrication.

It's more common for the switch or the wiring to it to fail than the pressure to drop below minimums, at least on a bike as new as yours. An indication that the switch or wiring is bad is that the light's behavior doesn't change with RPM (the engine builds more oil pressure at higher RPM's -- so a borderline failing oil pump system will often register high enough oil pressure at 5k while registering insufficient at idle). Your oil levels would have to be very very low to not build sufficient pressure, unless the oil has been thinned heavily by fuel flooding through a bad carb float into the oil (or use of oil way out of the recommended oil-weight range, such as 0w30 instead of 10w40).

Either way, because of the potential risk of decimating the engine due to insufficient oil, the situation should really be resolved ASAP and the bike not ridden until it's resolved. Grab the 98+ Suzuki factory service manual (there's a link for the PDF online in the how-to forum), and have at it. Start with the sender itself and the wires to it, then go to the pressure valve in the base of the oil pan (if it's blocked, you'll get similar behavior), and then finally to the pump itself.

Good Luck!
=-= The CyberPoet

[ASHZ]

Hey....thanks for all the help!

I actually replaced the battery and everything is perfect!!!
Damn i love riding.........