Neutral issue - Gear position sensor (GPS)

Hi all,
I've recently had an issue where my GPS will no longer detect Neutral. I removed it from the housing and am able to rotate the sensor to various gear positions, but it just jumps from 1st gear to 2nd gear without sensing Neutral. Some other forum posts talk about removing the pin (and spring behind it) and cleaning, however, the pin on the sensor feels pretty solid in the sensor and not sure if it is a different version of GPS. Can it be cleaned or otherwise repaired?

That cleaning thing worked on the older 2 wire GPS from the 04-09 Rockets, since the pin was separate and rotated around on the contacts on the face of the GPS.
With Roadsters they changed to a 3 wire one with the pin built in and the contacts are inside in the GPS unit. Cleaning will do no good.
But 2010 to March 2013 Roadsters do have a faulty GPS - displaying 6th gear and/or difficulty in finding electronic Neutral are classic symptoms.

Here's how to replace your Roadster GPS (to latest 4 wire one) to fix this fault, and also the GPS part history in pics;

Gear position sensor GPS Gear position sensor GPS

Thank you both for the helpful information.
Now that I see the insides of the sensor, I might try to clean it first without disassembly.
If that doesn't work, I may try to dremel the washer off to clean. One question for oteczdmitriy, what did you use to reassemble after cleaning, a circlip/snapring or ???

mm-dmoney said:

Hi all,
I've recently had an issue where my GPS will no longer detect Neutral. I removed it from the housing and am able to rotate the sensor to various gear positions, but it just jumps from 1st gear to 2nd gear without sensing Neutral. Some other forum posts talk about removing the pin (and spring behind it) and cleaning, however, the pin on the sensor feels pretty solid in the sensor and not sure if it is a different version of GPS. Can it be cleaned or otherwise repaired?

Click to expand...

Hi, I have a 2011 Rocket III that in the last couple of years developed problems with the GPS (6th gear, hard to activate neutral light and eventually no gear indications at all). I was not thrilled with upgrading to the new harness and all the work involved so I bought on Ebay a used 2008 Triumph Daytona 675 GPS ($20). The part is identical except that the harness (3 wires, same colors) is short. I cut my Rocket harness and soldered in the Daytona harness (just yesterday) and reinstalled and I got all my gears back and an easy to find neutral light back. The whole thing took less than an hour at a cost of $20 - not bad. I believe other Triumph models with the same part design will fit as well. I hope it will give me a few more years before I have to repeat.

mm-dmoney said:

Thank you both for the helpful information.
Now that I see the insides of the sensor, I might try to clean it first without disassembly.
If that doesn't work, I may try to dremel the washer off to clean. One question for oteczdmitriy, what did you use to reassemble after cleaning, a circlip/snapring or ???

Click to expand...

The part is assembled without a washer, there are no difficulties in installing it back

Thanks all, I got it cleaned and working again!
Here's what I did:
Carefully drilled area out that had the recessed #3 mold marking with a ~9/64" (3.5mm) drill bit.
I was really careful to not damage the sensor contact pads when the drill bit broke through to the sensor's inside.
I cleaned the internal area with PF solvent (all purpose degreaser) and QD Electric contact cleaner using small cotton swabs while spinning it around several times back and forth.
Blew out with air compressor to get debris and cleaners out.
I took a flat tipped screwdriver and pressed on the two flat prongs while rotating as well.
I finished off by applying some grease through the hole and spreading it around with a cotton swab.

If I have issues again, I already have an access hole for cleaning!
Hope I don't have to do it for quite some time though.
Wish me luck!

Well, I'm back with this issue as the cleaning described above only lasted about 9-10 months before having issues again. Cleaning the sensor with the port I drilled didn't do the trick, so this time so I used a Dremel disc blade to cut off the washer holding the GPS sensor together to get at the internals. After cleaning, I can now see the fundamental issue with the sensor which is the contact pad on the spring loaded switch is about the same size as the mating copper pad on the sensor base. Since they are the same size, there is little room for error with alignment or debris disrupting the circuit. To solve this, I took the switch apart and created a small "dimple" on the contact pad using a screw, hammer and a soft piece of wood. This now allows for improved contact within the switch at the neutral position. I assembled the components together by hand (without the washer) and bolted it back in place. The Neutral switch light is back, and hopefully I won't have to post another update on this topic!

I'm not recommending anyone to do this as a fix, but just wanted to show my possible solution to the pesky GPS problem.

i think the contact pad is so flat and rather larger to keep the wear under control, are you not afread that the dimple will increase wear? Maybe adding an washer under the spring that pusses the contact pad a bit more would have been sufficient?