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 actory kill switches aren’t much use when you’ve just been un-seated from your ATV and left in the dust. You can hardly reach the kill switch on that handlebar when it’s nowhere in the vicinity as that riderless Quad merrily continues on. It’s for that very reason that every major race-sanctioning organization on the planet mandates a positive kill switch with a quick-release pin that’s tethered to the rider. Rider and machine part company, the pin gets pulled, the bike or ATV stops in its tracks.A tethered kill-switch like this isn’t just for racing, either. Weekend riders get into plenty of, let’s call it interesting, situations on their Quads, too. A positive-action, tethered kill switch just makes good sense on any ATV, just like a set of seatbelts makes sense in a car. Lunar Engineering’s “Gunnar Killer” is just such a switch, and Parts Unlimited has it. The Gunnar Killer is easy to install and neatly fits on even the most cramped handlebars where space is an issue, it doesn’t compromise or in any way put at risk the OE ignition systems, and in fact the factory kill switch remains fully operational. There are Gunnar Killers for all the ATV makes and models, each switch housed in a tough plastic case and coming with a coiled tether that’s normally clipped to the rider’s waistband. The rider and ATV get too far apart from each other, the tether pulls the switch pin, the ATV stops. The Gunnar Killer is available in a couple of styles with wiring for both types of factory kill-switch configurations–Normally Open (NO) wiring or Normally Closed (NC). In that first type of switch when the OE button is pushed it closes the circuit to ground and shorts out the primary lead to kill the ignition. In normal use the switch remains open, thus referred to as the “Normally Open” type. The second, NC, works just the opposite. In normal use the switch is closed and current flows through it. Pushing the button opens the switch to interrupt that flow and kill the ignition. Many of the newer ATVs with their more sophisticated electrical systems have been designed with this NC style of switching but unfortunately there’s no way to determine what machine has what type of switch by simply looking at the external features. The Gunnar Killer takes care of that, though. On the back of each package there’s a comprehensive selection chart listing all the makes and models and which switch to use on which machine. No guess work, no mistakes. Each Gunnar Killer is skin-packed with the “NO” or “NC” clearly marked on the front, a matching label on the backside and that chart to make selection easy. Installation is just as easy. Locate the correctly colored wire up on the handlebar–and the Gunnar instructions tell you which one it is depending on the machine you’re working with–cut the wire, strip and crimp on the supplied connector terminals and install the Gunnar Killer between the two cut ends. That’s it. And when properly installed the bike or ATV can be shut down using either the standard factory kill switch or the tethered Gunnar Killer. The Gunnar Killer is available in both wiring configurations, NC or NO, and with Black, Red or Blue housings. Parts Unlimited has them all.   |
