Thanks guys,
Dave, you lead me in the right direction. First, I push started it and it turned on easily which was a great relief as it pointed to a less severe problem. And as you said, since the light turn off when you press the start button, I started tracing these wires from end to end. That took a long time:
- The wiring harness was all fine.
- Dismounted the starter (at handlebar) and all connection were fine.
- Dismounted the actual spring starter button and it was also fine (this spring is horizontal).
But inside this starter/spring case, there is another spring, perpendicular, which pushes the connector upward to make contact with the wires. This small spring was "damaged", i.e. was "soft", not pushing. I have no idea how it can just fail like this from 1 day to the other. Probably the whole casing was tight enough to make the connection last?...
AnywayZ, it took me again many trials and errors to finally work around this issue with some electric tape, a small piece of rubber, crazy glue,... and it's alive
Don't think it's the best fix and hitting the 40 south will probably set it loose again, but it will have to do until I head north to BA. I am playing against the weather here and it's getting really cold and wet (hopefully no snow).
The best part of it all was to know that wherever I might be, I am 1 click away from getting help. Thanks again guys!
Sami