Technique for lubing cables

[n4mwd]

I bought a cable lubing tool to lube my cables and quickly found out that they don't work for anything except the clutch cable. I read online that the best way to lube the throttle cables is to do it from the bottom up, but the lube just squirts out the connector when I tried.

The upper throttle and choke cables have weird ends so they don't fit the lube tool.

My solution: I got a syringe with a 25G needle. In most states, you can just buy them at the local drugstore without a prescription. Anyhow, I pulled the plunger out of the syringe and squirted in about 1/2 CC of lube. Then I put the plunger back in.

On the Ninja cables, there is a tiny gap between the cable and sheath. I just put the needle in that gap and squirted in the lube. It takes about 1/2cc per cable.

I had to put paper towels on the low end of the cable to catch the drips.

Anyhow, it works very well and doesn't cost much. I just thought I would pass it along.

BTW, the lube has a tendency to ruin the syringe so you'll probably have to use a new one.

If you have trouble getting syringes, ask a friend who has diabetes if you can have one of his used ones. Diabetics tend to use at least one per day, usually more.

[Skippii]

Good idea. I've always just duct taped a funnel to the top of the cable and poured in some motor oil. When it comes out the bottom, I know it's lubed. Usually requires a lot of jiggling. Your method seems easier and a lot less messy.

[JLinde1339]

Yeah, when I bought my spray lube, the guy tried to sell me that tool. I didn't get it cuz the spray came with a straw. I just stuck the tip into the slots of the collar of the clutch cable, and sprayed it in. Worked the lever till it felt right. The tool looked way more complicated than the process needed to be.
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[Skippii]

I did actually buy one of the cable lubers at HF for like $4.
When I needed to use it, I couldn't for the life of me find one of those straws (like you get on WD40 cans) to get the spray into the luber, so I went back to the funnel method.
The next time, I came prepared with the spray can, the straw, and the lubing device....and it sucked and didn't work, so I went back to the funnel method.

[setasai]

Funny since I've used it on both the clutch and throttle cables without much problem at all. The mess wasnt big either. I wonder if I got a different tool than the rest of you.

[Kevin2109]

Does no one else turn their bike on and let it idle?

[n4mwd]

I got the one at HF too and the only one it worked with was the clutch cable. You might be able to coax it to work on the lower end of the throttle cables, but when I tried that, the lube just squirted out of the metal junction. It never got up to the top. The syringe trick worked on all cables with no mess except what came out the bottom.

[bob706]

I've been doing the syringe thing for awhile. Works great

[Skippii]

I'll admit it...sometimes I don't think things through.
I'm sure that normally if you went into a pharmacy to get a few syringes, you wouldn't have any problems. I've done it before a few times for various projects.

So today I go to a pharmacy to pick up my prescription for dextroamphetamine, and while I'm there I ask the pharmacist to give me a few syringes as well. Also, since a few people have been getting sick lately at work and I've been getting calls to cover shifts, I figure I might as well get some Sudafed while I'm at the pharmacy.

Well, I'd given them my driver's license and insurance card when I dropped off the prescription, but all of a sudden they were VERY interested in seeing all sorts of identification, getting my phone number, etc.

I didn't get the pseudoephedrine after all, and ended up getting a few syringes WITHOUT the sharp hypodermic needles after explaining that it was just for motorcycle maintenance.

So, just a heads up...if you're going to buy syringes, you might want to limit your concurrent pharmaceutical purchases to stuff like toothpaste and deodorant.

[n4mwd]

Sorry you had some bad luck. The way the pharmacy treats you can vary from city to city and state to state. They are worried about druggies getting them. We can't have druggies using clean needles can we.

You need the needles. The syringe by itself isn't going to be any better than the straw on the lube spray by itself.

A diabetic friend could probably give you some of the ones he uses and throws away. You can also buy them online from various sites.

Here is a source at Amazon.

That's for a box of 100, but you can get them individually too. The problem is that buying just one online tends to cost about the same as buying 100 due to shipping costs.

The Luer Lock means that the needle has a twist lock mechanism on the end. This is more desirable because the slip on kind have a tendency to pop off with the pressure you need to squeeze the lube out.

If you have dogs or cats you can buy vaccination kits from these people. Vaccinate your dog. Then wash out the syringe with bleach water and your good to go.

Some ink jet refill kits have syringes, but the needles are usually too large for motorcycle use.

[Skippii]

I actually have some spare needles, that's why I wasn't worried.
Syringes with needles are 25 cents each at Rite-Aid, by the way. I've bought them before.
If you ask for blunt tip needles, they'll say they don't have any and give you the sharp ones, but they'll be a lot less worried.

Washington DC passed some laws a while ago making it a criminal offense to let a heroin addict have a clean needle--not just giving him a needle, but also exchanging or cleaning his old needle. So if there's a junkie who happens to have a dirty needle and some smack, and you just happen to have some disinfectant, it would be a criminal act for you to stop him from getting HIV. Some group claimed it showed Gods will for people to die of HIV and that nonprofit groups trying to help addicts get clean went against God's will.

It went largely unnoticed by the public, but stuck me as extremely odd for a city who'd just elected a major who was open about his struggles with crack cocaine addiction.

[n4mwd]

DC is a pretty weird place on a lot of issues. Denying junkies clean needles is pretty stupid IMHO. Letting them buy clean needles doesn't cost the taxpayer anything, but treating HIV for 20-30 years will cost them millions - per junkie.

[Skippii]

Millions of dollars is a small price to pay to teach someone a lesson through decades of pain and suffering. Apparently.

But what do I know? I'm from a country that discovered allowing a 1-to-1 needle exchange for addicts was directly linked to lower incidences of drug use, drastically lowered HIV infections, increased enrollement in rehabillitation programs, and huge expense savings.

I don't really think it's so much a difference in political ideology, but rather just that people here seem more likely to create false dichotomies and jump to rather extreme conclusions.

Every government is going to think that prostiution is, overall, not a good thing.
Every government is also going to think that diseases are a bad thing.

A lot of societies would never assume that allowing prostitutes to carry government issued certificates stating they have been checked for STDs within 2 weeks would be associated with an endorsement of the practice. They might assume that the significant decreases in both disease transmission and incidence of violent rape outweigh the disadvantages.

I don't understand how people reach the kind of conclusions that lead to the laws like they passed in DC. It's not like it's a lack of education or knowledge--people acknowledge that the program would save millions of dollars and hundreds of lives, but oppose it based on moral principals.

[Skippii]

Originally Posted by n4mwd

DC is a pretty weird place on a lot of issues.

That may be true, but when it comes to news stories about the absolute most BSC and stupid and unbelievable things that citizens do....there's no greater source than Florida.

[n4mwd]

Originally Posted by Skippii

That may be true, but when it comes to news stories about the absolute most BSC and stupid and unbelievable things that citizens do....there's no greater source than Florida.

I've heard Florida called the cesspool of America. Given the population down here, its no wonder. The population is over a million full time residents in my county alone.

However, we've had help. Several years back, they caught New York city sending their criminals down here on buses. It was a sweet deal for NYC. It saved them the cost of prison and it made their crime rate go down. And ours go up.

What is a BSC?

[Skippii]

Bat Sh!t Crazy

[Skippii]

I was an other forum years ago. There was one guy who, every afternoon, would post a news story of the biggest dumbass of the day. Every day, he'd post up a DAOTD thread for everyone to read. (This sort of thing is more common when it's a forum about indoor activities rather than outdoor ones like motorcycles....people just sit around and surf the web all day )It just happened that 5 days of every week, it would be about something in Florida. Funny thing was the guy who posted it lived in Florida (but never got any of his news from local sites or anything.) After doing this pretty consitantly for about 5 years, he finally got fed up and moved to Canada. Pretty cool that he really did take a stand, but it kind of left me with a warped impression of Florida.
A few years later, I was an avid reader of the news site Plime. Plime shut down a couple years ago (I think it got bought out by Reddit), but they featured stories based on how strange or interesting they were, rather than how relevent they were. It got to a point where the editors considered adding a seperate category called "Floriduh" because the everything was getting so dominated by Florida stories. Eventually they just started including "Floriduh" in every headline related to that state. I'm not saying the Florida really is such a statistical outlier in terms of actually stupidity. I'm just saying that one state dominating an INTERNATIONAL news site is kind of impressive.

[Alex]

FWIW, Florida is the only state with its own category on FARK.com.

[n4mwd]

Are you saying that crooks don't hijack turkey trucks up north?

How about cattle rustlers?

Or how about crooks that rob ATM's? By using a front end loader and scooping it and the concrete slab right out of the ground.

All happened within 10 miles of where I live. I swear we should be busing these people back to NYC.

I feel privileged to have our own category on FARK.