Just about everything mechanical needs preventative maintenance and lubrication. And here to give us some pointers about motorcycles is Lyndon Able, General Manager of Patriot Harley-Davidson in Fairfax, Virginia. Lyndon, welcome back.

LYNDON ABLE: Thanks, Pat.

PAT GOSS: Alright, motorcycles, and cables.

LYNDON ABLE: Yes. Like a lot of things, cables on your motorcycle will last longer if they’re properly maintained. In this case, maintenance means, mostly, lubrication.  A little example here, we have a throttle, and throttle cable. Used properly, lubricated properly, this is a nice, smooth action. If it’s not lubricated, what will happen is this will get frozen up inside this throttle, and will start working back and forth. And you’ll end up with something that you see, right here. Go just a little bit longer, and you end up with the other side of this cable literally hanging on by a thread. That is a direct result of improper lubrication.

PAT GOSS: And it’s also walking home.

LYNDON ABLE: And it’s a walk home. Right.

PAT GOSS: Ok, now lubricants, we have a couple types here. Anything special about them, other than that we want cable lube, and not regular lube?

LYNDON ABLE: Yea, you should use the proper, uh, just like anything else, you should be using the proper tool for the job. These are two different lubricants. I like this one, but it can stain braided cable, so for that application we like to use clear lubricant. Whichever one you use, you’ll notice that they have a nice narrow spout. And that’s to allow you to get in between the housing and the cable, so that the lubricant can get where you want it to be.

On this motorcycle, you can see that gravity is helping you do the job to get these cables lubricated. This comes off, you get inside here, get that lubricant in there, work it back and forth, gravity will help you take it all the way down.  Sometimes, gravity is not working in your favor. You can see here, that the initial run is uphill. Don’t just think that it’s too hard to do, and only lubricate this, because you’re only getting the first two inches.  Pull this off, as it’s supposed to be, hold it up, so that gravity can allow that lubricant to get all the way down the cable. If you do that right, your cables will last much longer, and save you a lot of money in the process.

PAT GOSS: Alright, and keep in mind folks, that this doesn’t just apply to motorcycles.  It also applies to things like lawn mowers, here’s a cable, here’s a cable, all kinds of motorized equipment.  So by lubricating these cables, you’ll get a lot more life out of that piece of equipment and it’ll be a lot more reliable. Lyndon, thank you.

LYNDON ABLE: Thank you.

PAT GOSS:  And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line. Right here, at MotorWeek.