-=> DAVID DRUMMOND wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 DD> Al salaam a'alaykum Wayne

 DD> 13 Nov 03 17:01, Wayne Chirnside wrote to David Drummond:

 DD>> Hmmm the aerosol chain lubes here have a coagulating agent in them. I
 DD>> doubt they would wick very far through a cable....

 WC> The solvent doesn't evaporatate all at once and I saw it drip
 WC> out the bottom before I quit.

 DD> I would have thought it might have coagulated before it reached that
 DD> far. [...]

Well it has to penetrate into the links and rollers
on the drive chain.
Heck those are disappearing too in favor of
shaft and belt drives.
I'm getting OLD.

 WC>> It did however prevent unseen damage so if the cable was going to go
 WC>> you could actually see the need to replace it.

 DD>> You can usually feel it too.

 WC>  Yeah but usually by then it's pretty badly frayed.
 WC>  OTOH hand I've been known to drive a bike without a shift cable
 WC>  for as long  as a week before replacing it.
 WC>  Between gears is easy and you get a feel for neutral.
 WC>  The Suzuki 550 was a breeze to do this with but the
 WC>  Yamaha 650 twin a bear to drive this way.
 WC>  The 1100 no way!

 DD> I've broken a clutch cable many miles from home aproaching a largish
 DD> city near evening rush hour. I was towing a trailer loaded with camping
 DD> gear.

 DD> I managed to ride it through the suburbs to our destination. Traffic
 DD> lights made it interesting....

 Yeah, it required a bit of artistry, a light foot
 on the shift lever and some throttle modulation
 to make it all come together well.

 WC>> Now they've hydraulic clutch cables on some bikes
 WC>> which I think is a bit over the top.

 DD>> The brakes have been hydraulic for quite some years too.

 WC> I've never owned a bike that didn't have a hydraulic front disk
 WC> brake. Last bike had three, 2 front and 1 rear.

 DD> My early bikes had cable operated front ends - one had a four leading
 DD> shoe, the others twin leading.

I rode a Triumph TR6 once, darn strange having the shift on the
right side.
My TX-650 Yamaha was a carbon copy of the TR6, same timing bore
and stroke, same clunky transmission but at least the
shift was on the left.
In fact when the wiring harness burned up
I rewired it from a TR6 manual rather than the
unnecessarily complicated Japanese version and it worked
perfectly well and saved me a lot of wiring.

Oh yeah, the Triumph handled well the TX-650 didn't.
 
--- MultiMail/MS-DOS v0.45