Prevent brake (wire) cable from freezing?

LockH

LockH

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Ummm.. Started out in Victoria BC Canada, then sta
OK, Big ES Brains. Situation is high-speed wheelchair (recumbent trike) unable to bring indoors re wintertime warmth. I (Yah, me twit) forgot to wrap brake handle so now battling approx. 4ft. long frozen brake cable from handbrake to brake on front wheel. (Yah, No back brakes yet. Possible "safety feature" after a few "successful" high-speed brake tests w/immediate sideways rollovers - have scrapes and bruises to prove this "works great". :D

So currently trying stuff including hot water (only on plastic/outside of cable, silly!), and hot oil (WD40) dribbled down both ends of inside wire cable.

But occurs to me inside wire and wire cable itself otta warm up nicely with a little bit of electricity. Watts up with this idea, please? (No 120V access currently (Ebiker joke). Bettery pack can supply 48V, so lets play! Anybuddy here?

Pics of vehicle, see ES thread:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=57408

(Caution. This writer known for "whacky" ideas.)
 
Hi `RoundQube! (Like a square peg in a round hole?)
I quess most hairdryers `round here are 120V or 12V, but maybe 120V might run just "fine" on only 48V? (Add upvoltage xformer to list of stuff to pick up.) OTOH, not sure if any 12V hairdryers are "comfy" w/48V? (But could "tap" my pack of Li cells to get 12 volt-ish from X number of cells.) Also on list of stuff to get is a Volt-OhM-Amp meter to try out wire cable for brake w/various voltages - (OK, maybe NOT w/120V. Hehe).

But thanks for the thought! (Trick might be to trap/store heated air from dryer rather than just heating air/space.)
 
You have melted snow that's migrated into your brake system. Warm the brake system and position your bike to dribble the water out. Sometimes it's only temporary, as riding in the cold snow will repeat the freezing cable process again.

If you have time, I'd remove the cable from the hose/housing, drain any water in there, and lube the crap out of the hose/housing. Take special attention to the ends of the hose where the problem originates. I think I've read people use lithium grease in that area to have a good water block.

I need to winterize my bike too so I'm in the same situation. Last year I had some problems with my brake cables freezing, and I want to prevent that this year.
 
LockH...You sure you don't have a gob of ice on the brake assy. itself, binding it up? In over 30,000 miles of two-wheeling (oops! You're on three!) I never ever had any cable freeze-up, much less one that was due to ice in the sleeve..

Hair drier....Uhh, you have a extension cord, right?, and you plug it in into the plug-in inside yo house on the wall, and you thoughtfully have the other end outside yo house near yo bike, right? , and you have yo hair drier near yo bike , right? , and you plug yo hair drier into yo extension cord, and you heat yo cable until it be dry as a dry bone. Viola! no ice in yo cable.

Prevention? Some good preventives have been suggested and I have no better improvements to suggest.

Best of luck on yo seized cable porblem.


GONZ
 
Dang. See? I KNEW ES Krew would have cool (sorry, warm/hot) ideas! So, a hairdryer mentioned 2x, and re lube do have can of graphite spray (rather than the "lube"), but (Yah, I know, silly me.) was thinking Electricity (electrically heating wire itself) was the answer for just about everything. DO have one spare brake cable already (already warm/dry, bought cheap from neighbourhood motorcycle scavenger/parts store), but intended for some future "mod" and much too short - EVerybuddy on ES has spare stuff, right?) So thinking to remove cable, bring indoors, remove wire from cable, and with both hanging from basement ceiling (and after leaving to dry long enough), dribble/drool/soak both with EG WD40/3-in-1 oil/graphite just enough.

Then reassemble and reinstall brake cable and look for looooong spare for next time. (And investigate options re sealing ends 100%)

But seriously, can't warm wire brake cables a little/enough with electricity??? (Yah, I know it's not copper.) But see EG nickel-chrome, etc. OK, TBA (once I have a VOM, and temp guage to quote specifics.)

Cheers all!
 
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