Choke lever!

[Thud300]

One of the few things that annoys me about my Voyager is how tough the turn signal and choke controls can be to operate.

I had the control housing open the other night to get some lube in the cable. The slide on the carbs moves freely enough, although the return spring could be a little lighter. I did massage plenty of lube into the cable, and got some under the lever, but the operating effort is still plenty high, particularly to add choke (aka enrichener). Its much much easier on my Connie.

Lubed the turn signal mechanism too, but that didnt make much difference in manual shutoff effort either. Looking at the design, probably not much to be done there. But, the solenoid works great :-)

Any tricks to these things, or do I need to figure out how to put a broomstick on the choke lever?

[triton28]

The starter cable is your culprit for sure. If you are comfortable with doing so, I would remove the cable and immerse it completely in a bath of oil, used or otherwise doesn't matter.
Let it sit for a good half hour or longer then take it out of the oil bath and while holding/lightly clamping the outer sheathing, work the inner cable back and forth numerous times. Then hang it to drain.
I have tried those injection cable lubricators but I found them to be less than efficient for my liking.
I always bathe my cables every second year and it seems to work for me.
Dave

[Thud300]

My method of lubing the cable: tape a tiny funnel to to the top of the cable, add oil, pump choke slide to get oil into cable sheath. Lather rinse repeat.

Maybe the oil hadn't made it to the hang spot, I'll see if it finds its way down there.

[triton28]

That should have worked as well.
As you say it may take a bit of time to get to the hang spot.
If it doesn't get easier to operate there may be a fray of the inner cable, a pinched section, or a sharp bend of the outer sheathing which needs straightening.
Sounds as though you will get it straightened out though, LOL.
Dave

[Thud300]

And the solution is...

SUPER LUBE.

The kind that comes in a tube, not a spray can. Liberal application to where the lever rides in the control housing, and it works slick as snot.

Also applied some behind the turn signal button, helps that too, cuts down on the operating effort.

[krasmu]

I went through this lubing job two years ago and is still very easy. In fact, it's so easy to move now that the cable moves on it's own and in cold weather, it won't stay where I put it to warm up the bike. The return spring keeps pulling it down to the off position. Seems to be getting better with time but that only means the oil is starting lose effect and will need to be redone again and start this whole process all over again. I think a weaker spring would fix it but haven't looked into that yet.

[Thud300]

Agreed, that return spring is a beast. Might try a lighter spring, I have access to a few.