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Need rear brake cable

8K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  wsim 
#1 ·
I tried and failed to lube the cable with a tool I got from the shop. Its sticking and thats never a good thing. Does anyone have a working one sitting around the garage? its for a 98 vulcan classic 800vn
 
#2 ·
Did you make sure anything isn't bent or chafed first? What about taking it all the way off and giving it a good thorough cleaning before resigning yourself to replace it? Post back what you find out and fix.
 
#3 ·
Comanche, on your advise I tore it all apart. A few curse words later, it was sitting in my hand. It does not have movement at all between the cable and rubber housing. I got it to move about one inch and could see the cable is rusted, but with all my might thats as far as I could pull it. I had bought the lube tool previously and even with a good dousing its still not moving off the bike.
 
#4 ·
Get some penetrating oil and soak it and work it and it may break free then lube it up with the tool. If it has that much rust then there is not room for the lube either. It my just be a temp fix. It hard to tell how much of the cable has rotted away.
 
#6 ·
Yea, Thats what I'm planning on doing. There is too much rust in it. So much that it was causing the rod to cable mate to bend something aweful when the brake spring was trying to retract.
It's weird, it looks like a relatively new assy. But, it sat for a year before I bought it, and i let it sit 2 months between bringing it back to life and my new found problems. Bikes are weird people..
 
#9 ·
I've had it for about 6 months. the brake pads on the rear look good (according to the pad indicator). When not attached the back brake arm moves freely. I had to go out of town for 2 months when I came back this was happening and it was leaking gas. But, since I've had the cable assy off I've realized it was always happening, as the bike moves a lot free'er now ( im new to cruisers, nothing to compare it to) I fixed the leak, but brake problem persisted. I only noticed it was off when the wheel was almost to a complete stop after riding it when i got it out of mothballs. With me on it, a friend pulling the arm, the brake works and retracts just fine.
 
#14 ·
yes, and I wonder if changing that rear brake cable is hard to do because looking at my bike and the front foot brake lever it appears the cable is frame attached and locked in there.
Can that cable be removed and replaced?
 
#15 ·
what happened was I removed the chain and then attempted to remove the swing arm and in the process bent the rear brake cable before figuring out that
the cable was attached to the swing arm, I did get the cable off the swing arm but now it's bent and should replace it with a new one
 
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