How do I clean?

What is the best cleaning agent for the wiring harness without doing any damage to anything. Pretty dirty in there. 81 kz1000J

You could use orange cleaner spray or some similar degreaser cleaner, rub it with a soft brush. Acetone will probably damage the wiring.

An occasional spritz with ArmorAll does okay on my '73 Z1.

Good Luck!

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An also on the '76 LTD.

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john8 wrote:

What is the best cleaning agent for the wiring harness without doing any damage to anything. Pretty dirty in there. 81 kz1000J

Regardless of how dirty the harness appears, just squirt some ArmorAll right over the dirt, and allow to sit overnight.

Often, the next morning, and with no further effort, the harness will look much better.

At least the crud should be softer and easier to remove with some wiping and brushing, and further rinsing with more ArmorAll or whatever other cleaning product might be desired.

Compressed air may also help dry the area and blow away residual crud.

If concerned about moisture remaining in the connectors, could apply some WD40 or common household rubbing alcohol (attach spray cap to plastic bottle), . The special electrical cleaner spray available from Radio-Shack (as MFolks recommends) would likely serve as well or better for this purpose.

Btw, the alcohol spray bottle is an excellent "tool" when refurbishing a brake master cylinder, and for other general workbench clean-up and greasy tool wipedown chores. It's relatively gentle, non-toxic, and smells pleasant enough.

Good Luck!

I 'third' the ArmorAll suggestion...actually when I'm going to store a bike for some time, I coat everything in ArmorAll as I know it'll clean up well later...when I disassemble all those rubber bits on a motorcycle, I soak them with ArmorAll, place in a ziplock bag, and store them that way. I should have bought stock in the parent company... :laugh:

Electrical contact cleaner sold at most auto parts stores. I will remove any corrosion. Unplug yor connections spray clean then spray a little white grease plug back the connections. Then you can use wd40 or armor all to repel mosture ...Works for me ..

Ok. I will do the armor all. Thank's alot for all of the good feed back.

i like the amourall idea i've never tried that and if your worried about your connections put a bit of dielectric grease in your plugs and connectors

I get on OK with plain old WD40. Try spraying on a cloth or paper and wipe off dirt.

I'd recommend not using WD-40 on fuse clips and electrical connectors for this reason:

Mant years ago I used to put WD-40 on my bikes electrical system fuse clips,fuses, and light bulb sockets(It states on the spray can it will displace moisture, so it can't be bad, right?).

Anyway, I rode to downtown San Diego for a day of jury duty selection(didn't get picked!) and during a break was talking to a man about electrical problems in motorcycles and cars/trucks.

He mentioned about how he used to be like me in the use of WD-40 on all things electrical in his vehicles until the day when he had electrical problems with a lot of head scratching involved.

He discovered after a while(maybe weeks) that WD-40 turns into an insulator on electrical fuses,fuse clips,and light bulb sockets. Even though the parts may be in contact with the power source, it does not work until the dried WD-40 is abraded(sanded,scuffed) away.

After jury selction was over, I went back to my bike, turned the key to start it, and nothing! no fuel pump sounds(I have FI)no headlight,turn signals, nor brake lights.

I was stumped as to why no power and I knew the bike was running good when I drove it earlier that morning.
So there I am,downtown with no test equipment to find out why the bike won't start.The battery cables were all clean and tight, the battery was only a few months old, so I ruled it out as being bad.

I happened to have some 400 grit sandpaper in the tool kit, so it scuffed up the glass tubed metal fuse ends and the copper fuse clips, put the fuses back in, got power and the bike fired up!

So I learned from this, and advise anyone elst to not trust WD-40 on any electrical items, unless you want to go through what I did.

I have for many years used a very good electrical contact cleaner/preservative called De-oxit D5 made by Caig Labs in San Diego. Their website is www.deoxit.com

I believe It's available at Radio Shack and other electronic/electrical supply stores.

What about using armor all MFolks? Wont that work well and not leave a film on the wires?