Cleaning Motorcycle Electrical Connectors

Get Ready for Spring Part 2

Cleaning Your Motorcycle Electrical Connectors

These tips also work for cleaning your ATV electrical connectors.

There are a ton of different connectors on your motorcycle or ATV, but don’t worry – you don’t have to clean everything that plugs into the main harness. But there are a few key points to clean up and grease. As we said in Part 1, make sure you have a good running battery and your battery posts/terminals are nice and clean. At this point you are going to want to apply a light coating of high temp dielectric grease.

deilectric connector greaseOnce the battery is taken care of you want to use your manual to find your starter solenoid. Same thing here: make sure the posts are clean and greased. Give your ground wire a visual check too. If it looks bad then apply the same treatment. The next step is to locate where your charging stator and rectifier/regulator plug into the main harness. All of these connections should be treated with the same dielectric grease. If you see any burnt or corroded connectors, now is the time to replace them! This covers the basics for most street bikes.

If you like to ride off-road or in the mud, then you want to get your machine as clean as you can at the start of the season. You may need to take some of your plastic off to really get in there, but it’s worth it! Give the wiring good visual inspection. Make sure there are no frayed or damaged wires. Ok, we know this sounds like a lot of time just to get ready to ride for the season. Just keep in mind, 30 minutes to a couple hours now is so much better than having to push your machine all the way back from the woods, up the hill, through the mud bog & over the sand pile