Let's Talk About Lube and Getting Things Blown

Pervs.

Not THAT kind of lube.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  I'm not Dr. Ruth doing a sex talk up in here.

So here is the story and hopefully telling it will help someone out as opposed to just making me terribly embarrassed that I was unaware.

I love my treadmill.  Not only does it allow me to walk and run when South Dakotan weather is nasty humid hot or -35F chilly, but it gives me hope.  It is my exercise buddy.  It doesn't judge me when I am forced to slow my pace.  It welcomes me back whether it's been since yesterday or a week since I visited.  It makes me healthy by taking care of me in a way I cannot do alone.  Yesterday it failed me.  I turned it on, it powered up, ran for a minute and then died.  I turned it on again and the poor thing tried again before powering off.  In desperation, I fled to the interwebs for answers.  I didn't call my husband to save me.  I didn't yell for tech support.  I sought to help my friend the treadmill.  After ages of sifting through the inevitable misinformation, I found a manual for my Schwinn 6100p treadmill.  Girding myself for the upcoming challenge, with my cute little pink and purple tool kit in hand, I began the delicate surgery on my dear friend.  Once naked, I inspected each fuse, wire belt, metal thingy, computer board and circuit, and everything else.  After checking that all was secure (and removing the toy mousie that God only knows how it got in there) I broke out the lube.

I sprayed under the running belt and along the rotating drums to reduce friction.  Apparently, this should be done regularly.  Oops!  So I lubed the hell out of him.

Then I gave his bits and pieces the blowing of his life.  He's never been blown like that thanks to a big ol can of compressed air.

Sparkly clean, not a speck of dust, primed for performance.

I plugged it back in.  Held my breath.  Pushed the power and start button.

It works!  I fixed it all by myself.  Now back on to the task of letting my treadmill help fix ME.






Moral of the story:  To do routine maintenance on yourself, your equipment might need some too.