Blog 

Singapore is a hard place to own a motorcycle, and not for the reasons people assume. It is not distance — most riders here do short trips. It is water and heat.

You get rained on without warning, you ride through standing water, and then the bike sits in 80-something percent humidity until the next trip. Short trips never get the chain hot enough to drive moisture out. For a delivery rider doing stop-start kilometres all day in the wet, a chain that would last 20,000km elsewhere can be stretched and rusty in a fraction of that.

None of that needs an expensive fix. It needs four cans, a rag, and about ten minutes a week.

The chain is where the money is

A worn chain and sprocket set is one of the more expensive routine items on a bike, and it is almost entirely a maintenance outcome rather than a mileage one.

The sequence is clean, dry, then lube. Skipping the clean is why some chains look lubricated and still wear out: fresh lube over old grit turns into grinding paste.

Use Rexco 70 Degreaser on a dirty chain. The foam clings to the links instead of dripping onto the void deck, which both works better and keeps you out of an argument with the town council. Work it in with a brush, wipe it off, let it dry.

Then Rexco 25 High Performance Chain Lubricant, which is the one that actually matters here. It is a synthetic lube with anti-rust additives, high water resistance and an anti-fling formula.

Three things people get wrong with chain lube:

They use general-purpose spray instead. A thin multi-purpose lubricant like Rexco 50 is excellent at many things and poor at this — it washes off in one downpour. Use 50 to free a seized adjuster bolt or a stiff side-stand pivot, not on the chain.

They spray a cold chain. Lube penetrates far better into a chain that is warm from a short ride, so the best moment is right after you get home, not before you set off.

They spray the outside. Aim at the inner run where the rollers meet the sprocket, rotate the wheel through a full turn, then leave it twenty minutes before riding. Spraying and riding immediately flings most of it onto your rim.

And if it has been raining, lube the chain after the ride, every time. That is the single habit that separates a chain that lasts from one that does not.

Brakes: clean, and nothing else

The rule on brakes is simple and absolute. Nothing oily, ever.

Rexco 82 Brake & Spare Parts Cleaner strips brake dust, road grime and oil off discs and calipers and then evaporates completely, leaving no film. That last part is the entire specification.

You need it most in exactly the situation above: chain lube flings onto the rear disc. If that happens, do not ride it off. Clean the disc with 82, let it dry fully, and test the brake gently before you trust it.

It is also what you use before fitting new pads, and the fastest way to see whether a weeping fork seal or a leaking caliper is actually leaking rather than just dirty.

Electrical gremlins are usually just corrosion

This is the most under-appreciated can for a bike in this climate.

An intermittent indicator, a horn that works sometimes, a dash light that flickers, a bike that cranks reluctantly — these are very often a corroded connector rather than a failed part. Humidity and road spray get into multi-plugs, bulb holders, kill switches and ignition connectors, and the green film they leave behind is enough to cause a fault without looking broken.

Rexco 18 Specialist Contact Cleaner flashes off fast, leaves no residue and will not corrode what it touches. Disconnect, spray both halves, let it dry, reconnect. Before you buy a replacement relay or regulator, clean the connectors — it costs a few dollars and it is right more often than it has any business being.

Battery off first, and let it dry fully before reconnecting. And do not reach for a general-purpose oil here — an oil film on a contact traps dust and the fault returns.

If it runs rough and it has a carburettor

Plenty of bikes and small engines in Singapore still run carburettors, and most of their problems are stale fuel. A bike or a generator left standing for a few weeks in this heat leaves gum and varnish behind in the jets and the linkage.

Rexco 81 Carburettor & Injector Cleaner dissolves carbon, varnish and gum, frees a sticking automatic choke and cleans the throttle linkage so the throttle stops hanging.

If your bike is fuel-injected, this still cleans the throttle body and the linkage, which is a genuine job worth doing. It will not reach the injectors themselves — those need an in-tank treatment or a workshop. We would rather tell you that than sell you a can for a job it cannot do.

The four-can kit

For a rider: a 120ml Rexco 25 and a 220ml Rexco 82 under the seat, with a 220ml Rexco 18 and a Rexco 50 at home. That is the whole kit, and it costs less than one chain adjustment at a workshop.

For a small workshop or a delivery fleet: the 500ml sizes of 70, 82 and 18, plus 350ml of 25.

One storage note that matters more here than anywhere else. These are pressurised cans, and a locked bike box or a van in the afternoon sun gets much hotter than people expect. Keep them out of direct sun, and take them inside rather than leaving them baking under the seat all week.

What each number does, in general

If you want the whole range laid out rather than just the bike-specific parts, we wrote a guide to what each Rexco number does.

And if your problem is a seized bolt rather than a chain, start with how to loosen a rusted or seized bolt or WD-40 or Rexco — which spray you actually need.

Come and ask

Both showrooms carry the full range, and we would rather you came in and described the noise than guessed from a product photo.

645 Geylang Road, Singapore 389575 — +65 6546 7446
2 Gambas Crescent #03-19, Nordcom Two, Singapore 757044 — +65 6255 3446

WhatsApp +65 8978 9808, or browse the full Rexco range.