Good gear lube!
 

On my two older ZZs, I tried lubing the gears with a tiny bit of 3 in 1 oil. It worked good, but it picked up every bit of dirt & hair and needed to be cleaned often.

While I was turning the F-150 I just bought into a dually, I got a wild hair and stuck a pencil into the gears while they were spinning. It ground off a little bit of graphite and now it runs MUCH more smoothly than with the oil.


[Edit] BTW, I just held the pencil against the gears long enough to turn the teeth shiny black.

Another thing that works quite nicely is powered graphite (see the small pic at the bottom of this pic collage -> http://www.cmoo.com/~snor/weeds/zipz...race_cases.jpg ), although it can be quite messy.

Yup, the graphite is the way to go. You can get little tubes of the stuff were keys are made in department stores and home improvement centers. I douse the gears and wheel spin points with it and blow off the excess after working it a bit. Works great.