Mostly lemon based

Category: I’m a mechanic me…

  • Sticker Shock

    So, I battled through the hideous traffic to get the wheels to the bike store for rebuilding. I’d nicked the wheels off what is to be Kathryn’s Raleigh city beater for this – on the basis that they said ’20 quid each per wheel’. This statement was true, but only in the sense that the actual labour cost is 20 quid.

    When I discussed it with them, I asked about the spokes and the guy said it’d be ‘a bit extra’ for the spokes ‘if they need replacing’. I assured him they probably would. Probably all of them. This did not prompt him to comment on the cost of spokes.

    This was unfortunate.

    It turns out that they charge £1 per spoke. Given the 40 spoke rear wheel, this is ‘more than I’d like to pay’ for the moment. Granted, rusty rims eat through brake shoes, but there’s pain, and there’s dear god, how much. Especially given that the sturmey archer 3 speed hub in the borrowed wheel is also dead. I am contemplating the fearsome ‘looking at it’ – although I’ve currently applied a process of pouring lots of penetrating oil into it and hoping. If I’d’ve been quoted that before the choice would have been an easy one. It’s waaay cheaper to get a pre-made westwood rimmed wheel, and yes, the spoke count’s wrong, but hey, if anyone has figs available, they’re welcome to give them, but I certainly don’t. I can keep the old rims for the moment I become independently wealthy, perhaps through sales of my awesome stocks of junk.

    On the plus side, I can use the spare rim to rebuild my 40 spoke rear when I get around to fixing the BSA hub, and I’ve now found somewhere that charges far less per spoke, so the next wheel should be much cheaper.

  • I never thought it’d be this hard…

    I gave away my C-Spanner that came with the MZ, with the MZ. It was part of the tool roll, and while I delighted in it being a bit of East German history, I felt it was fair that it stayed with the bike. I thought about it and, having sold the DAF, had no other vehicles that had, or were likely to need a C-Spanner.

    And I thought, it’s only a C-Spanner. Hardly impossible to obtain.

    Apparently that was an inaccurate assumption.

    Rather than use the internet, I decided I’d get it from a local supplier. Foolish, apparently. And indeed, I assumed that it’d be easy to do. I mean, it’s a C-spanner (or hook wrench), how hard can it be.

    So I went to Bristol Bike Workshop. They could order them for me, or I could bring my bike in and they’d let me use the workshop tools… which is very lovely, but not really a long term solution and involves me putting the bike into and out of the car several times, and several trips across bristol. So I rang around, and Halfords, oddly enough said ‘oh yes, we have several options for them’. This morning I trecked, following this misspoken evidence to Halfords, who do have one of them as a part of a 35 quid set of bicycle tools.

    Feh, I thought. It’s not even a decent quality one, and since the bracket’s probably not moved since about 1940 it’s probably going to need a fair bit of welly applied to it. I’ll ring around the bike shops, one of them is sure to have one.

    Lots of bike shops informed me that yes, they have them in the workshop, but no, they don’t sell them.

    Lots of them.

    A few could order them in…in a few days.

    Unfortunately, I finished my quest after 12, when I finally gave in and rang back Bristol Bike Workshop, who informed me that sadly, because it’s after 12, it wouldn’t be in until Thursday. When I’m at work. Which is no use at all for me, because at that point I might as well buy the damn thing off E-bay where it’s half the price.

    Gaaaah.

    I’m now waiting on Bristol Tools who said they might be able to get it by tomorrow. They’re trying their suppliers.

    I learn from this that you should never, ever, get rid of tools.

    ETA: Bristol Tools Fucking ROCK. 10 minutes later, and they ring back and say ‘we have one place that has it in stock, and can get you it for tomorrow before lunch’. It is, however, 10 quid extra delivery, which is a bit painful. But it means I can sort my bike before I have to go back to work :)

  • What they don’t tell you

    It’s the subtle creep of things I don’t have time to do that annoys me. While I don’t have time to renovate the house or start converting the car, they’re big projects that will take time. I can intellectually get my head around that. But the fact that the bottom bracket on Molly is a bit ‘clunky’ and clearly needs replacing, and that because it isn’t a ‘pop out the bearing and pop the new one in’ job (because I don’t know what bearing without taking it apart, so it’s a take it apart – work out what I need, put it back together so I can use it for work, order the part, take it apart, replace it – job). And because me and bikes are not yet entirely comfortable with one another, she’s going to have to go to the shop for it.

    Gaaah.

    I hate having other people do stuff for me that I can do myself.

    Gaaaaah.

    Also, it’s more expensive. And weak as I am, stuck in writing dissertation as I am, I’m finding my strength not to spend money on frivolities much reduced.

    Feh.

    This education m’larky is just quietly expensive, in addition to the viciously painfully expensive experience that it visibly is.

  • Minor EV

    So, at some point I’ll probably set up a site devoted to the EV Minor project, egged on to success in this field by Jonny’s Flux Capacitor which is awesome, but also faintly sad, because I really wanted to use that EV myself. Money, as always, being a pig that gets in the way of things.

    Anyhow, so I have some questions to put to my engineering shop, and I’m putting them down here, where I can find them again. (more…)

  • Bad, good, overtired. With photos.

    So, it’s traditional for me to post something after my nights. I was vaguely thinking about looking at my essay* but I am seriously exhausted**. I am quite pleased though, despite the two days of awfulness having failed an essay (where Kathryn spent much time putting me back together and making me feel like a human again), and the exhausting shifts I managed for the first time since I started the job to get on my bicycle at the house and get off my bicycle at the bike rack at work. I didn’t push her up the final hill, I rode up that hill all smooth like. Well, okay, smooth might be overstating it.
    (more…)

  • The fleet grows

    So, today I went on a little jaunt.

    A little jaunt to collect another wee beastie for the fleet. See, a while ago (when the garage got broken into) a charming scrote (who’s name I actually know, thanks to a nice letter from the court system) decided to relieve us of Kathryn’s bicycle. It was a pretty, and modern, 3 speed ‘Giant’ brand bicycle with hub brakes and hub gears. It was incredibly low maintenance and very nice indeed. And I imagine whoever’s bought it from thieving git is very happy with it.

    Anyhow, so I’ve been wondering about how we could replace said bicycle for a while, and wanting to find Kathryn something pretty. I’ve sort of won, in a very kind of…. well… see, here she is:

    Untitled
    (more…)

  • Lifestyle change

    So, despite the hideous weather and a real inclination to light the fire, sit inside and let the rain fall all day I’ve not done that. I’ll grant I was slow to get going, but once I was moving I’ve been productive, useful and frankly, good.

    Having done a little favour for my friends I stopped en-route home to buy some more smoke-free logs for the fire (these are made of compressed wood waste). While they appear to produce an awful lot of carbon low down (the fireplace is really black), I have to say, looking at the top of our chimney, you’d be hard pressed to tell that the fire was going. While it’s a bit of a bugger having a fire going and the upstairs does start to smell a bit smokey, it’s very nice to be heating the house with a CO2 neutral form of heating. Although it’s only really the lounge that it affects…

    Then I got home and inertia set in. I sat and planned an afternoon of activity whilst watching the world go by (in the wet). I poked at my dissertation and e-mailed a person at work that I think is the right person to pass audit requests to. I sat some more. Thankfully, then, Kathryn rang with a task. A sad task, but a task none-the-less. Our 1950s iron has been, forever, tripping the breaker. My response to this having checked it over was to decide to slap a trip-switch in the way of the main RCD which meant at least, in general, it wasn’t throwing the house circuits off.

    I also hunted for a new baseplate, on the basis that the rest of it is adequately insulated, and I suspected that it was the heating element that was on its way out. Well, this morning it passed from on its way, to out. It didn’t collect £200.

    Plugging it in now leads reliably to instant trippage, and a brief examination of it (having stripped it down) shows nothing untoward that’s visible. I was going to dig out my multimeter and test it more, but then realised it doesn’t really matter which bit is faulty. The only spare you can get for it is the thermostat (it astonishes me that you can still get that), and so pretty as it is, the iron is dead.

    I texted my beloved with this sad truth, ate lunch and wandered to the garage to continue progress on the desk. The desktop has been sat irritatingly close to finished for ages. The difficulty being that I needed to sand it some more and hadn’t, well, found the energy to do so. And I was wary of sanding it so far as to lose the “story” of the bits that make it. They are ex-scaffold planks, and despite the weird looks I got for saying I wanted to keep the reinforcing metal strips on them, I wanted to keep the metal strips on them, and the end tags that state the max loading / distance of supports. All of that was stuff I wanted, and I didn’t want to clean them up so far that they just looked like hunks of wood. What’d be the point?

    So with some trepidation, and having measured the rough size of the record deck that’s got to sit on top of the desk, I headed down to the garage (in the rain), stuck on the gas heater, and started work. Having attached the three scaffold planks together I then hacked most of the third one off (really, I needed about 2 inches of it). I then set to with the various sanders, before finally cleaning and varnishing the beast:

    Back to the drawing board...or desk... as it were

    That’s just after the first coat, I’ve popped a second coat of varnish on now…. but first, the good.

    See, we needed a new iron. That much was clear, normally this would be the cue for me to hop into the car and burn rubber. Well, okay, gently warm some rubber. Instead, since the rain had stopped (for the minute at least), I adjusted the brakes on Molly, grabbed my bag and helmet and headed off to Gardiner Haskins. Now, I was debating getting a second hand iron, but I’m not that fit and riding to the second hand places was a bit more of a treck than I really wanted. But I did cycle to the store, fought (thankfully successfully) with the box of the new iron and rode back.

    I’m quite proud of myself. I know it’s only a little thing, but I’m hoping it’s the start of me being more healthy.

    I also managed to squeeze in 2 loads of laundry, so I’m really feeling like I’ve been very, very good. Sadly the sun’s now gone in, but I think I’ve done my bit for today :)

  • Bonus prevarication (getting the stress out)

    So. I’ve got 1500 words to write through this next week (in which I’m on nights). Those 1500 words? They are on a subject that I know about in loose, nursey, I know how to treat it and roughly what the guidelines say* way, but not in a deep ‘I know what the papers say and where they are strong / weak’, so…uh, yeah, I need to read them. Now. Fast. Also, I need to know about audit. I know approximately >< that much about audit processes. I mean, I know what it is and roughly how to carry one out, but I don’t know how to pick one audit method over another. And the book I need? In the post. Maybe. *WAIL*

    On top of which, I start a new job in 11 days time****, to get to which I need to ride my bike (to get it out of the garage, I need to go through a gate that currently has no handle). So it would be useful if (a) My bike had a reflector on it (being as it’s legally required ‘n all) and (b) the gate had a handle on it, so as I can open the gate in the morning to get to work.

    Also, I need to proof read and improve (it definitely needs some improvement) the 3000 word literature review that I’ve written (on a different topic to the 1500 word one, obviously).

    And…our illustrious Volvo has, having destroyed its radiator and been fitted with a new one, decided that at 100,000 miles he’d rather like a new water pump. So the expensive nice coolant I bought to fill the brand new radiator is now slowly gracing the road surface outside our house as it drip-drip-drips its way out of the car. The new pump was only 12 quid (including delivery) – and wasn’t difficult to source – but is, I suspect, going to be an arse to fit and will, I suspect, require a chunk of time that I don’t currently feel I really have available to install.

    On top of all that…my beloved minor’s rebuilt differential, which has always been a little whiney, has decided (I suspect) to shred at least one of its bearings. She’s very, very whiney now and I changed the oil a few days ago wondering if I’d cooked it or it’d leaked out or somesuch. Normally diff oil is pretty much the same colour as it went in, but more runny**. It’s normally yellow (and smells pretty foul, EP90 does). It came out opaque grey. Opaque grey is not a suitable colour for oil coming out of a diff. Nor is the noise it’s making. All that grey used to be ball bearings.

    I’m waiting to find out if it’s still under warranty or if I’m going to have the fun and excitement of getting it re-rebuilt locally (we won’t think about that).

    Oh, and I *was* planning to have my GT550 up and running so that I could use that to get to work in a pinch. Have I done that…? No.

    As the final little set of stressors, I still have no desk, my laptop’s screen is getting flakier and flakier (once I’ve done these two essays I’m going to bite the bullet and take it down to Apple), and the house is no further along than it was a month ago. I am, as it were, ready for the world to chill out a bit.

    Right at this moment I’m feeling a teeeeensy tiny bit stressed.

    * Although, having just read the most recent Cochrane review I’ve just discovered, as with so many things in medicine, we’ve been doing it wrong. See, we (as in the medical profession) largely seem to have assumed that when people are sick sick (Looky here) we should throw all the antibiotics in the universe at them to make them not be sick. New research says, uh, don’t. It says yay to antibiotics but boo to the kitchen sink approach. I need to read it more thoroughly, but my glance at it says giving people multi-antibiotic therapy (which is what, I think, all the protocols I’ve ever seen say) is worse than just giving them one specific kind of broad-spectrum antibug. Basically, you roger their kidneys***. Like with oxygen, and so many other things that seem sensible, when you actually test it turns out you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Arse. Also, the Number Needed to Harm is 4-5 patients. So of the many, many people I’ve given that to over the years….oh lord. This is the problem with doing research, it’s depressing.

    ** This is because the long-long-long chains that make up the thick goopy stuff that goes into a 1960s differential slowly gets chopped into teeny, tiny, shorter chains. But there’s no soot (which is what turns the oil black in an engine).

    *** As in screw them, permanently. This is bad.

    **** While it’s the same job, at the same pay, in the same kind of department I now get ‘Senior’ in my job title. Wahey!

  • I want to ride my bicycle…

    I may have used that title before… err, so, if I have, put it down to a lack of imagination and too much Queen.

    So, I actually made good on my promise to go down to the garage. My bicycle now sports front and rear lights (although the front light is somewhat interestingly placed). I also discovered that my old ‘Mt Zefal’ pump will actually fit on the bicycle’s pump mount (that I discovered today).

    And thus, she looks slightly more like a working bike:

    BSA Stepthrough

    I’ve not yet got around to constructing the skirt guard, but that’s more through a lack of motivation to go and find appropriate nylon string (waxed cotton may indeed be more authentic, but less rotting is my thing).

    I also spent some time switching out the old brake blocks (which were probably 1930s) for new ones (which are less well made). The new ones had a marginally larger screw to hold them on. After some thought I decided that making the hole bigger was probably reasonable as I’m more likely to buy more new brake blocks than get NOS ones – and carefully drilled out the holes in the brake assembly by about 0.05mm. It was just enough that I couldn’t *quite* get the screw through, even with jiggling and force. I doubt it’ll make much difference, and Molly is, at the end of the day, a working bike.

    Having done this came the joy of adjustment. The rear brakes have a nice screw-thread / double locking nut / knurled nut thingie which is fairly easy to tweak and actually very quickly made the back brakes way more effective than they were with the old blocks.

    Brakes

    The front ones, however, I initially had less luck with. They appear to have just the one adjuster which is where the rod coming down from the brake lever meets the tube going up. Where the rod enters the tube is a nut which you can slacken and then adjust the amount of insertion and tighten back up.

    The new shoes are slightly thinner than the old ones were, so this needed adjusting up, but try as I might I couldn’t actually get it so the front brake really did a lot.

    Then I struck the brilliant idea of putting the brake on and wedging it in the ‘nearly on’ position (with a screwdriver handle, because that’s obviously the proper tool). The screwdriver inserted between the n shaped brake shoe carrier and the wheel would, I thought, hold the brake there so I could slacken the adjuster, reposition the lever in the ‘not applied’ position and…. tighten it. Then when I applied the brakes they’d start from only-just-off and the lever would actually pull them with some force against the front wheel.

    Yeah. No.

    What actually happened is the brakes gently pushed the mudguard (against which the screwdriver was resting) downwards, and little changed.

    After several attempts I finally hit upon

    – Gently wedge (always a good start, gently wedging something) a screwdriver handle between the tyre and the mudguard.
    – Apply brakes as hard as you can
    – Gently wedge a second screwdriver between the n shaped carrier and the mudguard (which is now pressing against that first screwdriver)
    – Slacken adjuster
    – Move handle to brakes-off position
    – Tighten adjuster
    – Gently apply brakes and slip out upper screwdriver
    – Release and remove lower screwdriver

    And lo; the brakes actually work. And way more effectively than when she came back from the shop.

    Lights, Brakes, Pump, Gears (well two of ’em, apparently). Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have a bicycle.

    Oh, and before I sign off for the night, one thing that I thought was terribly pretty that I’d not noticed until today, and is just a sign of people who actually care about the finished product…

    Prettiness built in as standard.

    As a side point, if anyone’s wondering where the BSA Service Sheet for the early 3 speed BSA hub, it’s here.

  • An absence of work is sort of a blessing

    So, the Minor is currently without a clutch pedal, the LHD pedal supplied by Charles Ware (who else) failed, and is unservicable. It is, I’m informed, made by welding the pedal to a lump of cast metal, welding to cast metal being notoriously difficult to successfully achieve (in the words of my blacksmith a while back ‘it ain’t gonna be strong enough’). Whether or not other pedals made by Charles Ware are better made I’ll leave for someone more adventurous to find out. I fully intend to avoid purchasing from them in the future, anyhow.

    So JLH are having a custom LHD pedal made. Which means I’ve rented a car because I’m available for Agency work for the next 3 days. Obviously, despite every day running up to my available days having ‘please come to work for us today’ messages arriving, since I’ve been ‘available’ a deadly silence has descended on the universe, and I appear to have spent 100 quid on renting a car that can just stay outside the house :(

    On the plus side, I’ve got my essay to do, the house needs ‘a bit of a tidy’, and we’ve got builders coming to quote; so staying at home might actually be quite handy.

    In other news, I may have killed the G-Wiz’s battery pack. While I firmly remember disconnecting it before leaving it in mothballs at my mum’s, I clearly didn’t, and they were pretty dead. Various other systems on the car seemed pretty unhappy, but we’re trying to revive it….