Short Lunchtime, Long Story.

[vifferman]

OR:
Noontime Noonah
What do you do when work is REALLY boring (again), and it's lunchtime, and you desperately need to get away from Cubicle Hell? Well, if you live 15 minutes ride from work, you could go home. I do, so I did.


Crap Thing #1: The weather looked fine, mild and sunny, but a minute later, it starts to spit, and look all threatening and grey.
Too freakin bad - it looks fine over on the North Shore, and I'm going anyway, even if I get wet.

So I arrive home, turn off the alarm, put the bike in the gargre. Now - what to do... what to do... ??
I know - I usually get grumbled at if I work on the bike ("Do you REALLY have to dismantle that thing EVERY weekend?!?"), so what better to do than some covert and unnecessary bike maintenance?
Hmmmm... Since I dropped a tooth on the front sprocket (cut it off with a hacksaw, y'know), the chain is a bit long, and I've nearly run out of adjustment. Time to shorten it? Can I do it in my lunch hour? Probably not, but WTF. :sneaky2:
What weapons to use to remove the links....

Crazy Idea #1 (number 3, if you don't count going home at lunchtime, and doing bike maintenance): Now I happened to know that an abrasive bit thingo (die grinder stone??) in my toolbox has the same shaft diameter as my router bits, and I've been looking for a use for my laminate trimmer, apart from, well, trimming laminate. Out with the trimmer, off with the trimmer bit, and in with the die grinder stone thingummy. Crank it up to do a pre-grinding test. Ooooer.. it's a bit unbalanced, and vibrating a bit. 'A bit' very rapidly turns into a LOT! Then a freaking lot! Holy Crapola Batman!! Am I gonna get my arms ripped off??!?
Crap Thing #2: Holding a laminate trimmer spinning at 28,500 rpm, with a maniacally unbalanced bit. This takes all my strength, and both hands, so how the fuck do I turn the bastard off?!? Eventually, I manage to flip the (tiny) switch by putting the crazy whirling dervish bastard of a thing near my knee, and I guess somehow knee and switch make contact (dunno, I couldn't see, coz the trimmer and my arms and eyeballs were vibrating so much). And it slows to a stop. Phark!!
Well that was exciting.
Crap Thing #7: The shaft of the abrasive stone is now bent almost at right angles. I manoeuvre my arms, eyes and teeth back into their normal positions, remove the stone from the laminate trimmer, and check the fooking thing still works. Yup. Hide the evidence in the cupboard.

Hmm. What to use. Bench grinder? Drill? I can't see myself holding the bench grinder, so I'll try drilling the head off a pin.
Yeah, right! The automatic centre punch bounces off, leaving nary a scratch. Alright then. Bench grinder it is. I don't want to remove the chain, because that means I'll have to bleed the clutch afterwards. Plus this is my lunch hour, which is 60 minutes you know, and I've already used 25 minutes, and it takes 15 to get back to work. So, I remove the clip from the link (Yeah, yeah, I know; you're supposed to use a rivet link on 530 chains on powerful bikes, but it was like that when I got it, and I can't find out the chain brand, so I can't get a rivet link for it). I carefully park the end of the chain and the grinder on the floor next to each other, plug some electrickery into the grinder, put my foot on the grinder to stop it dancing around the floor of the gargre, and away we go.
A minute or so later, the ill-fated link has no heads on the pins, and I lever the side plate off.
A bit of reinstallation and adjustment later, the rear axle is now as nearly far forward as it can go, the chain slack is within permissible parameters, and I'm sweating like a pig. And my lunch-hour has morphed into my lunch-hour-and-forty-minutes. As long as I'm back at work before it's time to go home I should be alright. I hope. Maybe.
Better adjust the rear shock preload while I'm at it. Done.

Now for the ROAD TEST (aka Going Back to WOrk). I take it easy, in case the New! Improved! shorter wheelbase dumps me on my ear. Hmm. Seems OK. Let's give it a bit of throttle! Whoa, Neddy!! Yup, it sure does wheelie easy! A bit more testing round the Backstreet Tourist Route To Work(tm) reveals that (a) it isn't an Uncontrollable Wheelie Monster, and (b) it handles no worserer than it did before I bastardised it. Kewl.


Valuable Lessons Learned:

1. One hour isn't enough for even a simple task like butchering your chain.
2. Especially if you Use Crazy Methods and Tools (tm).
3. But it's more exciting than a lunch-hour at Cubicle Hell.
4. Don't mix high-speed and low-speed rotational tools.
5. Shit Happens.

[Wenier]

hahha nice to hear you eventually got back to work, sounds like fun with the stone unbalanced

[750Y]

lol, good effort. hope the boss didn't mind/notice...

[James Deuce]

Bahahaaa

Nicely done, old bean!

[vifferman]

lol, good effort. hope the boss didn't mind/notice...

Mind/notice what? The wild wheelies? The even crazier-than-usual face?
Nah, I knew he had a meeting at 1 PM, and most meetings around here blather on for ages, so there was some leeway to be had.
No-one else noticed, as everyone here takes lunch at different times.:sneaky2:

[Hitcher]

Makes a change from hammering nails into the wall with a stapler or using scissors to remove screws!! A great read. Well done!

[Ghost Lemur]

Nice job fs, good to see the #8 wire attitude alive and kicking in Auckland. What "vital maintainence" is next on the agenda?

[speedpro]

High speed rotating things can be a menace in the wrong hands. I lent my high speed electric grinder to a mate to enlarge the holes in his crankcases where the cylinders go - BIG bore sleeves you know. Anyway the meaty 8-flute cutter dug in and did a few laps of one hole and then jumped out. Somehow it took a chunk out of him and a swipe at the power cord as well before he managed to sort it out. Carbide cutter at 25000rpm - he was lucky!

[vifferman]

High speed rotating things can be a menace in the wrong hands.

The hands were OK; it was just a dumb idea, I guess.
I've had one other incident (not my fault) - a router bit shattered when I was using it. Luckily, it shot out away from me.

[Gummybear]

Good read!

[FROSTY:Me]

well at least ya got to RIDE back to work. Would have been worse if ya had to catch a taxi back

[vifferman]

well at least ya got to RIDE back to work. Would have been worse if ya had to catch a taxi back

Like that would happen! I had two cars to choose from, and if the bike had been disabled, it might've been a good excuse to take the afternoon off.....