vifferman
25th June 2004, 14:47
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.:rolleyes:
Crap Thing #1: The weather looked fine, mild and sunny, but a minute later, it starts to spit, and look all threatening and grey. :doh:
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? :niceone:
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??!?:eek5:
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. :thud:
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. :Oops:
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.:cool:
Valuable Lessons Learned:
One hour isn't enough for even a simple task like butchering your chain.
Especially if you Use Crazy Methods and Tools (tm).
But it's more exciting than a lunch-hour at Cubicle Hell.
Don't mix high-speed and low-speed rotational tools.
Shit Happens.
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.:rolleyes:
Crap Thing #1: The weather looked fine, mild and sunny, but a minute later, it starts to spit, and look all threatening and grey. :doh:
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? :niceone:
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??!?:eek5:
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. :thud:
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. :Oops:
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.:cool:
Valuable Lessons Learned:
One hour isn't enough for even a simple task like butchering your chain.
Especially if you Use Crazy Methods and Tools (tm).
But it's more exciting than a lunch-hour at Cubicle Hell.
Don't mix high-speed and low-speed rotational tools.
Shit Happens.