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#1
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It's so good to have resources
Just wanted to offer my greatest thanks to r.b.t., Sheldon Brown, Park Tools, et al. After hanging around here for a while, I finally got up the nerve and found the time to tear apart and service (clean, inspect, grease, re-assemble and adjust) the bottom bracket on my '86 Trek 400. It needed it. The bike has got to be much, much happier now - with a shiny clean drivetrain and everything. The only funky noises now are one squeaky shoe/cleat (at least I think that's what it is) and a little rattling from the old frame-mounted U-lock. Next challenge: Truing wheels (without just making them worse). |
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#2
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It's so good to have resources
Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical
approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. |
#3
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It's so good to have resources
Next challenge: Truing wheels (without just making them worse).
Wheels are easy, if you accept that you sometimes learn the right thing to do by doing something wrong. Which means it's always best to practice first on an old wheel you've got lying around. Wheels are easier than you think, but don't try to do much about "hop" (up & down areas) which, in all likelihood, are actually deformed (dented). Spoke tension isn't likely the cause of the dent, nor will it be a solution. Since your bike is rather old, you might try a couple spoke nipples and see if they turn easily and, if not, get some penetrating oil and let it soak into the nipples for a day or two before trying again. It's possible that they could be totally seized (in which case you either rebuild the wheel with new spokes or just keep riding it until it's too irregular to be useful). --Mike Jacoubowsky Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA "Dan O" wrote in message ... Just wanted to offer my greatest thanks to r.b.t., Sheldon Brown, Park Tools, et al. After hanging around here for a while, I finally got up the nerve and found the time to tear apart and service (clean, inspect, grease, re-assemble and adjust) the bottom bracket on my '86 Trek 400. It needed it. The bike has got to be much, much happier now - with a shiny clean drivetrain and everything. The only funky noises now are one squeaky shoe/cleat (at least I think that's what it is) and a little rattling from the old frame-mounted U-lock. Next challenge: Truing wheels (without just making them worse). |
#4
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It's so good to have resources
On May 29, 11:48*am, Tim McNamara wrote:
Congratulations! *With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. * There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. *There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. |
#5
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It's so good to have resources
Tim McNamara wrote:
Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Jay Beattie wrote: Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. All that is true but in another perspective, we often note that even home basement engine builders send out valve seat grinding. I'll sew a simple gash, but I wouldn't touch a compound fracture if I had a choice. I'm undefeated in small claims court (pro se) but I wouldn't buy a house without competent counsel. Draw the pain-pleasure line where you are comfortable. At some point, an expert's time is cheap. -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** |
#6
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It's so good to have resources
On May 30, 10:12*am, A Muzi wrote:
*Tim McNamara wrote: Congratulations! *With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. * There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. *There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Jay Beattie wrote: Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. *For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. All that is true but in another perspective, we often note that even home basement engine builders send out valve seat grinding. I'll sew a simple gash, but I wouldn't touch a compound fracture if I had a choice. I'm undefeated in small claims court (pro se) but I wouldn't buy a house without competent counsel. Draw the pain-pleasure line where you are comfortable. At some point, an expert's time is cheap. Whether a person should make the purchase and learn to use the tools is a whole other issue! I took the plunge many years ago and have gotten many hours of enjoyable frustration from my tools. There are still a few things that I might have done by a shop -- like facing and cutting threads, etc. Apart from whether to own tools or whether to do your own, exotic repairs, I just think that tools are a great value in the grand scheme of things. I bought my Park stand in 1979/80 for $129 or $139 (my memory is now slipping), and you can get the same stand for about $30 more today ($161 at Colorado Cyclist). I pay $40 more for a single decent rim than I did in 1979 -- and $60 more for a sew-up (like a Vittoria CX/CG). And if I bought a top-end Assos jersey, I would be paying $280 or so more ($320 for an Assos SS 13 at Colorado Cyclist -- love that Nazi designation). I could almost get two Park TS2s for the price of one Assos SS 13. Crash in that sucker and use the rags to wipe your tears -- tears over your financial loss and not your wounds (Andrew could sew up the wounds, but probably not the jersey). -- Jay Beattie. |
#7
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It's so good to have resources
In article ,
A Muzi wrote: Tim McNamara wrote: Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Jay Beattie wrote: Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. All that is true but in another perspective, we often note that even home basement engine builders send out valve seat grinding. I'll sew a simple gash, but I wouldn't touch a compound fracture if I had a choice. I'm undefeated in small claims court (pro se) but I wouldn't buy a house without competent counsel. Draw the pain-pleasure line where you are comfortable. At some point, an expert's time is cheap. A few years back I put in a window in my house that the previous owner had taken out and sheetrocked over on the inside and sided over on the outside. I worked as a glazier for seven years in high school and college and amassed a reasonable amount of applicable skills in the process. So I figured I could do this and, as it turned out, I could and did. But it took a week off of work- between not having the correct tools and having to jury rig stuff as a result, needing to learn a few carpentry skills I didn't have, etc. not to mention the stress of having to deal with the weather and such. It would have, in the long run, cost less to have a journeyman do it than it did to do it myself. Experts get it done faster and better. |
#8
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It's so good to have resources
On May 29, 8:40 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On May 29, 11:48 am, Tim McNamara wrote: Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. I had completely torn apart my Dept Store "stingray" as a young kid in the '70s, and thereby figured out the basic concepts of cup and cone bearings, etc. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Tools are a great value. One of (my) life's most inarguable core truths. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. I was incredibly lucky. I answered a CL ad for a touring bike (which was already sold), but the guy had a really, really nice Park workstand (which I needed). When I bought the workstand he threw in a wheel truing stand (again, a really, really nice one), a big box of parts, and a big bucket of tools - set me up really, really good. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. I don't live anywhere like Manhattan, but I often justify my investments with the rationale that "I could be spending it on much worse things" ;-) |
#9
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It's so good to have resources
On May 30, 10:12 am, A Muzi wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote: Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Jay Beattie wrote: Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. All that is true but in another perspective, we often note that even home basement engine builders send out valve seat grinding. I'll sew a simple gash, but I wouldn't touch a compound fracture if I had a choice. I'm undefeated in small claims court (pro se) but I wouldn't buy a house without competent counsel. Draw the pain-pleasure line where you are comfortable. At some point, an expert's time is cheap. Agreed - another of life's truths. I love and respect the experienced masters immensely, but the professional can only spend so much time on *my* bike, whereas I can diddle with it myself forever (not necessarily a good thing, I know, but there we have it). (I'm undefeated in out-of-court formal arbitration, BTW - also pro- se :-) |
#10
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It's so good to have resources
On May 30, 10:12 am, A Muzi wrote:
Tim McNamara wrote: Congratulations! With some information, curiosity and a methodical approach there is very little you can't learn to fix on your own. There are a few items that need tools beyond the average home mechanic, but those are relatively rare. There are some tasks that are done infrequently enough to make it not worthwhile to invest in the tools (headset presses, for example) for home use. Jay Beattie wrote: Tools are a great value. A Park truing stand (including shipping) is less than the price of one night at the Mariott in Jersey City. For the price of one night in a dive on Manhattan, you can get the Park truing stand plus a headset press, drop-out alignment tool, dishing tool and a star nut setter. Then you can build a bike, go on tour and camp for cheap. -- Jay Beattie. All that is true but in another perspective, we often note that even home basement engine builders send out valve seat grinding. I'll sew a simple gash, but I wouldn't touch a compound fracture if I had a choice. I'm undefeated in small claims court (pro se) but I wouldn't buy a house without competent counsel. Draw the pain-pleasure line where you are comfortable. At some point, an expert's time is cheap. I should have added that the expert's time is absolutely one of those resources referenced in the subject line that are *so* good to have. |
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