Recent content by spokewrench

I, too, accepted it. After all, the typical resistance of silicone dielectric grease is about 3x10^16 ohms times the thickness in cm divided by the area in cm^2. How could a film be so thin that resistance wouldn't matter? Yet the electrical engineer said that at RCA they would put it on the...

That happened to me because a bike had sat too many weeks or months. I plugged a watt meter into the wall, a timer into the watt meter, and the charger into the timer. (Watt meters and timers can be under $10 these days.) The watt meter gave me an idea of how much charging was going on at the...

Come to think of it, I have a pound of Deoxit Marine Grease, made for electrical connections.

I replaced the controller on my Aventon Abound. Generally, I find e-bike connectors difficult to disconnect, and this was especially bad. Vaguely I remembered a tool. Later I remembered what it was: my hose removal pliers. Using them might require me to put some sort of hose clamp on each half...

Amazon has lots of "gas can replacement spouts" if you can get one with the right threads. Maybe they're standard. https://www.amazon.com/EZ-POUR-40051-Replacement-Spout-White/dp/B00YP3YTXM I see this one has a flame arrester. In 1957, an older friend stunned me by fetching a tin 1-gallon gas...

Until 2 years ago, I'd always ridden with hub gears or no gears. When I finally got a derailleur bike, downshifts while climbing were horribly violent. At 2500 miles I found that the chain pitch was still slightly under 0.5", like new, and I saw no wear on the rails or the cassette. I guess I'd...

The 2.5 gallon can is so many decades old that I don't remember if it was a purchase or a gift. For a few years, it tended to leak around the base of the spout. A new gasket fixed that. The 4 gallon can came from the widow next door about 10 years ago. It was old, and she didn't have the cap to...

Well... if she took custody of your bag to prevent theft, she could not in good conscience surrender it until you had demonstrated that you were the owner and not an opportunist. One Sunday afternoon I passed a billfold on the road. It was on edge, forming a V. That seemed an odd way for a...

Yesterday I switched from semi-metal back to the OE pads in front. With the right tools, it was my smoothest replacement yet. I put my collapsible stool by the front wheel, set at about 12". On a chair beside the stool I put: OE pads and spring, H5 ball-end hex key of good hard steel, spreader...

Remember these? They didn't always work for me. I bought an electric impact driver as an easy way to remove a blade under a mower up on ramps. I don't use it. My usual go-tos are a Craftsman #2 Phillips with an 8" shaft and an unlabeled Klein with a 7" shaft. I like to put a palm on the end of...

I’ve had my Aventon Abound nearly 2 years. Sometimes there was a creak that seemed to come from the hinge of the fold-down steering stem. Lubing didn’t fix it permanently. Recently it got worse. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the steering head, the boxy down tube, the battery in the...

Some say the camming out was not intentional. I think it was. Ford wanted workers to use power tools, and overtorquing could ruin a hole in sheet metal or wood. I'm not sure if the standard drywall screw is Phillips. If it is, maybe it's because camming out can prevent damage.

If I needed a certain 1/4" socket, I might have to check several sets. If it's in a set, it can take time to find the right one. If a set turns over, sorting can take several minutes. So I bought a heavy, well labeled, magnetic holder. Sockets from various sets have filled most of the holes.

Aagh, Phillips! As a technician in 1972 I discovered what we called Reed and Prince. It was a Frearson, invented in England in the 19th Century and produced by Reed and Prince of Worcester MA. The screws were common enough that I kept both kinds of drivers in my tool box. They didn’t cam out...

I hadn't known the Bike Farmer to swear until a customer talked him into installing tubeless tires. I believe he calls them a custom hack. He says bike mechanics often refuse to perform custom hacks because they aren't worth the hassle.