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I think sewing machine oil is mineral oil. This bottle has a zip code, so it's not from before 1963, but it may come from the 1960s - somewhere between Surfin USA and Sugar Sugar. It's Singer oil, and I didn't want my brakes to sing. I took the lever off, inverted it, and squeezed it a couple...

I hadn't heard of the enticer thing. I asked Amazon, and this is what they offered. https://www.amazon.com/WERHY-Electric-Adults-Folding-Bicycles/dp/B0GFN4BM8F/

Almost 3 years ago I bought an Abound with Tektro HD E350 brakes. The front lever would pull farther than the rear. In the past month I've unclamped brake levers twice to change handlebars. There was no sign of leakage, but now I can pull the front lever all the way to the grip. Without being...

I shortened my 72cm Abound bar to a more traditional 54cm to make it easier to stay in control. Their back sweep of 24 degrees was too much after they were shortened, so rotated them down to reduce it to 10 degrees. That rotation produced anhedral, like the wings of a Hawker Harrier or a C5...

I'm often ecstatic when proven wrong because it means I'm smarter than I was. I don't feel so smart if I make the same mistake a couple of years later and remember too late what I'd learned.

This is enlightening to me. Here, Tekton explains that Phillips and JIS drivers are the same. The dot on some JIS screws means that before 1965, the thread pitch differed from ISO. https://www.tekton.com/blog/jis-vs-phillips-screwdriver-tip-geometry-and-fastener-compatibility That explains...

No Pozidriv? No JIS? PZ is common, and I could have used a JIS bit to tighten my shifter. Only hex sockets should be allowed!

In 2018 I installed an SSD in a Mac Mini. Apple figured they lost money every time someone upgraded instead paying their prices for a bigger drive or more memory. I bought an assortment of 64 tiny bits to get the security torx I needed. Now when one of those bits might help me, it takes time to...

Me too, but then I spend time finding one that fits. Is that a dozen crosshead bits?

Was it Phillips? To me, Pozidriv and JIS screws and drivers look the same as Phillips. Phillips has ANSI and ISO specs, as does Pozidriv. The easiest way for me to tell the difference is to take the time to try screwdrivers. As this was a Japanese shifter, the screw was probably JIS. With a...

I'd love to see crosshead screws outlawed. With Allen keys, you have ISO or ANSI specs, and it seems an L with a ball end will do everything better than a crosshead screwdriver. When I see a crosshead, I don't know what I'm looking at. I try my 7" Klein. If that doesn't work, I try my 8"...

I think it was in 2016 that my BIL told me that his big diesel JD would shut off when he attempted some necessary action, maybe raising the scoop. He was supposed to hire a company with a big truck and trailer to haul it to the dealer. He asked me to troubleshoot. I asked if he had a schematic...

That's Aipas, Hindi for "bypass." The company is in Evanston WY. In November, 1868, scuttlebutt said this was to be the end of the line, where the Union Pacific would wait for the Central Pacific, coming from Sacramento. Harvey Booth set up a saloon tent to welcome the Union Pacific. Then the...

In the US, there's always a Dollar General within a mile. In the event of trouble, I can buy a new motor, cable, and propeller for $15 and have the manager install it. My LiFePO4 will supply full power for 45 hours. At 40 mph, that's a range of 1800 miles, or 900 miles if I intend to get back...

I love the recurve of my seat, and it didn't cost nearly $550.

Is your chainguard the smooth ring outboard of the chain ring? I did something like that with my Radrunner. I got a bigger chainring, multiplied the diameter by pi, cut a length of maybe 1/2" vinyl tubing that long, slit it lengthwise, worked it over the teeth, and secured it with little zip...

I switched to a Canadian dry lube because I hated getting grime on my pants or hands. I'd used that chain daily for more than a year, but I didn't clean it except to wipe it. It ran quieter than new. I may have lubed 4 times in the next 18 months of daily riding. I'd apply a tiny drop to each...

Too many in yards, too. The house next door is 800 square feet. A Charger and a Veloster, driven by women, are there at night. There are also a dozen big pickups on that 1/3 acre, most of them 24 hours a day. Fifteen years ago, the homeowner parked his non-functioning pickup beside a tulip...

Was it the quick-release kind? My Radpower bikes had them and I hated them. They would release fast, but they took me longer to put on, and they weren't foolproof, which is bad for a potentially dangerous device. One morning before mounting my Radmission, I shoved it from the side and something...

If they're springy, I guess they're deflopilators. If they simply resist when pushed or pulled fast, I guess they're dampers like BMW used. At normal steering speeds, the hydraulic fluid would squirt past the piston without much resistance. If the bars started going back and forth rapidly, the...