What have you fettled today?

[Paul]

Junior's car, a 2017 vw golf.
Wipers: 10 mins.
Wing mirror glass: 10 mins.
Headlight bulb: 5 hours.
...

That is some heroic fettling 

As with most modern cars, the production line starts with the headlight bulbs suspended on stalks, and they build the rest of the car around them.

[Paul]

Made a derailleur alignment check tool for 135mm OLD frames. 

...

Finally cured the noise.
Found what looked like too much axial float in the Guide Pulley.
Measured the bush sizes.
Decided to grind off 0.3mm (12thou) from the length of the inner bush, reducing the float to 0.5mm (20thou) and that did the trick. No more little clonks under load.

Well that was a battle!

Also very impressive. How on earth did you figure it was the pulley?

[Paul]

Indeed. It got me wondering whether the tubes and cores could be sold separately, but then I remembered that I've only had to replace one core in 30 years of cycling, so the faff would hardly be justified.

I will be removing the (good) valve cores from otherwise knackered (beyond patching) tubes in future though.

Ha! The god of valve cores must have been listening because after 30 years of problem-free valve core use, yesterday I had my second failure!

What does the panel recommend? Some sort of sacrifice?

[CAMRAMan]

Framed and mounted my Three Colours Blue, White & Red posters that I've had in storage for possibly 20 years. White and Red are 40" x 30" and the frames weren't the finest quality, so much swearing ensued. Looks good now they're on the wall and I shall have a little moment every evening knowing that Irène Jacob is watching over me.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Rebuilt the front wheels on HK’s recumbent for faster tyres.

[JefO]

Made a derailleur alignment check tool for 135mm OLD frames. 

...

Finally cured the noise.
Found what looked like too much axial float in the Guide Pulley.
Measured the bush sizes.
Decided to grind off 0.3mm (12thou) from the length of the inner bush, reducing the float to 0.5mm (20thou) and that did the trick. No more little clonks under load.

Well that was a battle!

Also very impressive. How on earth did you figure it was the pulley?

I had changed everything that it could be, so started changing everything it couldn't be. 

[T42]

Swapped chains on the eBrute.

[JefO]

Indeed. It got me wondering whether the tubes and cores could be sold separately, but then I remembered that I've only had to replace one core in 30 years of cycling, so the faff would hardly be justified.

I will be removing the (good) valve cores from otherwise knackered (beyond patching) tubes in future though.

Ha! The god of valve cores must have been listening because after 30 years of problem-free valve core use, yesterday I had my second failure!

What does the panel recommend? Some sort of sacrifice?

Have a BBQ? Some of an animal normally gets sacrificed when I cook on one.

[Jaded]

Yesterday I spent a several of hours feeding 30m of pressure washer drain cleaning pipe down a poo pipe that needed cleaning.

Very satisfying.

[andrewc]

Yesterday I spent a several of hours feeding 30m of pressure washer drain cleaning pipe down a poo pipe that needed cleaning.

Very satisfying.

    The Picolax thread is that way......

[MattH]

Along those lines, https://www.youtube.com/@TheDrainUnblockers  is strangely compelling viewing

[robgul]

Yesterday I spent a several of hours feeding 30m of pressure washer drain cleaning pipe down a poo pipe that needed cleaning.

Very satisfying.

Yep - I find the use of my drain rods (I have 2 sets) very satisfying - memorably one Christmas morning, when I was on crutches having had an arthroscopy the day before, rodding out the neighbour's blocked drain.  Nice.

[JefO]

Not wishing to brag  about such a horrible thing....
When I worked, I spent a lot of time doing the very thing this thread has gravitated to.
Not on a domestic scale...
Oh no...
Think way bigger...
Hospitals.
When you have seen a big blockage (in excess of a tonne) suddenly start rapidly flowing, due to your actions (prodding with drain sticks / mole jet blasting / rotating spring rodding) you certainly get a sense of satisfaction and relief - because you know that the ground floor toilets are not going to continue overflowing for much longer.

Not so much BTSIDIGTTS, more, got the full length protective suit.

[T42]

Yes...  I did a system for a company that surveyed municipal sewage systems.  They covered the 3D geometry and inspection side rather than fatberg disposal, but they had the full protective gear and safety-line kit for their guys and a couple of sewer-crawling robots.  There was always a certain undefinable arrière-goût to the coffee when I visited.

---o0o---

Today I haz fettled our French income declaration, and a right black-enamel bastard* it is too.  It's all on line, and even though they already know what the French pension system paid us it's bloody complex and bristling with fings the meaning whereof know I not.  Drawing pension from 3 different sources means an extra declaration to fill with gems such as the rate at which the contribution générale de solidarité applies to the pittances HMG and BRD shove our way, and which I have no way of knowing. Gah.

Anyway the bloody thing's done FWIW, which is a 10% penalty if I've screwed it up. Bleh.  Think I'll award myself a Proustian madéleine and a cappu now, and watch a brain-rotting flick on Newtflux.

* Norn-Ironic for nasty.

[Mr Larrington]

Took hedge trimmer, Saw ov Doom and secateurs to the jungle that obscures the front aspect of Larrington Towers.  Tomorrow I will be able to get the Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle out without making like Colonel Blashford-Snell* in the Otrato Swamp.

* probably known as “Blashers” to his chums.  TCTF: he provided some very realistic-looking mushroom clouds in the Libyan desert for an exercise in which the then-Captain Larrington was involved.

[cycleman]

Did you uncover any 🐻?

[MattH]

Chopped up some scaff boards to make some accessible ramps from the house to the patio (a 12 inch drop) and patio to lawn (6 inches). The problem is that our dog (a shih tzu) is ageing and almost blind, and recently has found it hard to make that leap of faith out of the house, or jump back in. In is especially tricky as he needs to be sure the door is open, otherwise he'd jump a foot into the air and bang what little nose he has.

Now he can walk in an out on his own, and get down onto the lawn easily.

Also spent some time cleaning the pistons on the front brakes of one of my P2Ws, then doing a full brake fluid change. This particular bike is (anecdotally, from users) very sensitive to old fluid, so best to change it annually.
And got a new rear tyre fitted, as the last one got a large bit of flint in it leading to a bigger hole than I felt comfortable plugging - my usual mushrooms wouldn't hold, I had to use magic string. At least I was 3/4 through the life of that tyre as they are getting very expensive. (£168 fitted to a loose wheel).

[Pingu]

Fettled (mostly) starling shit off the patio. Which was nice.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Fettled (mostly) starling shit off the patio. Which was nice.

Baldrick will make you a capuccino...

[andrewc]

Replaced a knackered inner tube on my blue bike,  reattached the towing hitch for the Carry Freedom trailer.   Got the trailer out of the loft , put it back together & pumped the tyres up.


I've not used the storage heater in my bedroom for several years & I want to put a shelf unit in the space where it is.  It plugged into a mains socket so no wiring to bother about.  Unscrewed it from the wall & manhandled it outside.   Various websites say Creda didn't use asbestos after 1975 & this is mid 80's, but I still wore a facemask to take it apart & remove the bricks.   A label says total weight 75 kg.....    you may recall that I live in a top floor flat with no lifts....


There will be a ride to the tip tomorrow.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Swapped the rear tube on my fixed when I discovered it was dead flat when I wanted to ride home.

[drossall]

(At the weekend) replaced the spoke that, rather randomly, broke at the nipple on a recent ride. No real idea what the problem was. Must speak to the builder. Oh no, that was me...

In the process, found this rather catastrophic tyre failure. It's not had that much use, but it's a folding tyre that had been in storage for some years. I can only think that it spent too long folded

[Jurek]

What remains of my hair.
Courtesy of Wahl.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Swapped the rear pedals on the audax tandem back to SPDs and adjusted the headset. Removed the battery headlight to replace the one that jumped off my trike during last weekend’s TT.

Fitted SPDs to HK’s Kinesis.

Checked the measurements of HK’s Trykits and tweaked to match. Fitted Cateye rear lights to the orange Trykit, same as the shiny one. Replaced the damaged plastic cover on a bar end lever with one salvaged from a dead lever.

Tightened the headset on HK’s ICE Micro. She needs to decide on wheel covers or bare spokes.

Replaced a cheap rear light on my trike with a Cateye. Replaced the punctured front tube. Tightened the loose 2.5mm Allen bolts (actually known as sex bolts) on the Gilles Berthoud saddle.

Taped up a cracked rear light on my fixed to weatherproof it and laced the Spa saddle.

HK patched some tubes and repaired some fraying racktop bags and panniers.

[Tim Hall]

What remains of my hair.
Courtesy of Wahl.

I went to the barber in the next village.  They had the good grace not to laugh, or ask "what are you doing here?"