What have you fettled today?

[JefO]

Spent more time reducing the cables on my 1958 bike. This time it was the front brake that got the treatment and 4" of excess has gone in the bin.

Then I fettled the blue handlebar tape right off and put on some beautifully impractical "light tan" Deda tape which looks almost white, time will no doubt take it darker. Also added the (ding-dong) bell, previously mounted on the bars, on the neck of the quill stem, the bar-end mirror was refitted too, on the end of the bars. Reduced the length of the auxilary bar, and refitted the bottle cage and Garmin mount, first to it, then to the bars.

Ordered a seat tube clamp so that I can fit my 105 front derailleur, as the Sora fd currently fitted doesn't change ratios cleanly. This will require packing down to the 28.75mm diameter that the tube is, from the 31.6mm that the clamp is advertised at. So my brain has been mulling that over, basically I need a 1/16" flexible shim.



 

[The Family Cyclist]

After several recent visitations realised was time to replace front tyre on wife's bike so swapped that and repaired a few inner tubes I'd swapped out with slow visitations and hadn't got round to repairing

Also fitted new grips on youngest monkeys bike as hers had started to deteriorate and leave sticky residue

And tonight fitted one of the repaired tubes in the back tyre as another visitation. Bug arse thorn which drew blood from me as well

Have ordered some slime inner tubes which will hopefully deal with the small stuff

[JefO]

Have ordered some slime inner tubes which will hopefully deal with the small stuff

Was getting MTB punctures every week prior to using slime in my tubes, now I always run slimed tubes on my MTBs and Tandems. Major game changer.

[Feanor]

Up at first light, a spring in my step, until I recalled the list of Domestic Chores I had ahead of me.

After breaking my fast, it was to the kitchen, for the Penniless Oaves are returned from the Heathen Lands across the ocean, and are in sore need of proper bread. This takes a few days to prepare, so I flounce around in a cloud of flour making the necessary preparations.

It seems that the fabric of Crumbling Feanor Towers is in need of some attention. The Anbaric Installation (installed by Edison himself, I don't doubt) did expire with a great pop and wheeze some days ago, and is demanding attention. As if that were not inconvenience enough, the baroque pipework which feeds the kitchen faucet has decided to withhold water as it sees fit. This great inconvenience requires me to Do Something About It.

I have been able to make an unsatisfactory temporary repair to the Anbaric Installation, which will do for the time being. The recaltricant pipework is now Top Priority.  I already have the replacement tap, an Italian contraption imported at great expense. Holding it aloft, it seems much like an octopus, with many flexible appendages dangling from it. Tis a straight like-for-like swap, only it involves contorting my unbendy self into the back of the cabinet under the sink with the edge digging into my back.

Giddy with success, I decide to leave it at that for the day, the Anbaric Installation can wait till the morrow. Time then for an agreeable luncheon, followed by an afternoon of fettling one of the Oaves' motor-vehicles in anticipation of their return.

And so to bed.

[De Sisti]

Hewlett Packard (HP)C3180 Photosmart Printer

Failed to get it working, after spending too long trying to sort it out. I even spent £80 on
cartridges, thinking this would solve the problem. On removing the cartridges I did notice
lots of half-dried up ink. I've clean it out, but that hasn't helped. There is a flashing orange light
on the printer and the letter E is lit up too. I searched online to find out what this meant and
discovered it was to do with the cartridge connections.

It is way out of warranty, but the Hewlett Packard online diagnostics reported that all software
and drivers for the printer were up to date.

Printers are cheap, but I may try to buy one that uses the same cartridges* as my current device.
These are 338 (black & white), 343 (colour)

*HP Deskjet 460, 460c, 460cb, 460wbt, 460wf
*HP Deskjet 5740, 5740xi, 5743

[Feanor]

A new day, and up and at it: the Anbarics need fettling.

Upon springing out of bed, I find I have rather less sproing than I might like: yesterday's contortions are making themselves felt on my unbendy body.  So I take a leisurely breakfast: the croissants and coffee stay my from the need to clamber into yet more dark spaces for a while at least.

Finally, I cannot avoid it any longer and I don my tatty work-clothes and open The Hatch of Doom.
Anbaric work is actually about 10% messing with wires, and 90% negotiating access to them with the Spiders who hold dominion over these dark spaces.

My knees will likely never recover from crawling from joist to joist. It was like a scene from Alien, scrambling along the ducts, but with less fire and aliens, but more knee pain.
The cables were wrangled and fixed, and I reversed my way out banging my head on joists only once or twice which is a surprisingly small number for me.

There is a brief period where I think a new fault has appeared: my meter readings are all askew! But it turns out it was just Standard-Grade Fuckwittage on my part, I'd left something accidentally connected when running the tests. Idiot Boy. Sit in the corner.

I now have aches and pains everywhere, and plan to spend the rest of the day in a state of rest and repose.

[Ian H]

I managed to ding the rim on the back wheel of the Omega on Wednesday (water-filled pothole).  So yesterday I dragged my last 36h Openpro (old style) from the garage loft and swapped them over. 

Small complication was the spring retaining wire on the nipple tool breaking.  I know there is a spare here somewhere, but I couldn't find it, so made an adequate replacement from a strand of brake cable. Spares ordered for future use.

[The Family Cyclist]

A few weeks ago adjusted the levers on my tourer that i use for commuting(drop bar levers for v brakes). Friday coming up to a big roundabout on the hoods, give it the beans and lever moved alarmingly. Couldn't fix at work as the Allen head is too far in to access with a multi tool so first job today was sorting that. Glad I had a set of ball ended allen keys.

Then put the slime tubes in wife's bike (see my previous post)

My neighbour then asked if could fit a new castor wheel on her bookcase, should have said no as turned out wasn't a direct replacement so took a lot longer then expected

Then round a friends to help dismantle, move and remantle or as some would say reassemble a wardrobe

[Afasoas]

Brought a circa 1993 Aiwa personal stereo back to life. Tediously removed what was left of the old belt and fitted the replacement.

Whilst I was in there, a piece of plastic dropped out. I couldn't see where it'd come from. On reassembly, I found it worked well in the reverse direction, but playing the tape forwards results in audio that is played backwards. The piece of plastic was attached to an actuator that depresses as microswitch that changes the active tracks on the tape head. I don't know whether I broke it during the disassembly or whether it was already broken given that the 'walkman' was given to me.

Sadly I don't treally have the time at the moment to try and fix this so I will just have to be content to play tapes in one direction. (Not listen to One Direction!). I think I could "plastic weld" a repair but that involves desoldering the tape head connector and the front panel connector (which has at least 20 pins).

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Replaced a taillight bracket on my fixed that was broken in the workplace’s bike room earlier this week. Replaced a very worn Etrex bracket with one from garage stock.

Flintmined the tyres on HK’s orange trike and readjusted the brakes after she had washed it.

[MattH]

Doing some reorganising of my home automation stuff left some zigbee plugs spare after I'd replaced them with ESPHome ones due to radio coverage issues.
So I thought I'd use one to turn my trainer on and off in the pain cave, as I often forget to unplug it and plugging/unplugging is a bit awkward. Should have been straightforward, other than integration with the Megalodon Triple Knob macropad I use to control my pain cave laptop as it is small and easier to use than a full keyboard from the trike when pedalling. That turns the cooling fan on and off with a keypress that is programmed to be a high F key using Vial on the macropad and received by AutoHotKey on the laptop. it took me a bit of time to figure out the incantation to turn on rather than toggle over the web interface - I need to use curl to call the Home Assistant web API via AutoHotKey, and the docs can be a bit opaque. Then got into quote-escaping hell trying to figure out how to change the AutoHotKey script into a batch file to execute during windows login.

Finally got it sorted though - so when the laptop gets logged in as me the trainer powers on automatically (I only use that laptop for the trainer). Then when I'm done a single keypress on the macropad powers down the fan, the trainer and the laptop.

[Hot Flatus]

Sorted out stiff front mech on gravel bike. You can run outer all the way to mech on recent Shimano mech. Shortened both outers and fitted inline adjusters. Then bled rear brake, wrapped bars and topped up sealant.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Fitted Ortlieb accessory mounts to a pair of Back Rollers  and the other Front Roller pannier. Now HK can fit bottles or pockets to suit her preferences.

Flintmined the front tyre on HK’s orange trike after fixing a slow leak. Swapped SPDs between trike and Kinesis to better suit her preferred shoes.

Swapped out the cleats on my SPD shoes. Popping feet out halfway round a fast corner on a trike is no fun = multi-release cleats, just say no kids.

[rogerzilla]

I bought a job lot of Moulton F-frame forks (and a frame I didn't need) for a fiver a few weeks ago, so stripped the forks to see what good parts there are.  Not bad: two good intact bellows, two good top bushes (the other was too worn - the diameter needs to be as close to 26.0mm as possible, and this was more like 25.75) and three good, if rusty, spring sets.  The metal parts and the splined lower bushes can always be reused - just fit the lower bush in a new orientation where it has least slop.

The outer steerers and crown races also look good.  One fork had no outer steerer but it came with a crown race loose on the inner steerer.


*the repro Moulton Preservation ones are too large in my experience, and jam the fork solid

[fimm]

On Saturday I managed to fit mudguards to my Cheap Folding Bike. I had expected to order something and find that it did not fit, so I was very pleasantly surprised when the mudguards I ordered fitted and were actually not to much of a PITA to fit. (It did take me couple of hours, but that's due to me faffing and reading the instructions several times for each step.)

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Swapped pedals between my fixed and HK’s Kinesis to better suit our SPD and SPD-copy cleats.

Swapped the front tube on my fixed and removed large amounts of glass from the tyre this morning. The tyre will need to be replaced once I get home from work, along with the contents of my tool bottle.

[sam]

Rattling sound. The culprit:



Always use the right tool for the job. It just makes life easier.



This is not an endorsement of Bontrager so much as it is of the humble Allen key. Though Allen doesn't seem very humble.



Turn clockwise to tighten. Or counterclockwise. I forget.



Next task, to be completed in the fullness of time: actually finding a matching bolt, the last one having fallen out somewhere along the way.


That's just wrong.

[Jayjay]

Our internet. The new router appeared to work for several days, as it happened this was because of the new cable being plugged into the phone faceplate thing. This connector plate had corroded somewhat, beyond the point of repair by contact cleaner. Temporarily fixed by me removing the thing and plugging in a dusty old microfilter to the remaining hardware. Kcom sent a replacement part next day, delivered by one of their engineers and we now have connection   
BN - one of the dogs chewed my screwdriver handle, requiring heat gun treatment to the said handle, to melt back the chavelled bits.

[sam]

chavelled

New word for me, thanks.

[JefO]

New clamp finally arrived from Wiggle, and it is nicer than the one that I bought from Amazon (when the Wiggle package failed to arrive a week and two days ago), so I finally fitted the 105 Front Derailleur, and fettled it to get the scuffing noises out.

Then after testing with a short ride, rode the British bike to my local car spares shop (Autocare at Tarpots) with the front pads from my 29er, and bought a set of brake pads and some 9sp chain links for my that. I get a great discount in there as I am related to the owner, but I go there simply because they are the closest shop that stocks some bike bits.

Fitted the new pads in the front of the 29er, and fitted the old front pads in the rear. The old rear pads then went in the saddle bag, as they have enough meat left on them, to get me home from the furthest away I am ever likely to be.

[canny colin]

Cut out the bottom brake mount on the new to me , Airnimal Chameleon  frame . Ready for the 650c ( 571 ETRO ) conversion .

[JefO]

Rattling sound. The culprit:



Always use the right tool for the job. It just makes life easier.



This is not an endorsement of Bontrager so much as it is of the humble Allen key. Though Allen doesn't seem very humble.



Turn clockwise to tighten. Or counterclockwise. I forget.



Next task, to be completed in the fullness of time: actually finding a matching bolt, the last one having fallen out somewhere along the way.


That's just wrong.

It took me longer than it shoud have to get the humour of your post Sam. Whereabouts are you based? I might have a matching bolt.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Cut out the bottom brake mount on the new to me , Airnimal Chameleon  frame . Ready for the 650c ( 571 ETRO ) conversion .

Have a close look for cracks in that SH Chameleon frame before you finish your conversion. Airnimal had a phase of cracking frames some years ago.

[Mrs Pingu]

Horble pelmet and ghastly tart's boudoir blind be gone!
2023-11-24_06-04-26 by The Pingus, on Flickr

I also took the bedroom curtain track to bits to fit a curtain overlap device on it.

Only bashed my bonce once on a door frame and gave myself 2 blood blisters trapping my digits in the pliers when trying to prise the end off the track....
And now the mess above the blind is going to bug me. Pingu needs to get busy with the jigsaw and some trim...

[pumpkin]

Tyre stuck to the rim tonight when I had a puncture. Never had that before. Eventually got it free. That YouTube tells me red rubber grease does the trick of preventing that adhesion