What have you fettled today?

[T42]

Happy to report that a change of pedals eliminated my 'BB' creak. Silence is golden.

HUZZAH !!

There's nothing as satisfying as an eliminated creak.

Yeah, I'm hoping that changing mine will remove the annoying clickety-click-click I'm getting every pedal-rev. If not, the BB is next and the workshop is getting bloody cold these days.

Anyway, today ICBA going out there and settled for circumcising the press-studs on my new Polar HRM strap so that I can use it with my old Ciclosport transmitter.  I use it with en eTrex 30x but the pukka Garmin transmitter would never synch with it.

ETA: changed pedals.

[T42]

Still getting the clicking when pedalling. Bottom bracket prime suspect.  Arse.

[Feanor]

New rear fire brick on the woodburner.
Why is it always the one that requires total disassembly that breaks?

It's a bit of a pig getting all the other ones out first, taking care that they don't disintegrate in the process.


Firebrick by Ron Lowe, on Flickr

[Ian H]

Fitted a new front derailleur on the Omega, the better to cope with the increased range on the triple.  Cleaned three bikes whilst I was at it.

[The Family Cyclist]

Replaced the seal at the bottom of my shower screen. Nothing special except I got it when making the most of plumb centre discount shortly before being made redundant......     I left four yeara ago

[Mrs Pingu]

Still getting the clicking when pedalling. Bottom bracket prime suspect.  Arse.

Chain?

[MattH]

Or, with the weather being cold, the classic one of a plastic toggle on the drawstring of a windproof top gently tapping the frame once a pedal stroke as it swings in time with your body moving.

[T42]

Still getting the clicking when pedalling. Bottom bracket prime suspect.  Arse.

Chain?

Nah, chain is well-lubed, not stretched and not hitting anything.  Could be cleats, of course...

[T42]

Just replaced a duff relay in the service panel down in the cellar, so that our hall lights work again.  It's been at the "hit it three times" stage of its existence for the last 10 years and I've had the replacement since January last year, but it struggled along until Tuesday, when it finally died (sniff).

Local product, too, the relay: made (or at least labelled) in Obernai, along with Kronenbourg, whereof a chum used to be something in management.  Useful bloke to know.

[Mrs Pingu]

Still getting the clicking when pedalling. Bottom bracket prime suspect.  Arse.

Chain?

Nah, chain is well-lubed, not stretched and not hitting anything.  Could be cleats, of course...

I had the same but replaced all sorts off stuff including a brand new BB and finally we put a new chain on and it stopped. There was nothing obviously wrong with the old chain.

[T42]

Sometimes these things aren't amenable to logic. This one's due for another de-wax/rewax in 200k: I suppose I could bring it forward - less of a bore than stripping down the BB.  I'm inclined to leave that to the LBS, anyway.

[Kim]

Still getting the clicking when pedalling. Bottom bracket prime suspect.  Arse.

Chain?

Nah, chain is well-lubed, not stretched and not hitting anything.  Could be cleats, of course...

I had the same but replaced all sorts off stuff including a brand new BB and finally we put a new chain on and it stopped. There was nothing obviously wrong with the old chain.

My favourite mystery chain noise problem was a small rare-earth magnet (cycle computer, for the sensing of) that had got picked up by the chain, leading to rattling noises as it passed through the rear derailleur.  The front mech would scrape it off, whereupon it would attach itself to one of the screws on the inside of the chainring guard, where it could safely lurk out of sight until a sufficiently violent bump coinciding with use of the granny ring would bounce the chain around enough to pick it up again.

Second favourite turned out to be my lungs.   

[Salvatore]

Or, with the weather being cold, the classic one of a plastic toggle on the drawstring of a windproof top gently tapping the frame once a pedal stroke as it swings in time with your body moving.

As happened to me while touring in Scotland circa 1976. The noise so annoyed me that I took apart and reassembled the bottom bracket on a campsite, which appeared to have worked until it started raining the next day, shortly after which a lightbulb appeared above my head.

[The Family Cyclist]

My cycling shoes........again

Several of months back gorilla glue the sole back on which worked fine till I came in from the turbo trainer this week and slipped them off rather then undoing and pushed the sole back off

Reafixed and will remember to take off properly

[rogerzilla]

I put a chain and some pedals on the Moulton F-frame and took it round the block (illegally, the rear brake still needs fitting with a suitable spacer).

The good: it has all 4 gears (I was worried about that, because this hub never worked well when I tried to make a 4-speed Brompton 11 years ago), and it handles normally.

The bad: the Alhonga dual-pivot front brake is very weak.  I suspect I have the pads too close to the rim, assuming the Tektro brake lever apes the Shimano SLR variable-pull levers.  There are some big rattles that need to be hunted down.  I have probably added too much preload to the front fork.

[rafletcher]

Domestic fettling. Decide to wash the back door/kitchen mat. Then decided to scrub the kitchen floor. Then cleaned down the worktops. Then cleaned out the not-reached-during-normal-washes front corner crevices in the dishwasher (yuk!).  Then cleaned the cat flap.

[Mrs Pingu]

Me too. On Thursday I found a suitable poking stick to scrape all the mank out of the gap between the cooker and the next door cabinet (why the cleaner the previous owner got in to clean before we moved in couldn't have done that IDK).
Today after watching a youtube vid for instructions I dismembered the bathroom radiator and cleaned all the grot out of there.
2021-11-13_04-51-33 by The Pingus, on Flickr
Feel better now.

[zigzag]

shifting on my vintage steel bike has deteriorated, i looked underneath and surprise surprise there’s a bulge of damp rust under the bb cable guide, lifting the paint together with the guide. i scraped the rust off with the wire brush, so now the whole bottom part of bb shell is bare steel, not ideal. sprayed some wd40 for the time being until i come up with a more permanent fix. steel might be real, but rust never sleeps!

[Canardly]

Have a look at the Neutrarust product shown here. Available in 250ml size for around £15.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlggeZlSTm0

[Socks]

Cheap wheel with black painted spokes.  I suppose I should have realised the spokes might not be great quality, and sure enough they started corroding after one winter's use.  Nice hub though (Deore 9 speed) so I thought worth taking the cassette off, dismantling the wheel and saving the hub.

Couldn't get the lockring undone so after soaking it in releasing fluid for a couple of days I had another go.  Held the wheel and the chain whip in a vice with the aid of a toe strap.  Then a long piece of alloy tube over the socket spanner to give a bit more leverage.

Success!  A small triumph but still feels good - instead of throwing away a wheel, I now have a Deore hub that can be re-used, and a part worn rim that is also good for a few hundred more miles.

[Kim]

Finally did the long-overdue bicycle maintenance I was supposed to do while barakta was in hospital.

This meant her sitting in bed, watching Dune (1984 version) while wearing a respirator, so I could use solvents.  It appears to have worked.

[rogerzilla]

But did barakta survive 3 hours of David Lynch?

[robgul]

Completed the sorting and clearing out the 4 tooboxes that reside in one of the benches in my gargage - namely : bike spare tools; decorating; plumbing; fixings -  loads of bits binned, some tools listed for sale (bicycle here, non-bicycle on Gumtree - both as job-lots)   A couple of power-tools sold (table saw and a random orbital sander)

Just another three boxes to go in the shed - car tools (who does anything that needs tools with modern cars?); spare/duplcated woodworking tools; and the box with all the electrical type stuff from several house renovations.

Oh, and I re-upholstered the seat of a random dining chair that is in our study/library  (that sounds a bit grand - it's just a room with book-shelves and a writing table)

[Snakehips]

Just another three boxes to go in the shed - car tools (who does anything that needs tools with modern cars?); spare/duplcated woodworking tools; and the box with all the electrical type stuff from several house renovations.

Similar effort required here. Among other things, I have a large number of A/F sockets which it would be a wrench to part with. Who uses those these days? I see you can still buy them new!

[hatler]

Just another three boxes to go in the shed - car tools (who does anything that needs tools with modern cars?); spare/duplcated woodworking tools; and the box with all the electrical type stuff from several house renovations.

Similar effort required here. Among other things, I have a large number of A/F sockets which it would be a wrench to part with. Who uses those these days? I see you can still buy them new!

I see what you did there.