Today I, Bollocks.....

[mossmonaco]

40 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

That’s a rather scary failure…. My condolences on the demise of what I assume is an old friend 

We’re in Cornwall at the moment, but a bit further down in Helston….

Africa style repair…… take both ends off a bean can (eat beans first), slit length-ways and wrap tightly around the offending tube and secure both ends with jubilee clips….. 

Don't want to do that....I've only just washed the mud off it, can't be putting a layer of mud back on!

I've got a replacement frame ordered from ebay, think I will run a  boroscope through the new frame before rebuilding.

Did you by any chance come down in your GT6, I was passed by a rather nice looking maroon GT6 somewhere en route, Cant remember exactly where.

 

[Nick Jones]

On 3/29/2022 at 7:30 PM, mossmonaco said:

Did you by any chance come down in your GT6, I was passed by a rather nice looking maroon GT6 somewhere en route, Cant remember exactly where.

Sadly not…. In the A6 this time. Bit daft really, we had established that the forecast wasn’t worthy of taking the Vitesse and defaulted to A6, when in fact the GT6 should have been the choice….. as although it’s not yet bug-free, it is bug-free enough for general UK use. Haven’t got used to having a choice of Triumphs….

Fair old trip you’ve done there. Was that two overnight stops?

[Escadrille Ecosse]

1 hour ago, mossmonaco said:

well it won't bloody take me back!

26 minutes ago, mossmonaco said:

I've got a replacement frame ordered from ebay, think I will run a  boroscope through the new frame before rebuilding.

Good luck with the replacement. Hope all well.

Had a few steel bike over the years for commuting through the winter. Advice I was given was to spray the inside of the frame with Dinitrol or similar. Seemed to do the trick

[mossmonaco]

1 hour ago, Nick Jones said:

Sadly not…. In the A6 this time. Bit daft really, we had established that the forecast wasn’t worthy of taking the Vitesse and defaulted to A6, when in fact the GT6 should have been the choice….. as although it’s not yet big free, it is big-free enough for general UK use. Haven’t got used to having a choice of Triumphs….

Fair old trip you’ve done there. Was that two overnight stops?

320 miles, 5 nights- I took it gently as my left knee seems to be past it's best before date. I've complained to the manufacturer and she says she will have a look at it if I can produce the guarantee card but at 60 years old its definitely out of warranty and (to make it worse) its a sealed unit with no user-servicable parts.

[Nick Jones]

1 hour ago, mossmonaco said:

I've complained to the manufacturer and she says she will have a look at it if I can produce the guarantee card but at 60 years old its definitely out of warranty and (to make it worse) its a sealed unit with no user-servicable parts.

Tricky things knees. I know a few people who have knee work done, including a 35 year old colleague with an old rugby injury and barely 3/4 of them feel they came out ahead. Probably best to nurse the OE knee along as long as possible.

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Can be worth seeing a sports physio. I'm 61. My 'cartilage' issue turned out to be a muscular imbalance. Sorted by physio and some occasional and rather nippy foam roller

[JohnD]

MM, that looks more to me like a crack that has rusted, rather rust that has finally cracked!   Some sort of streets fracture?   Is internal corrosion really a feature of bike frames ( not left out in the rain?)

John

[Escadrille Ecosse]

5 minutes ago, JohnD said:

MM, that looks more to me like a crack that has rusted, rather rust that has finally cracked!   Some sort of streets fracture?   Is internal corrosion really a feature of bike frames ( not left out in the rain?)

John

John. Internal corrosion is a definite thing on bikes unfortunately. Probably initiated at the bottle cage drilling exacerbated by corrosion. It's a stress point under the nut-sert. They go there, the seat tube or the chain stays (the lower legs from the main frame to the rear wheel) usually. 

[mossmonaco]

44 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

Tricky things knees. I know a few people who have knee work done, including a 35 year old colleague with an old rugby injury and barely 3/4 of them feel they came out ahead. Probably best to nurse the OE knee along as long as possible.

tempted to drill and fit a grease nipple.

[Escadrille Ecosse]

1 minute ago, mossmonaco said:

tempted to drill and fit a grease nipple.

Lithium or PTFE based grease?

[mossmonaco]

9 minutes ago, Escadrille Ecosse said:

Lithium or PTFE based grease?

Lithighum grease is for higher up, I would have thought that Molebdekneeum grease would do the job

[Escadrille Ecosse]

[mossmonaco]

3 hours ago, Escadrille Ecosse said:

Good luck with the replacement. Hope all well.

Had a few steel bike over the years for commuting through the winter. Advice I was given was to spray the inside of the frame with Dinitrol or similar. Seemed to do the trick

Dinitrol sounds like a good idea, I also wonder about making a screw from zinc and using it instead of a s/steel blanking screw in one of the unused crud-catcher mounts. I cant see why that wouldn't work, but I've not heard of them being commercially available.

[zetecspit]

On 3/12/2022 at 9:58 AM, Nick Jones said:

I think it’s partly a metallurgical issue and partly a design issue. The design issue being that few if any modern cars use coils with fully finished ends, but rely instead on the shape of the spring cups to match them. Quite often the profiles don’t match all that well, creating stress raisers. This is what causes the last 50 - 80mm to break off - typically only detected at MoT time.

The ones that more dangerously snap in the middle I think are metallurgical, the result of the drive to reduce cost and weight. It is possible to make springs that last. The ones on my A6 are the original 26 year / 340k ones, powder coating long gone and battered by 14 seasons of Woolbridge 12 Car rallies. They’ve seen off at least 4 sets of dampers and rather more more TCAs. Not even saggy…… Never had a Triumph coil spring break either, though they can get saggy.

I wonder if it is c=bcause springs are cold-wound? Having had a chat with a certain seller of Australian springs, he was saying theirs are hot-wound. Which makes some sense. No doubt adds to cost, and we all know what that means.

[thebrookster]

This was my "Oh Bollocks" moment recently.

 

So I guess I will be on the hunt for another mountain bike at some point. I do have this toy to keep me occupied in the meantime however:

[JohnD]

Thanks Clive, but even you refer to it as a stress point!

"Sacrificial anodes" are a thing in boats, lumps of zinc,bolted to the bottom, rather than galvanised all over.   Phil will know.

John

Edited March 30, 2022 by JohnD

[mpbarrett]

We had a few days in North Norfolk at the end of last week. Took the campervan and stayed in a nice site in West Runton. 

Very very cold with a chilling north wind. The van has a good heater but is very noisy so we don't run it over night.
On the first night we were warmly tucked up under duvets when I was woken by an occasional Beep, this happened every couple of minutes, just enough to wake and then drop back to sleep as the night went on (and it got colder) the beeping got more frequent, until I was awake enough to wonder what it was. It turned out it was the smoke alarm.
Having spent too many years working on electronics and electrical system I am tuned to detect burning electrics! No smell of anything amiss so decided the alarm was giving a low battery warning and nothing was  alight. Not helpful when the unit is sealed and with no way of changing the battery or turning it off....
Took the alarm of the celling and put it on the bed and it stopped beeping so I think the bed was just warm enough to stop the alarm. I think the battery was failing due to the low temperatures...

In the morning, tool kit out, alarm case clipped apart and battery lead disconnected. And peaceful night sleep.
The alarm has a 10 year life, its good until 2027 (I guess its the sensor that ages) but why put a low battery alarm when you cant stop it or change the battery? Anyway new battery ordered and case modified so I can change it easily! 

We had gone to Norfolk to meet the grandchildren to go on the steam gala on the north Norfolk railway. That didnt go to plan as Libby's car developed a fault on the way and went into limp mode with not much power, not nice on a busy A10. She managed  to get home safely and got the local garage to look at it, seemed the fuel filter was blocked/collapsed, replacing it and resetting the fault code and the car is back and running (but at a cost of £175.00...).
Real shame she and the kids missed the excellent steam trains on the North Norfolk Railway.

Mike

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Smoke alarms. Don't get me started as someone who rents out a flat in Scotland. Anyway.

10 year limit is based on the life of the detector which genererally uses Americium or a similar short half life radio-isotope in ionisation types.

Older/cheaper smoke detectors used dry cell batteries which obviously have a much shorter life than the detector but require the user to replace the battery when required. In Scotland where the high number of deaths (compared to the UK as a whole) from domestic fire resulted in a huge rollout of free smoke detectors for those living in social housing followed by the compulsory installation in rented properties it was found that the reason the number of deaths didn't fall significantly was because the tenants had either failed to replace the dead batteries or quite often had removed them for use in other more important things, like TV remotes and childrens toys, etc.

Nowadays battery technology has come to the point where the Li-ion batteries have the same nominal life as the detector and so can be supplied sealed for life. Although that didn't stop the Scottish goverment mandating - at huge cost - the installation of interlinked mains powered smoke detectors (with Li-ion battery backup) for all rental properties public and private. Going to do their damnest to fight Darwin. Sorry but I do think people need to take some responsibility for their own and their children's safety.

Rant over.

I do like those steam engines. Especially the older 0-6-0 loco. For those with an interest and especially those who ever read the original Tank Engine Thomas books 'our' heritage railway, the Speyside was visited by the City of Truro many years ago when we were on it with the kids. I was overcome with joy, to the extent that I actually missed getting back on the train at Boat of Garten with my son and had to call a taxi to get the two of us to Aviemore to catch up with my wife and daughter.

For those who don't know the background, the City of Truro was the first engine ever exceed 100 mph in 1904 and although there is some contention about this if the Rev W Audry said so it's good enough for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_3700_Class_3440_City_of_Truro

[mpbarrett]

The 0-6-0 is a 1912 Great eastern Y14 designed by TW Worsdell. 
We rode behind it in a 1884  tram carriage with an open front so you could watch it steaming.
City of Truro is an interesting configuration 4-4-0. Our younger grandchild is Thomas and trains obsessed, probably encouraged by his grandfather  
 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

7 minutes ago, mpbarrett said:

The 0-6-0 is a 1912 Great eastern Y14 designed by TW Worsdell. 
We rode behind it in a 1884  tram carriage with an open front so you could watch it steaming.
City of Truro is an interesting configuration 4-4-0. Our younger grandchild is Thomas and trains obsessed, probably encouraged by his grandfather  

That is wonderful, all of it

Keep up the good work with the grandchild

[rogerguzzi]

1884!!

Roger

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Today I walked down to the Post office to post some ebay bike bits and to the Oxfam bookshop to hand in some books and buy a couple more.

A lot warmer than the last few days so I bought a coffee and had a wander round the neighbourhood to have a nosey at what's been happening recently as there is a huge amount of building renovation going on. Saw this. The joy of language...

 

 

[JohnD]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:27 PM, Escadrille Ecosse said:

Smoke alarms. Don't get me started as someone who rents out a flat in Scotland. Anyway.

10 year limit is based on the life of the detector which genererally uses Americium or a similar short half life radio-isotope in ionisation types.

 

Reminds of "The Boy who built a Nuclear Reactor" using among others the Americium from fire alarms.   See: David Hahn - Wikipedia      Despite his great promise, and achievement recognised  by the American Boy Scouts, he had a sad life afterwards.

[Escadrille Ecosse]

23 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Reminds of "The Boy who built a Nuclear Reactor" using among others the Americium from fire alarms.   See: David Hahn - Wikipedia      Despite his great promise, and achievement recognised  by the American Boy Scouts, he had a sad life afterwards.

blimey!!

[Nick Jones]

As the weather improves (well, it’s been nice here today anyway) it’s time to get the summer bike out again. Actually I’ve been out a few times with SM already. Enough to demonstrate that any resemblance to fitness has evaporated over the winter and my bony ass has gone tender again 

A number of PBs.  Mainly indicating that it was windier than I prefer and the wind was in an unusual direction.  This left me with a high average early on…. And stupid dog that I am, I will chase averages…. Even into a headwind, though I know full well it’s like trying to fly a brick…..

Going to hurt tomorrow .