Two Things

I'm free! Finally I am free!

 Freedom For Cooks Crank:

Back in 2003 when I first put together my Campstove Green Karate Monkey, I used a Cooks Brothers crank set in the build. I set it up with a Big Cheese chain ring and ran the bike single speed for years afterward with this set up.

I actually wore out one Big Cheese ring and put on another, only to find that when it wore out as well, that hidden chain ring bolt was frozen together. I suppose several Winter's of use might do something like that. Hmm...

I freely admit I am not a BMX parts hound so I was at a bit of a loss as to whether or not the spider could come off this drive arm. It had an M8 bolt holding the spider to the crank arm, so I removed this, (and promptly lost it), then I found out the spider was peened on at the spindle and well.....

So now I had a real pickle. I couldn't get the ring off and I lost a "special bolt". Okay, so I bailed on this crank at the time and went with a 180mm White Industries single speed crank I had purchased with a square taper interface. This is the crank set on the bike currently.

Every once in awhile over the ensuing years I would fiddle with the Cooks crank and see if I could find a suitable M8 bolt or if I could remove the chain ring bolt. I guess last week was finally the time for release of trapped chain rings because I was able to finally get the dang nut apart!

Well, at least now I could clean up the arms and start searching again for a suitable M8 bolt amongst my massive stash of fasteners I have saved up over the years. The cleaning part went well. The arms are in decent shape and the spider still looks really nice. At least for a part that is likely 35+ years old and went through several Iowa Winters and gravel miles.

But finding a bolt? This was not as successful. I could find a ton of metric thread fasteners which would turn in three times and bind, indicating they had the wrong thread pitch. This took a while to get through all my fasteners so I ended up wasting a lot of time on this, but I know now I don't have a bolt for this crank arm.

I got to wondering, perhaps Cook Brothers used a SAE thread pitch on this bit, since it was produced in the U.S.A. This would make sense, but I just am not knowledgeable on these enough to say if this is the case or not. I also do not have SAE fasteners. I am a bicycle mechanic, after all!

One good thing came out of all of this though. In searching for the M8 fastener I found my lost Wahoo Elemnt ROAM. It was underneath a bunch of computer mounts in a bowl on the bench. Why? Uh.....I probably figured all the computer stuff should go in this bowl here while I was cleaning up one day and then I likely promptly forgot about it. This would totally track with me. Anyway, I found the Wahoo, so wahoo!   

SILCA SAGA

You may remember my ordering a gauge for my SILCA pump recently? Well, I did receive a package from SILCA. It was curiously light, and my red flags started to wave as I walked back from the mailbox. Hmm.... Something seems wrong here.

Well, as I opened up the bubble pack envelope, I saw the box inside and I knew immediately something was for certain way off. I opened up the box to find.......a spanner wrench?!

What?!

How...... I..... This was really weird! I mean, I could see sending out the wrong gauge, but a spanner wrench? This was super odd.

That's not a gauge!

 

Now that is a gauge!

I sent a quick email to SILCA and their answer was that someone must have been in a hurry in the shipping department and got their wires crossed. An actual gauge would be on the way pronto. 

Finally I have the gauge! And my Pista Plus pump is back in service again. I must say SILCA was very prompt and responsive during this entire process. I always received communication within an hour of sending an email and shipments were made ASAP. I have to say SILCA wins the customer service award from Guitar Ted Productions. I've not ever had such great, prompt, and courteous service from any company I've dealt with over the years. 

Yes, they made a mistake, but they rectified it and all is well. Now, back to pumping up tires....