April 14, 2001


note: 4/15/01 3am
Just letting people know that I changed this entry. The Sears links that I had up relied on cookies (damn them!) so almost all of the links were broken. So I took pictures of my own ratchets and sockets, and substituted them. 99% of the text of the entry is unchanged; only the stuff that referred to the Sears links has been changed. Sorry about that. Sears's fault.

a quick aside.
While I'm writing this today, I'm listening to a recording of Gustav Holst's The Planets. It's a really amazing piece. I bring this up because it's a little-known fact that I also play the viola in the Foothill Orchestra, and we're going to be playing The Planets, along with Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25, on June 16. If you're in the Bay Area are are interested, email me and I'll get you ticket info. Come see us. The Planets rocks, and we don't suck. Promise.

ratchets 101
Today was a remarkably good bike day, considering I haven't even really looked at either bike yet. Peter and I spent the day doing some errands, and one of them took us to Sears to drool over Craftsman tools. There's just nothing bad about that. I picked up a small vernier caliper (Why? Because I could.) and a 36-blade feeler gauge (Why? Because I could.). We spent a long time looking at sockets, and trying to find adapters that would allow me to use the sockets I already have on Peter's roommate's torque wrench. The wrench is a 3/8" drive, but some of the sockets that I need to tighten the bolts have 1/4" or 1/2" holes. We found a 3/8" to 1/2" adapter, but decided against buying it -- the bolts on my bike that are large enough to need a 1/2" drive generally need larger sockets than I have as well (my toolkit has sockets up to 25mm, and I can think of a couple bolts off the top of my head that are larger than that). Anyway, to make a short story really long, I just need to figure out what size sockets those bolts need, buy those sockets, and *then* get the adapter to use them with the torque wrench.

That makes it sound like I know what I'm doing, but I should stay honest and mention that I just learned today that even metric sockets fit on US ratchets. I'll hope that at least one of you didn't know this either, so I'll elaborate. On a ratchet wrench (view from the back) [Note: it's surprising how hard it is to find a picture of a ratchet wrench online], the rectangular black piece that usually has a little ball bearing in it is called a drive. It's always one of three sizes in width: 1/4", 3/8", or 1/2". The socket has a square opening on the bottom, which fits onto the ratchet. The other side is either a 6-point or 12-point opening, and is what fits around the bolt. OK, y'all already knew this. I just thought it was interesting that since I have japanese-made bikes, all my bolts are in metric (i.e. the socket in the above link is a 12-point 24mm socket), so all my sockets are in metric, but the little square hole on them for the ratchet is always in inches.

OK, so I'm slow. But I never knew that before. :) And now none of you have any excuse for being confused in the Craftsman section of Sears. Yay ratchet!

While we were at Sears, we also looked at the torque wrenches, figuring that we shouldn't really rely on Chris always letting us steal his tools. My options seemed to be: (1) a huge 1/2" drive that measures 20 to 150 foot-pounds in 1 foot-pound increments, or (2) a 3/8" drive that measures 10 to 75 foot-pounds in .5 foot-pound increments. There was another one in the catalog that measures 0 to 150 foot-pounds, but it was a beam wrench and only measured in 5 foot-pound increments. Unfortunately the Suzuki has some bolts that require like 7foot-pounds, and some others that require 80 foot-pounds, so I need the uber-range torque wrench. Or two. Or something. Anyway, the wrenches were like 80 bucks, and I didn't really want to spend that on somethings that wasn't going to have the full range I need. Whine whine whine. I'll have to check what kind Chris's is, since it seemed to have most of the range I needed (though I didn't check the high end).

Someday when I have more time, I'll write an entry on torque wrenches and how they work and the different kinds, since I think that'd be useful for me too. I'll have to think about that and do that later.

ron at the honda dealer is my man.
Our last errand of the day brought us to the Honda Ducati dealer by my house. This morning, I had taken the steering stem adjust nut off of the Nighthawk, degreased it, and stuck it in a little plastic baggie. At the dealer, I walked up to the counter, plunked it down, and said, "I need to torque this on my steering stem, but I'll need a specific tool, since a socket won't fit on it" [Note: As you can sorta see here, the nut -- #8 -- is round and has little notches cut out. A normal socket won't fit on it). The parts guy, Ron, gave me a little lecture on how I don't really need to torque it. "OK," said I, "but the Clymers said that that nut should be tightened to 65 foot-pounds." Ron blinked and said, "oh, I guess you have to use a torque wrench then, huh," and disappeared into the back. He returned scant moments later with an adjustable spanner wrench with a little square hole cut out for a 3/8" torque wrench! Huzzah! Exactly the tool I needed. While we were waiting for a cash register, I met the famous Brad, and we chatted about the Honda microfiche for a while. I also asked Ron about the locknut/lockwasher issue, and he essentially said, "what came off the bike should go back on the bike. Nothing more, nothing less." So I don't need all those extra mystery parts after all, or at least, thus spake Ron the Parts Guy.

The wrench set me back $88, but, y'know what, I don't care. I'm going to spend all day tomorrow with the Nighthawk, and see how much of it I can get put back together. I'm not waiting on any parts now, and I have all the tools I need, so we'll see how far I get. :)

An addendum: here's a picture of me holding the torque wrench, which is attached to the spanner wrench, which is clamped onto the Nighthawk's steering stem adjust nut. This picture is what makes everything OK with the world. ;)

Happy Easter everyone! :)


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