Sunday, March 6, 2016

Lost and Found

 It seems lately that losing parts has become a regular pastime of mine. You know, kinda like a hobby.  Some people collect baseball cards or belly button lint. I misplace shit am I'm good at it. Oh sure I usually find the lost crap but its never in a timely manner. Because of this I decided to be very careful when I removed the steering neck from Brookes Rebel. I know the ball bearings are loose in there and they are small. I also doubt anyone has had this apart in thirty years so I'm not sure if they will stick in place or fall out easily.
 Despite my best attempts to not drop these bearings, I dropped a bunch of them from both the top and bottom. I was doing my best rain man impersonation trying to count them as I heard them bouncing off parts of the bike and landing on the lift table.

Been there, done that. Blogged about it. Next step was to take a head count and see how many actually went AWOL.

 I was missing five but they hadn't gone far. At least four of them were easy to locate. That leaves one. This is typical. If you can't find one then you might as well not have any and just buy new bearings.
 It was now time to go into search mode, a drill I'm all too familiar with. Break out the cheater glasses and a bright flashlight, start on one end and try not to disturb too much stuff. This particular search included a halftime break where I ran to the gas station for more refreshments. When I got back, after a lot more searching I finally found that one sneaky bearing hiding under the jack.

 Don't beat yourself up if you don't see it. I didn't see it the first two times I looked under there but because I have a lot of practice at this lost and found hobby of mine it eventually turned up.
 So thats it. The steering neck bearings have been serviced and the next step is dealing with the fork tubes.
 In other news...I woke up this morning checking the forecast and realized its about that time of year when my truck can sit outside. That means I can have that bay open for bikes. This is a good thing because I've got a lot of work to do on the ones that were in hibernation.
Later.

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