Nuts and bolts

[rebeccmeister]

Today, I reached a breaking point. Too many logistics to manage.

Last night, riding back from the bar, my bicycle started to rattle. The loc-nut holding the front fender in place had started to work loose. I suspect that had to do with the several-hundred-mile car trip where Froinlavin was held in place by a rear wheel clamp and one of those j-hook things that hooks over the front wheel. Those j-hook things are convenient, up until they interact with fenders. A j-hook thing caused the Jolly Roger's front fender failure, and I think the j-hook may have contributed to the present loosening on Froinlavin.

Shortly thereafter, the nut flew off completely. Shortly after that, the fender got caught on the rubber of the front tire, traveled upwards a short distance, and then wedged. Fortunately, I wasn't going very fast and there wasn't any traffic.

Sometimes I feel like bicycles hemorrhage small nuts and bolts.

When I tried to find a partly-related replacement bolt for the Jolly Roger recently (the one my finger is holding onto in this photo), I had a damned hard time at the Home Despot. Prior attempts at Lowe's have been equally futile. Neither big-box store can manage fasteners worth a damn. There's an Ace Nut & Bolt shop in town, but they're only open Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm, and prior experience suggests that obtaining anything from them will require a minimum of two trips, one to place the order, the second to pick it up.

I found a recumbent bike shop selling sets of bolts and nuts online, except they sell way more bolts and troublingly few nuts, and in combinations that may or may not be useful.

So instead I just paid ~$50 to McMaster-Carr to obtain:
-Type 316 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screw, M5 Thread, 10mm Length, .8mm Pitch, packs of 25
-Type 316 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screw, M5 Thread, 12mm Length, .8mm Pitch, packs of 25
-Type 316 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screw, M6 Thread, 16mm Length, 1mm Pitch, packs of 25
-Type 316 Stainless Steel Socket Head Cap Screw, M6 Thread, 20mm Length, 1mm Pitch, packs of 25
-Metric Type 316 Stainless Steel Nylon-Insert Hex Locknut, M5 Size, .8mm Pitch, 8mm Width, 5mm Height, packs of 50
-Metric Type 316 Stainless Steel Nylon-Insert Hex Locknut, M6 Size, 1mm Pitch, 10mm Width, 6mm Height, packs of 50

Maybe I should just keep the entire assortment in my toolkit.

I don't know if that was a good idea or not, but I'm moving on.

Comments

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

I hate that I had to order this stuff on the internet. Largely because I just spent a bunch of time this morning trying to wrangle the garage into passable shape, which mostly involved trying to get the crazy cardboard box pile whittled down.

Packaging continues to be a battle.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Rock on. That's a nice collection of stuff, particularly the nylon-insert nuts. That's what I use wherever I can on the bikes (save where I actually drill and wire fasteners.)

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was gonna say that wiring the silly things or (for the big ones) putting cotter pins through them will keep them where they ought to be.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Nylocs are really nice in a lot of places, where errant wire will snag bare legs, but man there are some places where wire is simply the right solution.

One really awkward one is the chainring fixing bolts, where both faces are flush with the relevant chainrings, so there's nowhere to drill. I run a bit of wire right through them, as they're hollow right through, and then tie it to itself, so at least I won't lose the bolt if it creeps out.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

I can only wish there was room for that flavor of solution inside of the fender. Alas, fender clearance on Froinlavin is a finicky matter, so at best I think my options are ny-lock with loctite and maybe a star lock washer. Plus a couple of spare nuts in the toolkit, heh.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the drill+wire option is one I hadn't pondered previously, but I can see exactly why you'd do that. Come to think of it, I need to put a small coil of wire into my toolkit. All I had when the nut flew off was a bit of duct tape, which made it possible to limp home. There wasn't really space for a ziptie-based solution, but wire would have worked.

And yeah...the main reason for the order was the ny-loc nuts. We've been gradually shedding a lot of miscellaneous bolts, though, so it seemed like a good idea to just stock up on everything all at once. The bolts tend to work free from rear racks and fenders in particular, and in the current household people are almost constantly swapping all kinds of fiddly bits.