Rock Solid Rodent Control
Sep. 21st, 2009 03:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
errantemberI'm drawing a picture of this, but it's taking longer than I thought.
The pipe on the handlebars of the scooter has only a single bolt to lock it in place over the pipe on the front wheel. Because the tolerances are sloppy, the slightest looseness in this bolt makes the handlebars wobble. You can *tighten* the bolt, but getting to it requires remove about nine screws and half the cowling of the bike, and even with a lock washer and a lock nut, it only lasts about 30 minutes before loosening up again. For that thirty minutes, you experience this thrilling, novel feeling like you are almost in *control* of the vehicle. Unimpeded by simple harmonic motion or random Brownian Effects, you can *feel* the road. When you turn the handlebars, the wheel turns exactly the same amount! And *then* the scooter *goes* there! Around the life-threatening 1/2 inch pothole! Past the blind motorist pulling out in front of you! Up onto the sidewalk and over the toy poodle!
It's all very exciting. But then the jiggle starts.
And it's not a *good* jiggle. And if you've wrecked on this bike before (and boy have I!), that jiggling, wandering, something-important-is-about-to-fall-off feeling triggers major PTSD that greatly and ironically increases the likelihood of repeating its cause. The constant urge to shit yourself is only partially staved off by the knowledge that that would make things more slippery. You can move the handlebars back and forth, and *nothing* happens! Until suddenly, it does! Your spine is driven through your skull by the pothole you couldn't dodge in time! You slam into the motorist pulling out in front of you because being brained by your own vertebrae is *distracting*. And worst of all, the poodle gets away!
Something had to be done. So I did it.
The problem is that the pipes aren't snug enough. If they were, no rotation would be possible, and one bolt would be enough. However, rotation is possible. Or, at least, it was. In just under four hours, I removed the top tube (requiring the removal of at least 14 screws, both halves of the body clamshell, the handlebars, and the disconnection of at least 7 electrical clusters and the instrument cluster) brought it into the shop, made a custom jig to hold it parallel for the drill press, drilled a perpendicular hole through the pipe about an inch above the original hole, took this back to the bike, bolted the pipe back onto the other pipe, then drilled through the other pipe by *hand* using the new holes as a guide, almost breaking my wrist both times when the bit finally broke through and locked up, and then put everything back together again after getting a new bolt, lock washer, and nut from the Home Despot.
So not only are the two parts locked together along two axes instead of one, completely arresting all motion, but they also prevent each other from coming loose. I've gone on one long trip over to El Chilito tonight, and it was rock solid all the way. In addition to being the most major modification I've had to make to the bike so far, it's also probably the single most safety-increasing thing I could possibly do to it.
Except, naturally, selling it to someone else.
The pipe on the handlebars of the scooter has only a single bolt to lock it in place over the pipe on the front wheel. Because the tolerances are sloppy, the slightest looseness in this bolt makes the handlebars wobble. You can *tighten* the bolt, but getting to it requires remove about nine screws and half the cowling of the bike, and even with a lock washer and a lock nut, it only lasts about 30 minutes before loosening up again. For that thirty minutes, you experience this thrilling, novel feeling like you are almost in *control* of the vehicle. Unimpeded by simple harmonic motion or random Brownian Effects, you can *feel* the road. When you turn the handlebars, the wheel turns exactly the same amount! And *then* the scooter *goes* there! Around the life-threatening 1/2 inch pothole! Past the blind motorist pulling out in front of you! Up onto the sidewalk and over the toy poodle!
It's all very exciting. But then the jiggle starts.
And it's not a *good* jiggle. And if you've wrecked on this bike before (and boy have I!), that jiggling, wandering, something-important-is-about-to-fall-off feeling triggers major PTSD that greatly and ironically increases the likelihood of repeating its cause. The constant urge to shit yourself is only partially staved off by the knowledge that that would make things more slippery. You can move the handlebars back and forth, and *nothing* happens! Until suddenly, it does! Your spine is driven through your skull by the pothole you couldn't dodge in time! You slam into the motorist pulling out in front of you because being brained by your own vertebrae is *distracting*. And worst of all, the poodle gets away!
Something had to be done. So I did it.
The problem is that the pipes aren't snug enough. If they were, no rotation would be possible, and one bolt would be enough. However, rotation is possible. Or, at least, it was. In just under four hours, I removed the top tube (requiring the removal of at least 14 screws, both halves of the body clamshell, the handlebars, and the disconnection of at least 7 electrical clusters and the instrument cluster) brought it into the shop, made a custom jig to hold it parallel for the drill press, drilled a perpendicular hole through the pipe about an inch above the original hole, took this back to the bike, bolted the pipe back onto the other pipe, then drilled through the other pipe by *hand* using the new holes as a guide, almost breaking my wrist both times when the bit finally broke through and locked up, and then put everything back together again after getting a new bolt, lock washer, and nut from the Home Despot.
So not only are the two parts locked together along two axes instead of one, completely arresting all motion, but they also prevent each other from coming loose. I've gone on one long trip over to El Chilito tonight, and it was rock solid all the way. In addition to being the most major modification I've had to make to the bike so far, it's also probably the single most safety-increasing thing I could possibly do to it.
Except, naturally, selling it to someone else.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 12:58 pm (UTC)Smart, handy *and* pretty? You are too good to be true, sexy. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 10:58 pm (UTC)*smootch*
(kneel)
*smootch*
no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 11:16 pm (UTC)oh, I'll see you when I see you, I'm cool with that. I just thought you should know you are lusted from afar ;)