Sunday 18th, hoped to sleep in, but again the construction guys are up banging around the house in back early. Sheeze. Oh well, it’s getting too hot anyway. After lunch I give Jeff a call to see if I can borrow his spring compressors to take apart the junkyard struts. I had at one point thought of undoing the top cap nut on the strut while it was still in car, then jacking up the car until the spring was free. Figured there wouldn’t be any flying missiles, but I didn’t want to take the chance. It was afternoon by the time I got to Jeff’s and picked up the compressors, it was blazing hot. Glad I used my dad’s Suzuki with a/c. Continue reading ‘Root’s Machine Werks’
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
Page 2 of 3
Whoo-hoo!
Scored an Easton Monkey Lite DH freeride/downhill carbon fiber riser handlebar for dirt cheap. It’s one of the last non-PRC-made Easton handlebars (hecho en Mexico), and is, of course, in the discontinued-for-2008 25.4mm (1″ standard) stem clamp size. At around 225 grams, it is only about 25 grams lighter than the EA70 Monkeybar it replaces, but it should offer a better ride and more turning stiffness. The orange center section almost exactly matches the color of my Chase frame! Score!
It was cheaper than the $75 USD quarter window vent trim for my FJ80.
After determining that the rear Koni shock inserts will not fit the FX16 casing, headed to the junkyard this past Saturday. Look at pic and you can see the insert is longer, and also the diameter is bigger. No amount of hammering will get that fit into the FX casing pictured on top. So Saturday afternoon headed to ABC in Pearl City, the pick and pull I often go to. I wander around the yard checking out all the Toyotas. So far all the strut casing I’ve seen and measured don’t match. I do find a AE92 Corolla SR5 that someone is going over. I leave him to his scavenging as I go look around some more. Nothing else looks good. There’s also nothing else unusual or of much interest to me. Continue reading ‘Junkyarding’
Friday, May 16, vog haze is super strong, to me it looks worse then past weeks strong vog. Anyway, the weather aside from that has been clear so the Friday night ride is on! This time I scram from work on time. 5PM on a friday, I expect the traffic getting onto the freeway from the Lunalilo to be a mess, but instead its moving. In fact once on freeway it’s flowing right along and I cruise along to Pali. Dang, it takes me only about 25 minutes to get to the Castle fountain and park! Jeff, Sara, and Chris are here, and Jeff rubs his eyes in disbelief that I’m so early. Continue reading ‘Hammer Girl’
Nope, I didn’t run off over the weekend and plop down cash on a USDM Toyota ist, but something I had for dinner on Thursday took me down on Friday morning. High fever, cramps, nausea, general sense of nearly total malaise – yep, good old gastroenteritis. I figure it was something at dinner, because if it was my laulau lunch plate from Yama’s Fish Market, I would have gone off around dinner time on Thursday. Since Root, Fabio, and I shared the same food for dinner at Chiang Mai Thai restaurant, it must have been the tapioca, since we all had different desserts. Continue reading ‘xD’
The Koni Sport one way adjustable struts arrived yesterday. I was wondering if it was my complete order as the box looked rather small. It was just that they were all crammed in, no padding to speak of. Set of two struts per logo box. Here’s the contents of the rear strut inserts showing one strut. To install these, you need to take your old strut assembly and cut the top of, drill a hole in bottom, pull out all the old bits, then insert this new strut, and bolt it in through the bottom. 
So earlier in the day I took an old set of struts over to Ckucky’s to undo the top nut and drain the rears. Drilled hole in side and was wondering if we’d get sprayed by oil from letting the nitrogen goodness out. Either the pressure is low, or the goodness had left already, no oil showers. Continue reading ‘Koni Kurses’
The anticipated volcanic haze rolled in as expected on Wednesday morning, and by the afternoon, it was almost sensibly thick. Even with the South wind, the clouds lingered around the tall peaks of the Koolaus and jockeyed for position with the sun, which was still high in the sky when I got home. With the clouds and vog, there was an odd lingering twilight. Right off the bat, I had a shifting issue. I’ve had this before: Everything indexes correctly, but he rear won’t drop into the smallest cassette cog. It was fine on the previous ride. The cable tension was correct, so I busted out a screwdriver and cranked the outer limit screw out nearly a full turn. After that, all was good. How that kind of gross misadjustment can occur without human interaction is beyond me. The derailleur and hanger weren’t visibly bent, and most perplexingly, everything else was OK. Next time I take the bike by the shop, I have to check if maybe a shift housing strand is migrating out and sticking out of the housing end cap and interfering with something. Continue reading ‘Hazy Days’
Two Thursdays ago, Root, Fabio, JT and I went to India Café in Kilohana Square for dinner. There was a lot of post-meal e-mail chatter about what we experienced the following day, but I’ll try and distill all of that down in this review. It was our first time there with the exception of JT, who had been there on several occasions. Fabio had eaten at the campus franchise a few times, but the offerings and presentation are different. There was a full menu with appetizers, main courses and desserts. There is no alcohol served, but you are allowed to bring your own. As soon as we were seated and received our menus, we were brought some papadums (fried spiced lentil wafers). JT said he usually just gets the vegetarian meal, which is a combination set with four curries and sides. There was also a set with a meat dishes, vegetarian dishes and sides. We decided to get the “dinner set for four” which was an all-inclusive meal including four entrée choices. Continue reading ‘India Café’
Two ditch rides in 24 hours and a Monday training ride were a good test for the newly installed Hope bottom bracket. There was a perceptible decrease in rotational drag over the OEM bottom bracket. Since the Hope has all-metal interfaces from the cranks to the frame, there should be a more solid feel and less flex than the OEM, although this is probably not something that can be felt by even the most sensitive rider. The bottom bracket held adjustment through the nearly 50 km of riding. It was quiet and creak-free.
Thumbs-up!
I’ll raise my initial assessment to Highly Recommended.
I was planning on working on the FJ80 a little on Monday after work, but when I got home, the sun was brilliant and the weather exceptional. The bike called out to me. Since Whistler is coming up, I tried ramping up the distance, but there is only so much that I can do in my regular training loop. I’ll probably have to start venturing further a field to get beyond 20 km. Still, the scenery is nice, even if it is repetitive.
D = 19.62 km (12.19-miles), Vavr = 20.4 km/h (12.7 mph), Vmax = 39.4 km/h (24.5 mph), T = 57-minutes