Monday again

I spent a fair bit of time working on bike stuff this weekend.

Friday evening, I went out to the bike shop to prepare for two sets of wheels I've been needing to get built for a while. I cut all the spokes, and had time to lace one set and true its front wheel. I finished truing the rear wheel Saturday morning, then laced the other set and started truing them. Another customer came by to get some pointers on the new Bacchetta Bellandare she had purchased the day before, so I spoke with her a while. One wheel set went home Saturday, and the other customer came by to see her wheels later in the day. Her bike is being built over time, and her fork is not yet in hand. She's excited about the bike, though. It looks pretty good so far.

After shop hours, we had the second class of Park Tool School for a few hours. It's a good group, in the main, and we had fun removing bottom brackets from bikes as an exercise. We talked a bit about brake pads, and tonight we will change some brake and gear cables for practice.

A week or two ago, I had been given the name of a woman who was putting on a health fair for her church. I finally got in contact with her late last week, to find that what she was doing was much longer in hours and on a different date than I'd been led to believe. As notice was too short to do anything else, I went to her health fair and talked to folks about bicycle safety myself. Many of the attendees were kids, so I got to stress the importance of learning and following the rules of the road. Some adults asked me questions about the Bicycle Club, Bicycling for Louisville, and cycling in general. I encouraged all to seek out classes held by Bicycling for Louisville and the Club, and to come ride with us. I even got to "walk the walk," as I had ridden the Raleigh to the event.

When I got home, I did a few odds and ends around the house, then dove back into trying to get my truck running. It had developed a water leak recently, so I haven't been driving it for a while (I've been using Jenn's car when I needed to drive). Saturday morning, I changed the upper hose and one of the heater hoses, based on noise of pressure escaping when I pumped the system with a pressure tester. When I finished replacing the hoses, I pumped the tester a few times, and was rewarded with the sound of pressure dropping again. The sound was still coming from near the ends of the two hoses I had just replaced, but tightening the hoses didn't fix the problem. It looked like it was time for a new water pump, as there were stains from escaping anti-freeze leading to the front seal. I had purchased a water pump Saturday morning before going to the bike shop, so Jenn and I took things apart to install the new pump.

That went well enough, except that the OTHER heater hose looked a bit worse for wear, and that when I went to show Jenn the residue from the anti-freeze on the inside of the water pump pulley I lost one of the screws that holds it in place. A trip to the parts store, and I had the new hose. Got home to discover I had forgotten to get a replacement screw, so we went to another parts store (the one had closed for the day) and got hardware and anti-freeze.

We got home, I finished installing the pump, belt, fan clutch, radiator shroud and such so I could pressure test the system again. Sure enough, it leaked. I have removed the thermostat housing, hoping that the seal was bad. I hope that there are no other problems to find.

Jenn reminded me that when I removed the pump, the pipe on which the heater hose mounts came out of the pump housing with too little effort. The stains on the inside of the pulley were new enough that there was probably some leakage there as well, so replacing the pump was not in vain. I'm not sure why I didn't go ahead and get a new thermostat while I was doing all the other work (and am right there, with some of the stuff out of the way), aside from a vague memory that it was a hassle to get the thermostat in place and I had replaced it when I last replaced the water pump a few years ago.

I hope that this seal fixes my problem. I'd hate to think that something else is damaged--the only other things that could be leaking at this point are hideously expensive to repair.

Third class of this session of Tool School is tonight, so I'll be at the shop where there is a bench grinder with a wire brush wheel. I can clean the thermostat housing to more closely inspect for pitting or a rust hole. I'll do that before installing anything, so that if I need to buy a new housing I won't sacrifice the thermostat gaskets this time. If all goes well, the truck will be back to useable condition Tuesday night. I'll then take it to some place that does a flush and fill service, so that I don't have to deal with dumping anti-freeze on the driveway.

Maybe when I move the truck I'll find that missing screw, too.