I'm reading the current Blahg, and Grant starts out with vise grips, and I immediately remembered the last time (and there were many earlier instances, tho' this last one was more urgent) that VG's saved the bacon.
This last ime was about 15 or 18 months ago when I decided to remove the allen bolts that Chauncey had left in the lowrider fork bosses (lowriders attach to fork and to arch over wheel that also supports fender and holds headlight). The right side came out relatively easily, tho' it was dry, but the left side came out 1/4-way and bound; dry, no grease, it galled, binding the bolt in the threads. Obvious response is to twist harder, and harder, and so I did -- and the bolt broke with about 2mm of shaft between break and boss. I panicked and sweated and cursed, but collected myself, meditated, and picked up the needle-nose Vise Grips. There was just enough shaft to get a firm grip on the end. I flooded the boss with WD 40, then, very, very gently, oh, so gently, began to rock the bolt remnant back and forth, left-right, left-right, left-right, at every minute fearing that the VG would round off the shaft and lose its grip. My wont is to force things, but this time I was very, very easy: back and forth, back and forth. Slowly, slowly, slowly, each "back and forth" twist brought the shaft out a fraction of a mm more, eventually allowing me to reposition and cinch up the VG jaws for a firmer grip. Finally, after about 20 or 25 minutes, the "rocking" got the bolt out. I wept in relief -- no, my new custom was not going to be ruined by the failure to apply grease to the threads by a builder who should have known better. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgv6XPysSqYOzMa2wkimxoCWk6MpVKofaOr0jrs%3Do2W%2B-A%40mail.gmail.com.
