Now let us praise famous men

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Ecclesiastes admonishes us, "Now let us praise famous men." Dan O has
already done his bit in his thread "It's so good to have resources".

I want to thank Sheldon Brown, Jobst Brandt and Park Tool for thoughts
and instructions on removing and refitting cranks and bottom brackets.
It isn't that I couldn't eventually work it out myself but that
knowing what to do do when and which tools from the comprehensive
toolkit I bought fit where, how the parts are assembled in order and
having torque figures ready to hand, gives one the confidence to start
the job rather than decide it will take all afternoon and should
therefore go to the LBS, or remain undone.

A couple of weeks ago I reset the headset locking tension on two of my
bikes.

Yesterday in an hour and a bit I stripped off both cranks on a bike
where a creak was driving me nuts despite repeated tightening, and
then discovered why tightening crank bolts didn't solve the problem.
The metal side of the bottom bracket on the crankwheel side was firm
in the frame but the plastic adaptor or lefthand side came out easily
if jerkily. The threads were completely dry. I greased them with
Vaseline petroleum jelly (it's clean and it works) and torqued the
adaptor back in to spec, then refitted the cranks and now the creak is
gone, let's hope for good.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20%26%20CYCLING.html