In article <3D14DE0B.28731.10D01D1F@localhost>, Jim Muller
<jimmuller@pop.mail.rcn.net> writes
>Things you learn (eventually) when you spend enough time working on a
>Triumph:
>7. The difficulty of re-threading a bolt/nut combination in an
>awkward location is inversely proportional to the ease with which it
>came apart.
The awkwardness of the location is inversely proportional to the number
of spare nuts you have of the correct size.
>
>9. A dropped nut or washer will always roll into the most
>unobtainable place between frame members or under a tire.
>
A dropped nut or washer will always escape into an alternative universe
through a wormhole in space-time, UNLESS you have plenty of spares.
No nut in your box of spares will ever be the same size as the one you
have just lost - although several will appear to be, until just after
you have stripped the thread from the bolt.
On first reassembling anything which requires washers on both sides of
the material through which a bolt fits, you will forget to put the
washers under the bolt head, and only realise this when you have done
the nut up. This is especially true when there are more than two
washers involved, or it has taken you twenty minutes to do the nut up,
due to difficulty of access.
Nuts only seize when there is absolutely no possibility of getting a
socket head to them, and where there is less than 1" of space to wield
an open-ended spanner.
Bolts which appear to be made of cheese when you shear them off appear
to be made of tungsten carbide when you try to drill them out.
Most bolts on Triumphs have head sizes that fall between two sizes of
socket head in your toolkit - this would be true even if your toolkit
contained a complete set of A/F, BSW, BSF, ANC, UNC and BA head sizes in
1/64" increments.
The setting of your adjustable spanner which was perfect for the
identical nut on the workbench will be too loose for the
barely-accessible nut on your car.
There is no such thing as a self-tapping screw.
Captive nuts long for freedom.
ATB
--
Mike
"It's a masterpiece," said the Dean. "A Triumph!"
- "Soul Music" by Terry Pratchett
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