Cut, Squash, Twirl

A second or less.  That’s all it took to cut, squash and twirl a piece of metal of a length of steel rod and you have a wheel stud.

 

So why did something that probably cost less than $0.01 to manufacture require me to pay $15.  To add insult to injury there was a two week wait for it to be delivered from the other side of the continent as there were none in Western Australia. 

If parts are so scarce for a common Isuzu I’d hate to be an owner of a Chinese EV.  There are so few of them and the models change so rapidly; sourcing replacement parts must be a nightmare.

Why do we need a wheel stud?   One on our Isuzu is damaged.  Apparently the thread is stripped which the garage identified during the recent 75,000km service.  They would have replaced it but there was no stock in Western Australia. 

I enquired about the time it would take to replace the stud and was informed about an hour.   The garage hourly labour rate is $140.   So $155 to replace a wheel stud.   I’ll do it myself.  But not until the weather is cooler.

 

Plugging On

According to yesterday’s weather forecast the high temperatures will be with us for the rest of the week.  It’s so hot the birds have stopped singing.  Actually some are falling out of the trees.  We’ve left some water out for them.   Meanwhile I need to check the water level in the pool as it is rapidly going down.  Hot water is running out of the garden taps. 

Last night we went to bed leaving the air conditioner running.   I felt slightly guilty (for a very brief period) as some suburbs have experienced power failures.  I eased my conscious by reminding myself our solar array sends more power to the network than we take.

Today’s small maintenance task is to replace the European plug on Jan’s new slicer which arrived from Germany yesterday.   She has had her old plastic slicer for many years and I think I’ve sharpened it’s blade on the oil stone several times.  However the plastic body had started to distort with age and use.  Actually it’s well used as Jan bakes all our bread before slicing it with the machine. 

I suggested she replacement be made of metal and she couldn’t find one in Australia.  Hence the overseas purchase.

Off with the old and on with the new!

 

Every three hours I’ve been dashing out to the workshop in the heat to continue my project of reconditioning the lithium 18650 battery cells salvaged from the e-scooter battery.   A new cell has a rated capacity of 2400mah.   The capacity of these cells is between 1950 – 2350mah.  I’m considering using some of the cells to make a couple of additional batteries for my DeWalt power tools.

Hot

It has been so hot over the last few days that I’ve seen birds blowing on the worms before eating them.

At 46+ we have rarely ventured outside other than to water the plants.  they are drooping in the heat with shrivelled leaves.  At least the solar panels provide power for the air conditioners, otherwise our electricity bill would be astronomical!

Humphrey arrived with our small package.  An eleven day trip across Australia.  The poor devil had to immediately turn around and head back. 

Meanwhile the package Jan ordered from Germany arrived today.  It took less than a week! 

My small eBay package arrived from Taiwan.   Replacement idler wheels and bushes for the bike chain tensioner.

No sign of wear on the teeth of the worn original wheel.   However the steel bearing (sleeve) has worn through which has resulted in the hole in the wheel being extended

The failure of the bearing resulted in the wheel wobbling and rubbing against the inside of the chain tensioner frame (below)

There are two idler wheels and only one is badly worn.  I’ve decided to just replace the worn one and keep the second new idler wheel as a spare.  The bike has done approximately 10,000km and I should probably expect to replace worn parts.

 

Humphrey

Early last December Jan purchased three items from Aliexpress.   Two were less than $20 whilst the third was moderately expensive.  The two cheap items arrived within a fortnight being delivered by the Australian courier company, Fast Horse.  They are very reliable and take a photo of the item at the postal address when the item is delivered.  They also send a text message immediately it’s delivered.

The Aliexpress seller of the third item has made a poor selection when choosing their Australian delivery provided.   Aramex is notorious for being very slow.  Our order was sent by air from China to Melbourne and collected by Aramex on 6 January for the final domestic leg of the journey. 

The Aramex estimated delivery date was 15 January.   Nine days to cross Australia.  The journey can be done in 5 hours by air; 21 hours by train and 48 hours by road.

My assumption is Aramex uses Humphrey; the blind, geriatric, three legged camel for delivery across the continent.  By today Humphrey had only covered half the distance and appeared to have stopped for several days.  He was likely exhausted.

Apparently I was wrong.  When I checked the Aramex website for the reason the delivery had been delayed I read it was caused by a rising volume leading to Christmas.  

As they received the package on 6 January I can only assume it’s the lead up to Christmas 2025!

My guess is Aramex business model is to be the cheapest courier.   They probably retain packages until they have a full shipping container before despatching it.  Melbourne to Perth is probably by rail.   The high number of complaints on various internet forums indicate significant delays with deliveries along with losses, damage and poor customer service responses to queries.  There is a price for going cheap!

I could be wrong and Humphrey might be slowly plodding west! .  

Bike Modification

A boring post about modifying the bike chain tensioner.

The Alfine 11 internally geared hub in the rear wheel came with a spring loaded chain tensioner.

You can see in the above photo the chain runs through two small cogs which form part of the tensioner.    Looking at the tensioner from a different angle allows me to explain the steel bushes in the cogs [A] have worn out.  The cogs now wobble around on the shaft of their securing screw.  As a consequence the chain doesn’t move smoothly and is noisy.  Moreover part of the tensioner is bent [B] and very close to the chain.  This probably occurred on one of the occasions when I either dropped or fell off the bike.

Buying a new tensioner is expensive.  Particularly as the only parts requiring replacement are two small steel bushes which are probably worth less than $0.01.  After searching the internet I found a supplier in Taiwan who claimed to be able to supply replacement cogs and bushes at an acceptable price.  However delivery may take some time.

I went onto Aliexpress looking to see if there was an intermediate solution.  Whilst doing that I decided to also buy a replacement pair of bike chain pliers.   My original pair are very small and my old hands are having problems squeezing them to break the chain link.  The new pair arrived today. Being larger are much easier to use.  I also ordered a generic single cog chain tensioner,

The first step was to test if the teeth on the generic cog aligned with the chain

They align

However when I fitted the tensioner to the bike the cog had insufficient reach to the chain.  Had I bought a lemon?

After thinking about it I modified the tensioner assemble.  This wasn’t a simple task as the tension spring inside the assemble initially worked in the wrong direction.  However once that problem was overcome the cog was able to be aligned with the chain.

 

I need to take the bike for a local test ride to ensure the tensioner is secure and works.  If it does I will probably cut off the surplus piece of the cog shaft with the angle grinder.  It sticks out and will likely bend or break the tensioner if the bike falls over.

Just my opinion

By nature I am curious. So when Paul (of Waterways Routes) left a comment regarding the recent breach of the Bridgewater Canal I started thinking about ownership of the canal and how much land was actually owned.

The Bridgewater Canal is approximately 60km long. Effectively a linear water park. But how much property is owned; apart from the canal bed and what is it’s value?

Peel Holding purchased the canal and they appear to have a very diverse and convoluted grouping of sub companies. The Bridgewater Canal website states:

“The Bridgewater Canal is owned and operated by The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited, part of Peel L&P, in conjunction with the Bridgewater Canal Trust. Bridgewater Canal Company Limited is a statutory body responsible for navigation and maintenance of the Bridgewater Canal.”

Interestingly Peel L&P appears to have been decommissioned as of 1 April 2024. What happened to the Bridgewater Canal Company Limited; a statutory body required by law to maintain the canal?

A perusal of the records for the Bridgewater Canal Company at Companies House allowed me to look at their latest Director’s Report for the year ending 31 March 2024. The first thing that caught my eye was the paragraph titled “Going concern”

The director’s report the company has net current liabilities. However the directors report Peel L&P will continue to support the company to enable it to continue to operate for the next 12 months. You may have realised Peel L&P was decommissioned the following day (1 April 2024). The Director’s Report was for the period ending 31 March and was submitted on 29 November 2024 eight months after the decommissioning.

[Definition of Net Current Liabilities

Net current liabilities refer to the current assets less current liabilities of an organisation. To have net current liabilities, the current liabilities must be larger than the current assets. This is usually because the company has very little inventories or does not give credit and therefore has no receivables. Alternatively it could indicate that the business is insolvent.]

Under fixed assets the company had as at 31 March 2024.

Tangible Assets £21,458

Investment property £17,480,000

Loans to group undertakings £5,879,250

Total £23,380,708

After Deducted Liabilities the total is £18,603,376

Cash in the bank £20,158

There is insufficient detail in the report to identify whether the company is self-insured, insured by Peel Holdings or has independent insurance coverage. Nor is there and detail regarding the scope of the ‘Investment property’. Is it the canal; or more?

My conclusion is the Bridgewater Canal Company Ltd continues to exist and is has a statutory responsibly to maintain the canal.   However one gets the impression their is insufficient revenue to support the business.  Hence the comment about Pell L&P support.  But Pell L&P apparently not longer exists?

It becomes slightly more confusing because their is a Canal Trust on the Bridgewater Canal website

“The Bridgewater Canal Trust. The trust meets twice a year and formulates the long and short-term policies for the amenity use of the Bridgewater Canal. All income generated by the Bridgewater Canal from pleasure craft, fishing, drainage and sales of water for cooling purposes etc is used to maintain and improve the canal and its local environment.”

The above paragraph makes me wonder whether there are any additional sources of income?

There appears to be Peel L&P (decommissioned) which owns (ed) The Bridgewater Canal Company Limited which has assets of approximately £23m and a Bridgewater Canal Trust which generates revenue from boating, fishing, drainage and sale of water. I also read separately the income in 2018 was approx £750,000

Interestingly; unlike other UK canal trusts; there appear to be no records at Companies House for the Bridgewater Canal Trust.

My assumption is the Trust will dam both sides of the breach which would allow some boating, fishing and drainage,etc allowing revenue to continue. But not meet the statutory obligations for navigation and maintenance.

Repairs would likely cost in the region of £2-3m and my guess is the Trustees will take their time deciding how; if; when; they will fund that.

More Maintenance

It seems I’m spending more time these days doing maintenance tasks.

The new security camera stopped working with the system reporting the camera battery was flat.  That was a revelation as it’s connected to a 5V solar panel which was purchased to provide enough power to keep the camera battery fully charged.  

Had the camera or solar panel failed?   Both were still within the statutory 12 month warranty period.

I plugged each of them into my USB multimeter. 

The camera battery was accepting a charge and the solar panel was producing power.

There is a pigtail cable connector between the solar panel and the camera.  It’s an adapter connector as the solar panel cable has a micro usb plug on the end of the cable and the camera has a usb-c socket.  The pigtail connection wasn’t fully home, so no power was going from the panel to the camera.  “Look for the simple things first”

I don’t ride the ebike wearing my hearing aids.  The sound of the wind whistling in my ears is too painful.  Not wearing them means I don’t hear any unusual noises from the bike.  Today was an exception as I could definitely hear something.

I must have ridden a couple of thousand kilometres since the last oil change in the rear wheel internally geared hub.  It’s a 30 minute job.   But the noise remained!

Thinking about it I realised I hadn’t checked the grease in the main gear of the electric motor since the period prior to my first trip to Taiwan.  That was many thousands of kilometres ago.

After removing the crank, chain ring and cover plate I was surprised to see almost no grease.

This was less grease than when I first inspected it immediately after it was delivered.  At that time I had carefully and fully repacked the entire housing with a good quality grease.

The reverse side of the cover plate looked somewhat worn.  Fortunately the area where it sealed against the main housing wasn’t damaged.

I spent another 30 minutes repacking the entire area with grease. 

After reassembly the bike was still making a noise.   Eventually I traced the source to the chain tensioner.  It’s the first time I’ve disassembled the tensioner and I discovered the stainless steel bearing bush was worn out.   Of course you can’t just buy the bush which is probably worth less than $0.01.  The entire tensioner has to be purchased.  It would be nice to have a lathe and make my own replacements.

Jan was keen to tell me there was a breach in the Bridgewater Canal with boats being stranded.  The canal is owned by Peel Holdings, which has a sole family as the major shareholder.  Peel Holdings is very wealthy but the canal makes little money.   I suspect Peel Holding would like to divest themselves of the canal, but to date haven’t been able to find a naïve purchaser. 

My instincts are repairs are going to take a long time.  Peel Holdings won’t want to spend the money.  If the canal is insured, the insurance company will want to see evidence that Peel Holdings has been actively working to minimise potential risks.  There will likely be a stalemate and possibly a long legal battle prior to any repairs commencing.  I suspect the best stranded boaters can hope for is either being craned out. However my guess is Peel Holdings won’t do that unless there is plenty of negative publicity regarding their inaction.   Time will tell.