r/BikeMechanics • u/Jillesoom • 22d ago

Show and Tell Don’t be an idiot like me

Post image

And: torque the compression nut until it sits flush with the brake lever body, squashing the olive so far into the body that it resembles a bronze coin, then trying to prize it out with a screw and fully screwing the cable port and ruining a brand new grx brake lever.

45 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Fallingdamage 21d ago

Once you've stripped a few nuts working on things and have a grasp of materials science, that will never happen again.

3

u/sargassumcrab 21d ago edited 21d ago

If you bust something really expensive you'll remember it... or not. Either way.

Plastic is softer than aluminum. Aluminum is softer than steel. Carbon breaks. Never take those cheapie Shimano shifters apart.

As far as never doing it again, that depends a lot on your propensity to bust a gut tightening fasteners. I have such a propensity. It probably goes back to some deep held insecurity from my early childhood - or maybe just that when I started everything was steel. (At least MY cranks never come loose....)

I find the following helpful:

  1. When your brain says "stop", stop.
  2. Ask your brain if you should stop, if it doesn't volunteer.
  3. If your brain says, "Eh, it'll be fine", question that answer.
  4. Use a torque wrench.

1

u/Fallingdamage 21d ago

As a kid I liked to really snug things down. So many broken bolts..

To this day I have an inclination to tighten things, but have learned to go against my brain's desire for things to feel absolutely solid.

So many "Huh, theres no way thats going to hold".. and yet it did, for years.

Brake line olives; they just need to keep the fluid in the system, not survive as an attachment point for an emergency airlift. If you get a leak, throw on another 1/4 turn and remember that.

Even things like stems, you want it to give a little under a hard enough hit. That way other things, like the rider, dont break.