One of the many benefits of being a handyman is, when you need something done, you can generally do it yourself. I had two such projects lately:
The first was my bike. I have had this bike for 40 years and it was needing some love and attention. Here you can see the original “stem” style shifters that I have had all this time and frankly, I always hated them. Not only did I have to take my hands off the handlebars to do any shifting, but they were terribly inexact and had to be fussed with on each shift.
But now you see the new “grip shifter” I installed for the rear derailleur:
FYI the handlebar grip cover is missing in photo . . . and I confess I had to take the bike to the shop for a final fitting, as the frame had gotten twisted out of true. But it’s just so fabulous to have this, makes shifting SO much easier.
I also bought and installed new tubes and tires, plus at long last I have a kickstand (what a massive upgrade!), and I am cleaning off all the rust (My Dremel tool came in VERY handy for that!). I am calling this the summer of bike, I am really getting out and biking around.
Next, I have been meaning to do this for a while, I swapped out the spark plugs on my vintage Honda Civic:
This could have been a classic handymanning post all by itself. A few gremlins encountered: One, the manual said to “gap” the plugs to 1.1 mm, but the plugs now made for my car come “pre-gapped” with a 1mm gap, and I am NOT supposed to touch them. Plus, while the manual says to use 13 ft lbs on a torque wrench (Hey, I learned how to use a torque wrench in the process), NGK, the makers of the plug, said to use 18 ft lbs to properly crush the washers . . . but I simply could not turn it any further, the torque wrench only went to 14 ft lbs measurement, and NGK help line was fine by my just turning it 180 degrees past hand tight, so I left it.
Always kinda dicey doing this kind of work as you can really screw up your car if you make a mistake but . . . I immediately took it out for a test drive and OH MY what a difference in general zip! I have been constantly bugging my mechanic about putting these in and he always said not to worry about it . . . but in this case, he was wrong, it really needed it.
