nuxx.net blog

Even though I have new bike wheels on the way, I figure I should try and make the old ones work as good as possible for spare / winter use. Part of this involved disassembling the rear hub, cleaning it, and just generally being sure it’s okay. It was a bit sticky and wasn’t turning very smoothly, so I figured that maybe it had a bearing and/or race problem like the front wheel did.

After opening up the rear bearings I found that there was nearly a tablespoon of grease around the balls and sitting lumpily on the axel, with lots of it in places where it just wouldn’t do much beyond compacting and gumming up the works. Tomorrow (or maybe Sunday) after I get a properly sized cone wrench I’ll put the wheel back together and see how it works. The freewheel itself currently seems fine so I don’t need to touch that, but the wheel bearings themselves were definitely needing some work.

This post is being brought to you by a bit of energy supplied by new batteries which were just installed in the old Smart UPS 1400 in my office.

On Wednesday evening I ordered two new batteries from Rage Battery, part number SLA-17-12, which are direct replacements for the cells in the OEM Smart UPS 1400 battery. They were delivered today, so I used the parts from the old pack (bus, fuse, screws, nuts, harness) to build them into a replacement pack which I then stuffed that back into the UPS housing. After a brief test it’s now all sitting back on the rack, charging, smoothing power, and waiting to protect things at the next power glitch.

Thankfully the replacement TiVo HD was delivered today as well, so I think I’ll go put that into place while Danielle cooks dinner.