Press "Enter" to skip to content

Day: March 15, 2013

Advance Auto Parts Marine Grease is PEAK Performance Synthetic Marine Grease

Published March 15, 2013

En route to work today I stopped off at Advance Auto Parts and picked up some house brand Marine Grease to use when reassembling my bike rack after fixing the hitch retention piece. I wanted to find the MSDS for this product so I could try to figure out what materials this product is compatible with, but after the Advance Auto Parts MSDS Page didn’t return anything when searching for the product (SKU #A2953013) I called the listed phone number and asked for help.

The person who answered the phone was very helpful and — despite not being able to find the product by SKU — found the MSDS and emailed it to me. You can get a copy of it here. Embedded in the email was the path I:\M9\OLD WORLD INDUSTRIES\ELRMA14OZ.PDF, which I find interesting as it shows both that the company has a simple directory structure full of MSDS, and that this product is actually made by Old World Industries, the parent company for PEAK and a number of other automotive companies. Per a recent press release:

Old World Industries, LLC is among the largest privately-held companies competing in the automotive aftermarket. The Northbrook, Illinois-based company enjoys a presence in various consumer product markets in more than 30 countries worldwide. Old World’s brands include a full line of PEAK® Performance Products including Antifreeze, Motor Oil, Washer Fluid, Electronics and Wiper Blades; SIERRA® Antifreeze; Fleet Charge® Fully Formulated Coolant; Final Charge® Heavy Duty Global Extended Life Antifreeze/Coolant; SmartBLADE™ Premium Wiper Blades; HERCULINER® Truck Bed Liner Kits; and BlueDEF® Diesel Exhaust Fluid. For more information, please visit http://www.peakauto.com.

Comparing this product’s MSDS to the one from Advance Auto Parts SKU #A2953013 shows them to be identical (including the contact person and his phone number), save for some slight formatting and naming changes. Based on this I think this $3.99 tube of Advance Auto Parts-brand Marine Grease is the same as PEAK® Performance Synthetic Marine Grease. Thus these should also be the specs for the Advance Auto Parts grease.

Isn’t research via MSDS great? Digging into these lets one peer behind the labels on lots of products…

Leave a Comment

Elegant Cadence Sensor Magnet

Published March 15, 2013

My friend Jeremy lost his Garmin cadence sensor magnet so he replaced it with a simple neodymium magnet. After hearing about how well that worked for him I picked up some similarly sized ones from eBay and put one on the crankset for my new bike. I opted for a 8mm thick (10mm diameter) magnet where he’d gone with the 6mm thick version. I picked this based on how far out from the crank arm the normal Garmin sensor sits, although with the additional strength of the larger magnet this may not have been necessary.

The magnet sticks solidly to the end of the pedal spindle, nestled inside of the 10mm hole in the Race Face Crank Boot. It’s a bit difficult to pry off with my finger, but easy enough to remove I can’t help but wonder if I should have opted for a thinner version instead, so I just purchased some 3mm thick magnets on eBay and will give those a go as well. Whichever I end up using it’s a very elegant solution that I expect to work out quite well, as long as it doesn’t come out and become stuck in my drivetrain or something terrible. It also looks much nicer (and is much easier to fit) than the normal Garmin magnet, as it doesn’t use adhesive nor require a cable tie around the crank arm.

Leave a Comment