Our friend Mike, out in Colorado, put together a site for his Scout project. He’s a lot deeper into his project than I am into mine (by that I mean total restoration) and he’s got a ton of great pictures documenting how he’s doing things. A recent post on his steering column rebuild has me dreaming of a turn signal that cancels correctly…
In other news, one of the smaller things I picked up on Sunday was an incomplete set of rollbar pads. Due to their age and exposure to the elements, the zippers on both downtubes were frozen stiff, but the crossbar and rear arm pads came off with a little coaxing. The zippers are all pretty rough and some are missing teeth, but for $10 I figure I can have new zippers installed and buy some crash-rated foam to replace what they came with.
Last night I used an old trick for fixing the zippers: I rubbed them liberally with candle wax until I could get all three to catch and zip. I think I’m going to have Jesse cut the other two off for me and set them aside, so that I can have a full set to work with.
MIke Carey says:
Your wax fix reminds me – 15+ years ago some company came out with a “revolutionary” lube for MTB chains – wax. It came in a can similar to tuna fish and you heated the can on your stove until the wax was liquid, then dipped your chain in. It was supposed to be a “dry lube.” I never tried it but, it probably worked on the same idea as your zipper fix. Wax can be a decent lube. (Though I dont know how it would stand up to the kind of abuse Josh and I gave our MTBs!)
Still, I love picking up these random, homegrown solutions to things. Good for you on your find. A seam ripper would probably easily cut the threads that hold the zipper, even if it’s frozen zipped shut. Then you could measure it for replacement.
I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that zippers were a military invention?