It's a funny material aluminium, very strong, stiff and light, but with very poor fatigue strength to bending in inappropriate ways. The number of times I've snapped various delicate bits of aluminium over the years. I've come to know this process as if it were some old and tiresomely belligerent friend. A sudden feeling of the slightest, gentlest snap, giving way without warning and without anyway of ever undoing. Gentle, like snapping plasticine, but without being able to stick it back together again. This is always instantly followed by an enormous heart-sinking feeling. It's happened to me so many times over the years that maybe I've become a little desensitised to it. That characteristic plasticine snap of precious metal late last night... and I just quietly thought 'Oh, f*ck.'
11,000 miles away from the nearest Pace fork 'Control Valve Assembly'.
erm.....torque wrench?
nice little short story... beautiful prose, makes one think on one's relationship with the Earth - 8.5/10 🙂
"belligerent"??? As in aggressive or truculent? Applied to a piece of failing metal? X
Fail.
Are you suggesting we use plasticine as an alternative material? If so I am intrigued to know what colour?
being applied to a piece of metal likened to an old friend.
Not fail.
Old friends that go wobbly and fall in 2 pieces being described as aggressive? I fail to see how a fail can be belligerent unless the 2 pieces somehow morphed (can you see what I did there?) back into a terminator 2 style robot and slapped the OP around a bit, in which case it would be an old friend fail. Fail F- 😀
You're quite literal aren't you? 🙄
Bless. No, I'm bored and procrastinating a job!
Gladly appreciated the appreciation 🙂
Torque wrench was not the issue, if anyone has experience of servicing Pace forks you'll find the control valve assembly is a rather long, thin and delicate peice of fragile engineering and will happily snap quite easily while you are trying to remove the damping chamber top cap... which, incidentally, is also aluminium... and mates with a steel fork leg... Hmmmm... dissimilar metals anyone..?
I have a new bit winging its way to my from Pace in the UK to Hobart, Tasmania right now.. Hopefully I won't snap it again. 😀