#ladymechanics

[nismo717]

#z32tt #300zxtt #vg30dett #nismo717 #katayamaclan #NeoMatrixology #ProjectMatriculated #malefeminist #280zx #vqpower #infinitichicks #nissan #datsun #feminism #ladymechanics #vg33 #vq35de #girlswhodrivestick #classicman #datsungirls #girlpower #allyship #oldschool #Pennsylvania #nissantrucks #nissanxterra #toughchicks #oldschool #countrygirl #southernbelle #berkscounty (at Moyer Nissan of Wernersville) https://www.instagram.com/p/CNfi9OensKA/?igshid=1g3pcoagdwy0n

[garagegirlsjewelry]

So cool to see my jewlery being worn over in Prague! @zdenosek_e92 🖤create your own Wrench Ring online! Sizes 5-10! Perfect for the lady who loves to wrench. ORDER 👇 www.GarageGirlsJewelry.com #garagegirls #carjewelry #automotivejewelry #wrench #wrenchring #spanner #spannerring #ladymechanics #ladydriven #girlsthatwrench #carenthusiast #cargirl (at Prague, Czech Republic) https://www.instagram.com/p/CcBRkQcPmi0/?utm_medium=tumblr

[femcanicgarage]

Thanks for sharing this ✊💪💪👏🙌@flokisshipchallenger For you @tiamatthedragon #ladymechanics #girlsrock #femcanicgarage #femalesintrades #femalemechanic #girlpower https://www.instagram.com/p/B4ZrxjSgfdX/?igshid=1j8p7wczejnep

[pelovers]

#school #collegestudent #auto #automotive #automotivetechnician #ladymechanic #tech #technician #mechanic #ladytech #bigbook #doit https://www.instagram.com/p/BsoNvrWhl5Z/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=p0zj34jrfp23

[jayne-hecate-writer]

The Eagle has landed...

In Weston Super Mare and it rides beautifully.

So my friends, in a departure from my usual cynicism I have completed a project that I not only enjoyed, but continue to enjoy. Like many other artists, I find that the longer I spend on a project, the more I start disliking it. With my writing, I start to hate my words almost as soon as I am done with the second edit, by the fifth edit I am frankly so fed up with my words, that I hope to never have to read them ever again, despite knowing that I have yet more editing to do. With my most recent art project, the X-Wing, I had starting hating that before I had even finished the third wing cannon. The fibre optics and scratch built cockpit were just another annoyance that once it was finally done, I was happy to see the back of, right up until the power supply unit burned out and it ended up back on my sodding desk again!

So why is it that when I build a bicycle, I never get bored of them? Actually, I take that back, I grew very bored of the Orange Clockwork I had in the early 1990s. At the time, it was considered a great bike, with a steel frame made from good quality double butted, rather lovely slim tubes. I built up that bike and yet despite putting several thousand miles on it, I never gelled with it. I eventually sold it to a pervert who had made an inappropriate suggestion to a friend of mine back then, for a little more than it was really worth. I replaced the boring Orange with a Kona Cindercone, of a slightly less quality build, but the frame on that bike sang when ridden hard. It was one of the most beautiful bikes I have ever owned and when I was forced to sell it because of starting the third year of university with no income and rising debt, I felt genuine sadness to see it go.

Dragging myself back up to date, I wrote recently that I had been gifted a rusted and sad looking Coventry Eagle road bike, that I was excitedly rebuilding. Well, it is now finally done, the build is over and I am genuinely sad that it is done. The parts I am most proud of are the hand carved dropout and the hand built wheels. The wheels are special and made with Sapim spokes and Mavic rims on old Shimano hubs. But if only it were that simple, spoke pattern is just as important as brand name and prior to building I had decided to build them in an unconventional way, as mentioned in a previous post on this here blog. However, I decided that the patterns I chose were old hat and so I chose an entirely different spoke pattern for each wheel, something far prettier.

The rear wheel is built with two spoke patterns, standard three cross on the drive side and fully radial on the none drive side. The effect is beautiful when viewed from the side, the crossed spokes seem to have a third spoke emerging from the end cross and the wheel is rigid AF! The power transmission is responsive and immediate and I wish that I was clever enough to understand the forces at play through the whole build. However, performance and lightweight aside, this wheel was built to be aesthetically perfect and I am delighted with it.

The front wheel was a first for me in that it is a pattern that I have not built before. I started with a standard three cross pattern, but with spokes slightly longer that usual. If I left it standard at this point, the wheel would never tension up correctly, but once it was all together the fun began. Each crossed pair of spokes are removed, twisted in the direction of the cross and then twisted again before being replaced back into their original spoke holes, the resultant pattern is called a snowflake. These were popular back in the mid to late 90s and back then I was not convinced by their performance. However, as with the back wheel, the front wheel was built to be aesthetically pleasing rather than lightweight.

Tensioning this wheel up was an unusual experience, it felt slack and useless right up until the tension appeared suddenly as the twisted spokes drew tight against each other to the tension of a guitar string, with only one set of spokes still left to tighten. I am sure that you are aware that each wheel is built up sets of corresponding spokes on each side of the hub. Each set is made of two spokes on one side, mirrored on the other. The four spokes work together pulling on the rim to keep it straight and then preventing it from bursting out when loaded on the opposite side. The mechanics of a bicycle wheel are truly marvellous.

So with the wheels fitted, I took her for a test ride and she was fabulous. However, the wheels being finished was not the end of the build, there was one more thing that this bike desperately needed and that was wicker! Oh yes, I am going there. This bike needs a wicker picnic basket like fish need er... let's forget that one.

Picnics are why I built this bike, mainly picnics with the wife now that she has an e-Bike, but sometimes it is nice to grab a bottle and a sandwich and just drop out of town for a few hours. This bike will do that, especially now that it has a wicker basket on the back with little straps and a lid to keep my picnic in. The best part of this is that the basket fits onto the rack with custom clips I made for myself. With the aim of keeping the basket as lightweight as possible, I used some parts of an aluminium technical drawing ruler, that is both rigid and light. I also used aluminium bolts and some old inner tube to prevent rattling parts from sounding against each other. The result is a little basket that can hold all of the food, drink and crockery needed for a nice picnic and I can even fit a little blanket in there too. Now I do not want you thinking that I am talking about a plastic camping plate and a tin of Co-Op spam. Oh no, this basket is for super posh cucumber sandwiches and a bone china tea pot. The shame of it though is that I don't drink tea and I cannot stand cucumber, but I am rather partial to malted wholemeal bread and Bird Eye Chillies. I have no idea what kind of sandwiches I will be taking with me, but I do suggest that it is probably best not to ride behind me though, just in case the eruption of wind has chilli powered flames in it!

[divaracer]

All smoke no gas! East Side Edibles #DivaRacer #TeamDivaRacers #Smoke #Gas #Trees #CBD #CarMeets #CarShow #Weed #Cars #thingstodoincharlotte #mechanics #ladymechanic #catsofinstagram #fashion #carsandcoffee #carsmimos #charlottenc #charlotte #nascar #nhra #racing #drag #dragracing #women #mensupportingwomen (at AutoZone) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVHLoBOssl8/?utm_medium=tumblr

[toolboxwars]

This is our 2000th post and the post that gets to claim it is well deserved. Welcome to the #Tool_E_Army, Tool_et @mechantress. She has been with us from the beginning and its a real honor to have her as a Tool_et. Huge thanks to @kimchi_commander forall the hard work on this. #pride🌈 #lgbtq🌈 #pbswisstools #vans #pbma #toolsinuse #ladymechanic #badass #scrunchy #tools #tooladdiction #toolsinuse #toolsnotwar #toolstorage #thankyou https://www.instagram.com/p/CEYB9MiF1TH/?igshid=120h02hlnf56u

[mechaniccindy]

“See something you like?”

Bar/Pub Sentence Starters :: here

❝ Yeah. She’s an real beaut this one. How much for the ol’ girl?❞  blonde haired  greaser’s green eyes scan over hand gun taken by its silver luster. Daemons getting rowdy night so she felt time pack heat for protection and little beauty was just right for the job. 

[makhostels-blog]

#shifting #ladydriven #womenempowerment #shiftinggears #shiftingpretty #femalemechanic #banginggears #savethemanual #savethemanuals #jdm #femaledriven #girlswhowrench #missmanual #ladymechanic #jzgte #h #journal #life #soul #healing #health #awareness #love #day #wrench #myyearinpictures #moving #after #years #makhostels https://www.instagram.com/p/Buf8p2lgnpl/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1oyskzr29sjqs

[nismo717]

More z cars & Nissans! #nismo717 #katayamaclan #NeoMatrixology #ProjectMatriculated #malefeminist #280zx #vqpower #infinitichicks #nissan #datsun #feminism #ladymechanics #vg33 #vq35de #girlswhodrivestick #classicman #datsungirls #girlpower #allyship #oldschool #Pennsylvania #nissantrucks #nissanxterra #toughchicks #oldschool #countrygirl #southernbelle #berkscounty (at Carlisle Import & Performance Nationals) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPVmm6WHHQh/?utm_medium=tumblr

[femcanicgarage]

What an awesome pic! What a great thing to do with your bestie!!! 👏🔥💯👍 @the.lady.mickanic Shout out to ma best #babe, my soul #sister! 🖤🖤🖤 @lauraquinton64 This is me & my right hand woman, my best #bluecollarbabe doing our thing in the early days. #horsepower & horse power cross over! #breakingthemold 🚘 🐎 💪🏼👩🏻‍🔧👩‍🏭👷🏻‍♀️🦸🏻‍♀️🤜💥🤛🤘🏻👄👠💄👗👑 @the.lady.mickanic .. .. #ladymechanic #mechanics #SwissArmyWife #womenmechanics #womenintrades #womeninbusiness #timesup #womensupportingwomen #onlyoneyou #beyourself #beproud #entrepreneurwoman #womenbreakingthemold #alternativegirl #veteranowned #tankgirl #purplehairdontcare #wrenchmonkey #womenwhotourqe #wrenching @ Swansea, South Wales https://www.instagram.com/p/B34vN8MAApT/?igshid=4v7ldj0r92f7

[theoriginalmechanicchick]

💕 . . . . . . . -💙Get your diesel preformance parts at @sinisterdiesel use code MCHICK5 an ask me for my link💙 -🖤Get your 6.0 nipples at @hhcdiesel 🖤 -💛Get monthly tool crates @toolheadzcrate use code MCHICK💛 -💜Get your diesel swag at @dieseldollofficial 💜 -❤️In home shop alignment tools @quicktrickalignment use code MCHICK❤️ - ⛽️ Get all your oil and fuel treatments @hotshotssecret use code MCHICK ⛽️ - 🔧 Get your simple tool storage @olsatools code MCHICK 🔧 -💡 -Get your lighting accessories from @lightingtrendz use code MCHICK19 💡 - 👩🏼‍🔧💍Get your mechanic jewelry from @garage.girls use code MCHICK 💍👩🏼‍🔧 . . . . . #snapon #mactools #superduty #turbo #fordpower #forddiesel #snapontools #pinkzilla #dieseltrucks #superdutybooty #diesellife #mechanic #femalemechanic #mechanicgirl #femaledieselmechanic #shecanic #mechanicchick #dieselmechanic #wrenchingproblems #girlswhowrench #mechanicslife #addictedtotools #dieseltech #ladymechanic #Ford #powerstroke #diesel #sixpointoh #6point0 https://www.instagram.com/p/B5LZPcMB6Ak/?igshid=16c6a6mirrpxx

[jayne-hecate-writer]

Bicycles... Again

I have been playing with bicycles again, which sounds like a very silly thing for someone with a back injury and some pretty restrictive arthritic joints. However, when have I ever allowed pain to get in the way of fun?

This started when at the very beginning of 2020 a lovely Occupational Therapist started seeing me for my hand pain and finger deformity. My fingers are developing weird growths that make them look gnarled and as one friend described them, 'Witchy'! This comes about as a result of my former career as a climbing and mountaineering instructor, in which I went climbing every day for work and then on my days off, I err... went climbing. Eventually, my poor battered fingers locked up and I lost the use of my hands for a few days, but with finger tape and some swearing, I was able to continue climbing to a reasonable level. That was twenty years ago. My fingers are now, to use the correct medical term, fucked. Add in to the mix, my work in mountain bike leadership, my mountain biking for fun and then the added motorcycle adventures and my poor hands have pretty much had enough punishment.

So the pretty young Therapist categorically told me that riding my bicycles was very bad for my hands, neck, shoulders, back, hips, knees and undercarriage. I went home, I sulked for several days and then I said fuck it and jumped on my turbo trainer anyway. I have been using the hand strengthening and flexibility exercises given to me by the therapist and now my hands seem to have stabilised. I am still on a waiting list to have my finger tips fused and my knuckles replaced with plastic, but not for a while yet. Then just when all seemed hopeless, I was given a new physiotherapist and their advice was fabulous... “You have done all of the damage you are going to do, so go mad, have fun! Mental health is just as important as physical health, so set yourself a challenge and do it.” At the time of writing I am four hundred kilometres into a virtual tour of the UK, completed on my turbo trainer in the bedroom, with with slightly less than a thousand left to do. 

I now own three and a half bicycles, all of which are outdated and obsolete. The first is my classic old Giant, a race level hard-tail mountain bike from the early noughties. There is a new model of this bike available now, but these days it has twenty nine inch wheels and a full carbon frame. The gears are ridiculous, with twelve cogs on the rear and one on the front. My bike has three on the front and eight on the back, with pennies for wheels in the form of old school twenty six inch rims and tyres that are now so old they have the right to vote!

My second bike was gifted to me by my friend and co-author Jan. It was a home brand bike from a dodgy shop that shall remain unnamed and then I scraped the paint off roughed it up and sprayed it to look like a chewy sweet covered in dirty words. Then something strange happened. Wifey asked for an e-Bike and so I turned this bike into an e-Bike for her and took ownership of what is now my project bike. 

The e-Bike thing happened by accident, when a rusted and battered forty year old Coventry Eagle fell into my hands, from a friend who could not restore the old wreck back into the pretty thing it should really be. I lamented with them because the old machine was a thing of hidden beauty, probably not that expensive when new, but beautiful none the less. It is not just the bike that is beautiful, it comes with a narrative that is also beautiful. This bike belonged to a woman I have never met. She had it from new and clearly loved this bike because after she died, the bike was still in very good order and was left to stand in a garage until eventually it was sold and thus began it's life in a hedgerow. It lived in this hedgerow for just over a year and suffered terrible damage before it was sent to me to look at and assess for rebuild. By the time it landed on my hallway, it too was fucked. The cost of repair was going to be huge. The wheels had rusted to flakes, with rotten spokes and seized hubs. Leaves and spiders had lived their lives attached to the frame and the rust had spread with terminal insistence. I declared the bike unfixable within the allowed budget and told my friend that what it needed was a lot of love and a lot of cash to be thrown at it, some of which would stick and some would appear to simply float away. Thus the bike was given to Wifey...

Wifey fell in love with the sad old Coventry Eagle, despite the rust and the rot, but then she is fond of worn out old bikes, ruined by the natural environment. I declared the bike repairable, but it would take time and effort, especially given I would rebuild the bike completely, scrapping the rotten parts and replacing them with newer, better equipment than the pre-index Shimano parts. These parts will still be vintage, but considerably better. The original rear hub was a Shimano Altus LT, a full steel construction with a six speed Uniglide free hub, hence the expense of replacing this antiquated piece of hardware. Uniglide was marvellous, it worked well for those pre-indexed gear times and even followed through into the index era only to be replaced by Hyperglide in the 90s. The rest of the gear system was rusted, dirty and after some oil, in perfect working order, which was such a shame because it now resides in a brown cardboard box under my desk, along with the barely used Uniglide cassette. The plan was to rebuild the bike with bar mounted gear levers, better saddle and much nicer grips. Unfortunately it was at this time that I found an e-Bike motor and battery in a shop for a price that could not be ignored. The Coventry Eagle would have been a beautiful e-Bike for around twenty minutes before the frame folded in on itself and the fork legs pinged apart. Thus the rude Sweetie became Wifey's bike and the Coventry Eagle landed on me.

The half a bike I own is a custom steel frame that I am embarrassed by. It was built by a friend for a price that could not be refused using the best Columbus tubing available in 1997. The friend is sadly long gone, but the frame now hangs upon my wall as a reminder of bad frame design mistakes. When designing a mountain bike, one should never attempt to make the chain stays as short as possible. This was my design, it was long  and low and fast and sadly, horribly unstable in corners. It sprinted and wheelied like a monster on amphetamines. Unfortunately, once the front wheel was down, the back wheel was hanging in the air instead. I found this out when I complained to a friend that my very expensive back brake was not as powerful as I had wished. We reset the brake, reduced the pad toe in and still it failed to perform. My friend followed me home a few days later and when I stopped at a traffic light (some of us cyclists do do this!) he pulled up next to me laughing. I was involuntarily riding through rolling stoppies, hence the poor rear brake performance. During a late night ride, I jumped a curb, landed sideways and spun the bars into the tarmac, narrowly avoiding being badly hurt. The top tube is now showing the scars of my many near misses in the form a large dent.

So the Coventry Eagle was pretty basic in regard frame furniture, having next to no cable guides, lever mounts and no dérailleur drop out. This simple cannot be fixed and there is nowhere to bolt a good quality dérailleur. So to prove that frames cannot be made better, I carved a new drop out from a similar grade steel and went along to Page Engineering in Weston Super Mare where, very kindly, Martin got out his TIG welder and electric glued the new drop out onto the frame. The next job was the utterly bolloxed headset bearing and once again I was presented with the difficulty of finding a quality item that would fit the decrepit frame size of the Coventry Eagle. Sure enough, if you type enough words, numbers and astronomical constants into Google, the great multiheaded beast shall rise and drop a headset through your letterbox in exchange for a few pieces of your eternal soul or lots of pounds sterling if you like me have already sold your soul back in 1992, in exchange for a bag of crisps and half filled carton of juice. You see back then, I was in discussions with a person at college and I seriously doubted their claims to be a servant of the Dark Lord. Thus I jokingly sold my soul to them and alas I am now a servant of the Dark Lord and practise my faith as often as possible, usually in places where such rituals cause most amusement to my fellow atheistic humans.

The bike is now coming together, I have a set of hubs that you would frankly not believe. The first is a Shimano 105 front hub from 1987, fresh out of the box and in a lovely blue hue. The rear hub was a Shimano STX RC from the mid 90s, sadly not in the original pewter finish. This hub came to me via the evils of the Bay of Eee and it was damned before it ever arrived, having been sold under a thread of lies and misdeeds. I was told by a roguish vendor that the bearings were fine and dandy. What actually arrived was rusted, pitted and filled with the phlegm and seed of Abaddon. The freehub body was rusted inside, with bearings turning to dust as I watched. Upon attempting to open discussions with the rogue, he denied my claims, despite photographic evidence and gave me a five star review as a sucker. So it came to pass that I returned to the workshop of Martin at Page Engineering and we had a dark and evil discussion about replacing a bearing surface. First I would need a virgin to sacrifice and then I would need the balls of a... imperial size, being one quarter of an inch because for reasons I have not bothered to look into, Shimano hubs run on non-metric bearing sizes. Oh well, such is life. The virgin was a Shimano Deore XT hub with just the wrong number of spoke holes and a complete lack of disk brake mountings. So it was ripped apart, the bearing surface pressed out and the freehub body was removed and all of this was placed upon STX RC hub, simultaneously upgrading not just the bearing surface, but the seals, cones and freehub body. The remains of the XT hub now languish in a box under my desk. 

The rancid original chain-set, a double set up with more teeth than an overly bullied geek in a private school, was broken by me. The pedals had been fitted dry and decades passed before some idiot (me) decided to remove them. It took a scaffold pole and some frankly awful swearing to release the pedals and as it loosened, the right pedal took the threads with it. So I have replaced this unit with another frankly ludicrous piece of esoteric, worthless tat, once again from the Bay of Eee. I went out onto the sea of simulated shopping, waved my idiot flag at the pirates and purchased a crank-set that has a size only ever used in 1990 by Suntour when they released Micro-drive. A few more days of shopping saw me win some fake Shimano chainrings in a size that they never produced and a nearly new Sugino chainring designed for my exact cranks.

So the Coventry Eagle is now resplendent, her frame was washed, rust proofed, polished, coated and dried on a radiator throughout winter. She has a new sealed bearing bottom bracket, a shiny new headset, a set of touring drop bars and a Shimano Sora STI lever set. The Dérailleurs are a Shimano Deore LX from 1993 and a Shimano Sora from 2009-ish. The cassette is an eight speed Shimano Deore 11-28 in nickel plate. The grip tape is black and red, the saddle is red and black with a black seat pin. The original rear light was an old Ever Ready unit from the 1980's and I really wanted to use this, but not have to deal with D-cell batteries and filament lamp bulbs. So using my trusty knowledge of LEDs and CR2032 batteries, I custom built an LED array onto a board small enough to fit into the bulb holder and used hot snot to glue the battery holder into the battery holder! This gives me a brighter, lighter (ummm, not in that way, but also in that way) and better rear light. 

My final job is to build the wheels and even here I have decided to make life harder by using a peculiar spoke lacing. The front is going to be a simple two cross lacing and the rear is going to be a three cross lacing on the drive side, with a two cross on the non-drive side. Why have I gone for this archaic lacing system? Well, to somewhat misquote the heroic George Leigh Mallory, I am doing this because it is there. I once built a set of wheels for a friend. A set that had crows foot lacing, two cross lacing on the drive side, with radial on the non-drive side. It looked beautiful and was ferocious to ride, it was also a testament to my skill as a wheel builder, but that was thirty years ago nearly. I have not built wheels since I was in my twenties and now I am nearly fifty. So I had a practice and found a Shimano Deore hub and a Mavic rim and now they are together, perfectly round and spoked with stainless steel spokes. It was only later that I found that the cones on the Deore hub were fucked, luckily this is an easy fix and I have a spare wheel for the reliable old Giant.

Hopefully, the Coventry Eagle will be finished in a couple of months, just in time to ride some beautiful summer miles together with Wifey, without the raw of a rampaging motorcycle engine. Where I was in life, I find myself again, all thanks to a physiotherapist who said that mental health is just as important as physical health. He was not wrong.

[divaracer]

Gang gang #DivaRacer #TeamDivaRacers #Bikes #motorcycle #bikeclub #carmeets #thingstodoincharlotte #womensupportingwomen #womenempowerment #automotiveworkshops #women #ladydriven #mopargirl #realityshow #issarae #cars #mechanic #ladymechanic #entrepreneurlife #entrepreneur #fashionblogger #fashionista #engine #enginebuild #enginebuilding #womeninracing (at AutoZone) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVHG_AGopZN/?utm_medium=tumblr

[heebiejeebiesclothing-blog]

#greasemonkeys #greaser #classiccar #retrostyle #vintagestyle #vintagecar #ladymechanic #Mechanic #cartroubles #asking #rocknroll #vintagetees #rockabilly #rockabillystyle  

https://heebiejeebiesclothing.com 

[ithasoul]

hanna_kristall

Last night in Vienna with#teganandsara! Thanks soo much dear chicas, what a lovely evening and great time we had!!! :* #teganandsara #mq#hannakristall #fresh #chicasalmodovar#lovemusic #losangeles #mexico #polska#japan #love #ladymechanic