Repair diary Sinclair C5 - Page 9:

Sunday, 17. May 2009:

A Puky gives its life

The sanding of the brake was wasted time - just purchased a wonderful new aluminium brake via eBay. Front wheel now complete again.
Puky sprocket

Puky sprocket

Today I found a very nice sprocket for the gear hub on a flea market - it is a pedal gear from an old Puky fairy cycle.
The Puky resisted to be cannibalized (one of the screws was nagged in such a manner that it just could not be removed) but in the end it could not withstand the brute power of an angle grinder. Rest in pieces Puky.

Now there is one problem remaining: I need a 66mm hole lathed in this sprocket to mount it on the gear hub.
Good, if you know someone who knows someone who can do this...
Unfortunately, this will take some time and meanwhile I can barely continue with working.


Another little problem is the gear transmission ratio with the intermediate gear hub.
Skizze: C5 mit Nabenschaltung

Drawing: C5 with intermediate gear hub:

  1: 42 cogs

  2: 24 cogs, drive sprocket for gear hub

  3: 30 cogs, Puky sprocket

  4: 20 cogs, mounted on rear axle, unexchangeable

  5: chain tensioner


The C5s original gear transmission ratio is 42 : 20 - thus 2.1 : 1.
With the intermediate gear hub the complete ration would be 42 : 24 and 30 : 20 (1.75 : 1 x 1.5 : 1) - thus 2.625 : 1.
I have no idea if this affects the drivability in a negative manner. I think the best would be to check this in a test run.
In case of doubt I can still replace sprocket [1] with a 32 cog sprocket (this would result a ratio of 2 : 1).


Wednesday, 20. May 2009:

An electric toothbrush with some real power

As you can read on Camp0s, the only way to get the body really clean is scrubbing with a toothbrush.
My own cleaning attempts last Wednesday confirm this too.
But extensive scrubbing, step by step, with a toothbrush is not only exhausting but also very time-killing.

So of course I wouldn't do myself such a thing. There must be an easier way!
First I thought I could use my old electric toothbrush. But then again I wasn't certain this would suffice. You need a little bit more power.
Just like this:
What's this?

A kitchen scrubber.

Sawed and equipped with a screw.

Where's this leading to??

Electric toothbrush

Sure thing: a electric toothbrush. With 700W.


Clean!

Clean!

Thanks to this monster the body was cleaned within one hour.
Ok, from a close range there are still some grey spots visible. I think these will never go away. But considering the age of the C5 this is certainly tolerable.

If you now like to try this at home you should know:
  1. You will get wet. Better do this on a hot summer day.
  2. And quite more important: water and current is a dangerous combination! If you have, you should take a cordless screwdriver. If you don't have one, I'd suggest to rather take the good ol' toothbrush.

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