Uh OH.....OOPS!

[markjs]

OK, I am "rebuilding" my XS Eleven's carbs and when I took out the air screws, I could only get one o-ring out. So like a damn fool I just thought, what the hell, I'll just save the one and replace the rest, because they have a vast array of them at the local hardware warehouse.

STUPID!!!

I ended up blowing the other three out into oblivion onto the floor of an impossibly cluttered and dirty garage, where they promply crossed over into another dimention, though that pan-dimensional portal that exists anywhere it's easy to lose a small part (most notably under the hood of any car LOL). Long story short, I have the one in a safe place, but there is nothing even close as far as actual thicknes, to be found locally, the best I could do is about double thick, and a hair bigger in diameter.

So, bearing in mind that I am on a shoestring budget, what are my options? Thanks in advance!


Moderator note - slight moderation to reflect family nature of this site. Please keep this in mind in the future. KT

[blue giant]

We'll need to know the color of that hair!

[John]

I have a source for them locally...I had to replace some in the Bag Lady. They are 3mm ID and 1 mm thickness.

[Crazcnuk]

aha! I'm not the only one that knows of the existence of that pan-dimensional region!

Obviously, you lost sight of them, once that happens they can roll for miles.

I blame it on the gods! I can see why the greeks, romans, egyptians and Norse thought they were a mischevious bunch...

[t3rmin]

Man I lost that little return spring under the clutch cover the other day. Sproinged across the garage, defying all attempts by the wife and I to locate it. No sooner had I found a replacement at the hardware store the next day, than I bent down to pick something up, and there it was, right next to the bike. Sheesh.

[Crazcnuk]

Of course, as soon as you didn't need it, the item rematerializes from that other dimension.

Inanimate my a$$!

[skids]

Get your head out of the drain!

Originally posted by blue giant
We'll need to know the color of that hair!

[LoHo]

Is "sproing" the universal representation of an escaping spring?

[lsippell]

I 'lost' the spacer for my front wheel when rebuilt my bike, and after hours of searching by both my wife and me, ordered a replacement from Zanotti's.
Got the new one in, installed it, looked up and saw the original hanging from a wire at eye level, right where I hung it to paint it!

Then again, once my wife and me spent an hour lookin for my glasses all over the house and found them in the end, not only on my head, but I was looking through them.

I can blaim the spacer on advancing age, but the glasses happened when we were in our early thirties.

Louis

[skids]

So you knew where it was but "spaced 'er"

Originally posted by lsippell


I can blaim the spacer on advancing age, but the glasses happened when we were in our early thirties.

Louis

[t3rmin]

Originally posted by LoHo
Is "sproing" the universal representation of an escaping spring?

Yeah, it's pretty much the official onomatopoeia of "liberated" springs everywhere.

[fredintoon]

Tool for next time

Hi Mark,
here's what you do next time to avoid all that angst. Take a short length of 16ga welding wire, hammer it flat at one end and bend the flattened end over at a right angle. Now snip or grind the bent end short enough that it fits down the little hole the tiny o-ring and washer are at the bottom of. You just made yourself a custom hook to fish them out with. Once you get them out put them safe in a ziplok bag.

[t3rmin]

Re: Tool for next time

Originally posted by fredintoon
Hi Mark,
here's what you do next time to avoid all that angst. Take a short length of 16ga welding wire, hammer it flat at one end and bend the flattened end over at a right angle. Now snip or grind the bent end short enough that it fits down the little hole the tiny o-ring and washer are at the bottom of. You just made yourself a custom hook to fish them out with. Once you get them out put them safe in a ziplok bag.

I just bend a paperclip. ;-)

[fredintoon]

Nah, paperclip wire is too skinny to be dependable and you gotta hammer that sharp bend on it anyway.

[t3rmin]

Well I've never had a problem with a paperclip simply bent with needle-nose pliers, but YMMV!