The most bizarre thing happened to me at the conclusion of this morning's ~20 mile ride: As I pulled my Raleigh DL-1 into the house, I heard something drop off onto the floor. I found a very small nut. I pulled both brake handles on my Raleigh DL-1, and verified the rod brake linkages were working. My first thought was, "Oh, it's probably nothing important, probably just from the chain guard or something."

I checked around a little bit and looked more closely at things, and found that the nut had, indeed, fallen from the rod brake linkage going to the rear brake, meaning the screw would have fallen out soon afterward. Instead, I put the nut back on, with loc-tite this time, and found a couple other similar nut and bolt combinations, and loc-tited those as well.

The lesson to be learned, I suppose, is that if you have a rod-brake bike, don't assume it's been properly maintained. Give it a good going over and make sure all the little nuts are tight. There's a little knack to it; the nuts are actually lock nuts, and the rod brake yokes are also threaded. So you want to tighten down the screws so that there is still enough play to allow the linkage to move, then tighten down the lock nut to hold it. And maybe use some loc-tite to make sure it doesn't come loose.

A nut fell off my bike yesterday, and I still haven't figured out what it's from. Very disconcerting! This was after I was doing some crazy maneuvers at high speed in traffic.

I had a cleat screw come off once on a mtn. bike ride - I tried to unclip and couldn't, and promptly tipped over. Rode straight out slowly without clipping in. I now check my cleat screws every now and then.

The pinch-bolt on my Dia Compe brakes (cheap) on my 3-spd. PUCH stripped out with no provocation. It shed a few items. Cheap alloy loves to strip out on you. I bought a couple new ones to be sure I had a pair in stock.

Similar thing happened to me, cleat screw came loose on each shoe and couldn't un-clip either one...had to ride around until I could find something to lean on while I untied my shoes....arg!

Weinmann brakes are extremely prone to this as well.

-Kurt

Just as Armstrong found out, just because you loose one of your nuts dont assume that the other is non-functional. However, if the entire rod starts to dangle loose, there are pills for that or you may need a more comfortable saddle.

I've lost a cleat screw before too, but fortunately was close to home and able to clip out. I now carry a couple of extra screws (from an old set of cleats) in my saddle pack.

stan

I had the same thing happen on a long ride.

Now I use a couple of spare cleat screws to hold my water bottle cage, so I'm never without.

OK, now I know for sure I'm never going clipless.

My nuts appear to be fine, will have to re-check again later.

The practice of using blue thead locking compounds had become standard practice in the bicycle industry in certain applications, such as brake mounting bolts.

For other applications, where you need the nut to remain in pace but allow movement of the part, you may want to consider NyLoc nuts (see pic). These are the acorn style nuts with a a nylon insert in the end. The nylon insert is slightly undersize in relation to the male thread, which actually cuts a thread into the insert. This tight fit prevents the nut from backing off under vibration.

The other, more drastic option is to safety wire the fasteners. This involves drilling a hole though the male and female fastener, then installing a wire or cotter pin (not a bicycle cotter) to prevent the nut backing off. Of course this is impractical on smaller fasteners. We used to do this a lot on motorcycles, particularly British and US twins, prior to the development of thread locking compounds.

But.... those aren't vintage! But yeah, the do work pretty good.

I would consider this little different than applying Loctite. NyLoc may not be OEM, they are vintage. They go back at least at least as far as the early 1950s. However, back then, they were apparently restricted to high tech industries such as aviation. Loctite was also available in the 1950s, but not in common use until much later.

There are certain things I always make concessions to when riding my vintage bicycles, and they invariably have to do with safety. If anybody gives you hard time, just tell them that NyLoc was state-of-the-art technology at time, that the original owner was an aerospace engineer and that these are original NyLoc prototypes.

BTW, I made an error in my previous post, which I discovered while reseaching the history of NyLoc. Apparently the insert is not cut by the thread, but deforms around it. It rebounds after removal, permitting multiple re-uses.

What about a screw loose?

Yup, plenty of those! on the sofa, on the steps, dining room table, on top of the fridge....

A nut fell off of my bike last week and after an exhastive search I discovered that the nut was me.

at least you found yourself!

Oh dear, you too? Suddenly I do not feel so alone (the only weird one) anymore..

I don't think that I have had a nut fall off of my bike in a long time. But last time it happened, I broke my helmet!

[QUOTE=T-Mar;9700973
BTW, I made an error in my previous post, which I discovered while reseaching the history of NyLoc. Apparently the insert is not cut by the thread, but deforms around it. It rebounds after removal, permitting multiple re-uses.[/QUOTE]

Funny, but when I used my first NyLoc nut on anything it was given to me by a real aerospace engineer (or maybe just an aerospace grease-monkey, but from Lockheed, anyway) and he stressed that you NEVER re-used the nut. Always fit a fresh one cause the nylon wouldn't be reliable as a lock after the first installation. Nevertheless, I have re-used them myself plenty of times on things I considered less critical than aircraft.

I've worked in the industry and I've heard that. They are "good" for several applications, maybe 3, 10, 100, something like that. But if you are servicing a several-million-dollar aircraft, it's easier to just replace them every time they are removed than to keep track of how many times they've been off and on.

Most commercial applications are not as critical. For people like us, you don't really have to worry about it. The vast majority of fasteners in your car are held in place only by friction due to prevailing torque.

(I've worked both aerospace and automotive.)

'twould be a nut named Tom fell off that bike?.....

I've not had one come loose, yet. Thank goodness, because I have little enough clearance as it is....

I did have a racing friend, former state champ, who disdained clipless, used Super Record track pedals, 3 straps, could stand still at stoplights, never come out. He didn't often wear a helmet, and didn't check his bike over that often. He had a pedal come unscrewed, on a hill. 17 staples. Darn near an organ donor.

Clipless pedals have their own hilarity. I've done the "Laugh-In" tipover more times than I want to count.

I do a preflight, figure the extra 2-3 minutes will overcome the onset of senility. To date, I've found many a caliper QR undone, 2 skewers left loose, both on the front, a loose pedal, and a loose headset a couple of times.

Since we do our own wrenching, we are susceptible to this, I'd bet, more than those who don't, especially when we're always working on 2-3 bikes, seemingly at once.

Before every triathlon or group ride, I give my bike to LBS and he charges between $0 and $15 to check and fix. I almost always buy him lunch (1-man show). I make him promise not to tell me what he had to do. Keeps my ego intact.

Well, Marine, who helped you tie them back?

Thanks for the tip -- the DL-1 is always full of surprises. Will check my nuts, stat.

Speaking of those little rod brake nuts: ever notice how the nut on the downtube rod linkage, just below the headtube, is positioned right where, if the front wheel is turned around hard, the fork crown will hit it? It's exactly in the right place to catch the edge of the "thimble" and bend it inward. Genius.