Everything ThudBuster: most is video data

To start off, the players below are all
official set-up and maintenance data from Cane Creek,
the makers of ThudBusters.

Double click on any of the player windows to go direct to the company site, and thereby see,
if desired, full screen versions plus text, of their excellent instructional videos.

r.w. thinks you won't ever have to "rebuild" a ThudBuster, not
if you keep it clean and wrapped against dirt;
not run 'naked' through rain, mud, and dust storms.
A)[youtube]-gb_fRnyER4[/youtube]

B)[youtube]beCdiIJTKw4[/youtube]

C)[youtube]B06223LSigs[/youtube]

D)[youtube]OiREp9ObDsA[/youtube]


tip: "HQ" the playback whenever that option is offered,
if you have the bandwidth/download speed?

To come: poor quality, ad lib, home-brewed video by self using an old digicam,
showing his own installation, not reading directions because it's hard to read directions
when a fellow is half blind and...male. It's a trait, you know? :lol:
Yes, there will be a good deal of "fumble fingers" because this writer is no ThudBuster professional.
________________________________

I have used a ThudBuster with both-white (super soft) elastomers
for over three years, which for me is under six hundred miles of hard riding.
They should have crumbled by now...but no...those original whites (for 100lb riders) yet live.

It is still like new, my three year old ThudBuster. I do not think I can ever wear one out.
To simply keep it clean and lubricated is the way.

________________________________
You will probably want to try it first with the supplied, blue elastomers.
Then, if those are stiffer than you feel you need, mix or match colors;
the colors will be explained.
________________________________
I'll photograph or get a PDF of their instruction sheet,
which really tells all, and is no BS at all.

----
just spellin' corrections, dyslexia, vaseline-eye sindrome, all that. This writer
thinks that "ThudBuster" looks better than what he had here before "Thud Buster",
and a hell of a lot better than "THUDBUSTER",,,,,but that's just my op-onion. Do not cry.

While we await, folks, for my SUPER DUPER :lol: :lol: :lol: Turkey Videos, to bake,
and then pop out of the Magic YouTube oven...

...let's talk turkey. Let's talk about...
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

"Pogo Stick" type of seat-post shock absorbers have been around since the 1890s.
Do you want me to show you a period-sales-illustration of one? Can do.

That genre of up-down post shock-dampeners, has its good points; and many, inherent, bad points:
noises, wobbles, a tendency toward rapid wear; and worst of all:
INCORRECT BY NATURE, mechanical movement of the pogo stick type of post.

They work, those pogo-posts, and are better than nothing, but...
...you get what you pay for.

Let's use ALLEGORY, humorous. My "Aunt Barbara" :wink: makes for us a case in point.
Mechanically separated chicken parts...ummmm....gooood!

Moral: You get what you pay for. :lol:


~~~~~oh, hell!~~~~~~~~~comedy break~~~~~~~~~~just skip it!~~~~~~~~~~~

"My" Aunt Barbara, 'she' knows her tush very well, indeed:
[youtube]_PmrH0dfRac[/youtube]
connect the dots, yet?
You Get What You Pay For...
...or...worse is in store for your fanny, Manny.

Seat post: a support post for the saddle;
fits into (the frame's) seat tube, with (locking) mechanism for changing (saddle) height.

Click to expand...

http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/fix/bikepart.htm

Sizes of people vary. So do heights of seat tubes, vary.
Cruiser bikes and some mountain bikes have low (short) seat tubes.
They make excellent candidates for a long-throw ThudBuster or pogo stick post.

Road bikes generally have taller seat tubes = less "space" available for the long-throw ThudBuster
or its poor relation, the :? pogo stick.

Cane Creek makes a short-throw version of the ThudBuster, to fit such bikes; for the bike with a tall seat tube.
The short throw Non-Thuddy is not quite as good in ability to travel and absorb, by damped-motion, the Big Bumps.

Summary: IF your bike can "take" a Long Throw ThudBuster, that model, the one you are about to see,
is to be preferred over the compact, "short throw" version. Truth.

Either way, no matter what type/brand, seat post shock-soaker-upper,
your posterior and back will say "Oooh, thank you, Mr/Ms cyclist".

However, the ThudBuster is the king of them all, and will always rule.

Some of you lurkers cannot view video.
What is going to be shown:


=background paper of pinkish "rosin paper" is clamped against the ugly garage door.
=the camera I must use is an old Casio, about three years old.
=It has a front-firing pinhole mic, adequate enough for recording my stentorian voice.
=Its lens is internally fogged from my toy steam engine days;
need a new mini, SD or HD solid-state, digicam, soon.

=The aspect ratio will be 4:3, not wide screen 16:9
=The cam will be set to "HQ".
=The scenes will be shot, patched together with Windows Movie Maker.
No music. Just old Moootor Mouth :lol:

=The conversion from WMM best-quality, to uploadable form:
In WMM, choose "best playback for this computer" = minimal YT fuzz-look.

An HD camera would be a lot better...but I :| stomped on its special cable's end, and need a new cable.
So the old Casio will have to serve for this minor video.

Bike is in place, up against the rosin paper backdrop.
Seat tube height is about 32" or 80mm, aproximately.


Camera is on the charger.
Break time.
Then we install a TB in place of an OEM chromed steel tube,
re-using the OEM saddle.
~~~~~~~
Note: no other metal is so unfortunately slicker, and more liable to slip,
twist, slide-down into the seat tube, than smoothly finished chromed steel.
Otherwise, steel is strong, faultless...except that
the chromed OEM tube has to be super-duper tightened or it will slip or rotate :| .

Slip down or twist, with the Thudbuster's proven, rib-ridge-y, lathe-finished
(so not slippery) aluminum tube
Impossible! it won't slip...if you obtain the correct post/tube fit.
MEASURE your old seat post and then get the nearest size that Cane Creek recommends?

Al-u-min-i-um: this is one department of bike metals, where aluminum really proves its benefit:
the soft metal grips and grabs but good, on aluminum or steel seat post tubes,
even if it all is greased, as it should be, to prevent long-term "post stick-itis" caused by water getting
inside the seat tube. Greased? The black-anodized TB post can always come out with an easy tug.
Grease prevents the interior of the seat tube from forming oxides that will lock an ungreased post of any sort,
given a few years of neglect...water gets in there!

The viddy to come will show the rigdge-y nature of Mr. McFarland's super-intelligent design.
You can 'hear' the post when you rub your fingernail up and down its length. GRIP is guaranteed.
So is easy readjustment; to put it up or down to the same place as before,
because the black post is permanently marked with numbers,
so that little sister can put the unit to HER best height,
and Dad can put it to HIS best height; no guesswork.
What a nice touch! There are no flaws in this time and rider-proven design, nor in its manufacture-quality.

All this verbiage will be orated in the video, but, some of you can't yet see videos on your home computers.
Therefore, I write it all out, as much as possible, for those who are still in the :| videographic dark.
Pooor dial-up users! I hope you can see videos on your computers, like, as of last year,
and into the future, forever.

DEPENDING ON YOUR HEIGHT, LEG LENGTH, BIKE FRAME's TOP TUBE HEIGHT...
...you may NOT BE ABLE to employ the "long throw" ThudBuster.

BE SURE to measure! Friendly, honest Cane Creek employees ALL want you to be happy with your prospective purchase.
They are like....Justin...only "bigger" in financial clout. They are GOOD PEOPLE; not "gee gosh, you ordered the wrong model...."

They will treat you right! A-----wimmen! :lol:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before ordering a TB or any seat post tube,
measure your old seat post tube with a metric dial caliper.

Thudbusters are available in six different direct fit sizes (post diameters),
between 25.4 and 31.6mm, (shims are also available).

Click to expand...

(words added by r.w.)

[youtube]HuU9eqWQAlc[/youtube]

#38B is the finish, by gum. Loose dentures. 8)
[youtube]GGVhJnyF2QE[/youtube]

Note/addendum "fumble fingers" has just now watched C.C. video labeled "C".
Note the ease by which HIS experienced technique, plus the aid of a pro camera crew, makes this so easy.
IT IS EASY to replace or alter or mix 'n match elastomers at any time.

I only made it look hard, because, fact: most of us fumble small parts,
and are dismayed when we drop little washers and such, which,
always but always, roll to the most invisible corner of the shop floor.

___________

Another viddy or two may come, but not today.
It's seven AM here, and I have been awake for too many hours,

To come, when I'm up to doing it: a viddy of the TB in action.
Then I will wrap it in BLACK Ace brand self adhere bandage (got from ebay).
Any color would work, but tan looks not so good, imo.

For filler, for the wrap to come, here is an old, long, boring video showing
the superiority of wrapping with bandage, instead of the sort-of-fits "Crud Buster".
I was in better physical shape, then. I had not yet been beaten upside the head by a criminal policeman.
[youtube]FIRy5LzHjsk[/youtube]

That is three year old wrap, recycled, that you see there.
Also, my health, aerobic, was a lot better last December when this was made.
I'm not one to dress up for videos. Shave me and send an Armani (law) suit, anyone?

Have one NOS stock roll to apply to the new TB.
It will look very, very neat and
stops all dust from getting into the bearing points.

Note/addendum: In the CC. video marked "A", you see how easy it is to replace an "Oillite" type of bushing.
These bushings never wear out, at least in optimal conditions. Your power tools and fans nearly all use
sintered bronze, oil impregnated bushings. They are "good to go" for the normal life of the machine.
But a bike, hosed down, and run through the mud and dust, and its TB not maintained by cleaning and oiling,
can eventually wear some or all of the "sacrificial bushings". You'd have to be very neglectful to let that happen, right?

CASE IN POINT: above my head, in the sloping roof of the attic, I can see the power vent fan, 1/4HP GE brand motor,
PLAIN BEARINGS of the Oillite-type, same as CC uses in the TB.
Point: that fan and its motor were installed by self in the year 1983.
With the exception of temporary power outages we here in Florida live with,
that motor has spun in its sintered bushings for 24/7 for fully twenty five years.
How many running hours would that be? The motor runs silently. Only the blades make sound; the sound of
forced air. No squeaks. No shaft looseness. My "PM" (military shorthand for "preventive maintenance":
OIL the bushings once every SIX YEARS, using, always, a light bodied SYNTHETIC oil, of the same brand as you see
in the CC maintenance video above. That motor will outlive me, for sure. And it will never show any shaft or bushing wear.
WHY? Because I know metals and oils and have studied these things since I was a six year old.
Age does not make us smarter. It makes us wiser.
Moral: if it ain't broke, don't "fix" it.

Well, all cares and wants to the contrary, most TBs will be in the hands, eventually of mechanical Goofus'es.
These TBs will be run without Crud Busters or Ace bandage wraps, and without occasional cleaning and oiling.

Some of these TBs will then, eventually, require bushing replacement, for the reasons that I stated in my homely video.
IF you wrap your TB, then no micro-dirt can get into the TB bushings.
No wear will ever occur.

The fan motor, over twenty five years old and never shut off, above my head, it continues running.
It gives me forced-air through this un-airconditioned garage. My (Ernie's actually) stuff does not rust nor mold.
My grandfather invented the window air conditioner (P.B. Welch, 1930, Google Patent Search).
Innovation and recognition of engineering 'rightness' is in my veritable blood, by chance of birth, only.

It does its fan thing. Whirrrr, 1,750 rmp. Six years now...time to re-oil soon Six yearsof twenty five, have passed.
I think, some day, I will go atop the roof when I am more physically fit (less wobbly) and able,
remove the mushroom dome of that fan, and oil the two ends of that GE fractional horsepower motor.

Q: how many spins has that motor's AC armature made in 25 years of virtually non-stop running?

Will it last for another fifty years?
A: probably not.
At some point, a winding turn will short against another turn,
and the motor will fail, electrically.

But the bearings will be still good as new.
Plain bearings can and do outlast ball bearings, in ideal circumstances, outlast ball bearings, many times over.

Ball bearings have a finite life span.
It has to do with working conditions, but too,
ball bearings eventually fatigue and "spall" and then begin to self destruct, but fast.
Not so, the venerable, old, sintered bronze bushing, which has been around for at least fifty years now.
I still use a "dental lathe" of Ernie's late dad's dental labs. It was made around 1910. Oil cups. Plain bearings.
No shake in the shaft. Tens of thousands of running hours. Original windings, too.

End of instructional lecture. Recommended reading:
"Lubrication Engineering"; can be gotten used, cheap,
or an older type of book, for free, through Google Books. Have read of lubrication engineering since year 1973.
I may be an "idiot", but I am a smart idiot. At times.

--------------
edits to polish the technical apple all shiny and red for Miss Crabtree.