Panasonic Tourist 3 Progress

 I thought I'd write a short update - no photo this time, violating some rule, I'm certain, of blogging, but hells bells, I'm blogging for myself aren't I?

Laura attended a Zazenkai at the zen center this Saturday, and I had thought about spending the day overhauling the bearings on the Panasonic.  Overhauling is one of those things that I cannot quite say I enjoy doing, but I do get some sort of satisfaction from it.  I have a certain sort of self doubt combined with a penchant for perfectionism that can lead to a full mental breakdown, (my apologies to those who do have actual mental breakdowns), when it comes to adjusting cups and cones.  In my mind, I feel there is a perfectly perfect position, and I can get caught up in adjusting and readjusting ad infinitum.  Every time I tighten a locknut, it seems to put everything out of whack just a little.  I get to the point where there is little to no free play, and the wheel turns freely, but is it somehow secretly too tight?  I take some comfort in knowing that I am probably not the only home mechanic who drives himself nuts that way, but only some.  I thought, if I got into the groove, I may even overhaul the rear hub.  There is a good video on YouTube of the entire process of overhauling a Shimano 3CC.  The guy's accent reminds me of someone I know from Finland.  He is probably from Germany.  I haven't looked into it.  I like the comment in the comment section: "I learned to put a little grease on."

Unfortunately, my day got off to a bad start.  As an introvert, I like having a day to myself, from time to time, but maybe I had put too much hope into it.  For starters, our Senegal parrot, was in full loud mode, for about three hours.  I sat down with my coffee at the breakfast table, and he would just*not*shut*up.  He has this whistle that is something between the fire alarm and the oven timer going off.  Somehow, he seemed to be making the sound louder than the actual fire alarm, and my son's two cockatiels were joining in to the best of their raucous ability.  It put me into full fight or flight mode, and it was only through great discipline that I did not respond by squawking and screaming myself.  (I'm not a big fan of noise.)

I had elaborate plans to go buy some eco-friendly degreaser, and some new bearings, and some grease for the rear rub ("put a little grease on"), but my nerves were frayed by the end of my cup of coffee.  I knew that I wanted to overhaul at least the front wheel, because wheel bearings cause more trouble than headsets and bottom brackets.  I popped it apart, put the cones and bearings in a plastic container, and covered them in white gas from the camp stove.  N.B. You are not supposed to use gasoline as a solvent in home bike maintenance.  

Happily, the cups and cones were both in good shape.  For some reason, I came up one bearing short, so I bicycled over to Ace Hardware and picked up the extra, after considering, for a moment, of having one bearing less in one side, (and wondering if I had put eleven rather than ten on the side I had finished).  It now spins smoothly, and is full of blue marine grease.  So - good enough for now.  I rode it around on several errands over the weekend.

In looking into it further, the Tourist 3 is really not the equivalent of the Happy Little Three Speed.  I was disarmed by the name "tourist", and the general impression I'm under that the Japanese bikes of the period are very good.  I thought that it really was designed for traveling from city to city, and that's why they called it a tourist, but it's really a very basic city bike.  It's made from high tensile 1020 tubing, which I found, when I looked it up, is lower end, straight gauge tubing.  The HLTS, on the other hand, is made with 4130 double-butted tubes, and it planes very nicely.  I thought the weight of the Panasonic was largely due to its steel rims, but I think the tubing has something to do with it as well.

However, no matter.  That makes it feel even less like I bike I have to treat with some odd degree of caution, as if it is more valuable than merely as a means of getting from place to place, or irreplaceable in some odd way.  I like it. It reminds me of the old beach bikes that get piled against a beach house. It is geared a little high.  I think it has a 48 tooth chainring and a 18 tooth cog.  The HLTS, on the other hand has a 39 tooth chainring and a 22 tooth cog, (which, I think is a violation of some rule I saw that the ratio between the two should not have a chainring that is less than twice the rear cog, but I have not relocated that particular bit of information and seems to work fine).  Consequently, the low gear on the Panasonic seems a lot more like the middle gear on the HLTS.

Still, it seems to get me where I need to go, and for now, I like having it, and while it adds to the bike clutter a little bit, I still feel happy when I see it, as opposed to remorseful.

(I thought I'd pop back in to add that, according to my reading of the serial number, the bike was made in 1986, not 1978, as the owner said a friend of his had told him.)