BR: Small steps

It has been a while since I have had a bare frame in front of me. It sat there on the stand waiting to be complete once more. It is a used frame. The only remnant of it’s former owners personality is a Rat Fink sticker on the seat tube.
Between the two of us we have about 12 bikes. Most came assembled. Most have been mechanically sound. My wrenching abilities have not been tested as of late. The last build I did was on a stock trials bike. That was an interesting build because of the mixing of road and mountain bike bits.
We started with the agreement that I would build as Carla disassembled the donor bike.
For the first folly of the night we were to begin with changing the oil in the fork. I was missing the requisite 21mm socket wrench. At 8:00 at night we decided that the fork should be completed before the build could go on. Off we drove in search of the socket. We tried a big box hardware store with no luck. We tried a slightly smaller box auto parts store with the same result. By then it was getting near closing time. We returned home. There was still plenty to do. We decided I would find the correct socket the next day. We went back to work. I began work on installing the bottom bracket. When it came time to torque everything down I realized my half inch drive torque wrench needed a converter for my three eights bottom bracket tool. This converter was sitting in a tool box at my father’s house 10 miles away. So it was looking like we had begun the ritual for no reason. It was 10 pm. Just when I took note of the time my phone rang. It was my father asking me to instruct him on the basic use of his new dvd player. I offered to run over and show him. And get the reducer at the same time.
A quick road trip later, now after 11pm we had all of the tools we would need to at least finish a small part of the build. I got to the bottom bracket and crank, Carla got to disassembling.
It took us about three hours but we succeeded in getting most of the parts off the donor bike. The rear derailuer is clean, chain soaking in degreaser. The new bike has a bottom bracket, crank rear derailuer and rear caliper installed.
I am hoping round two goes a bit more smoothly. It could have been frustrating. We could have just as easily quit and turned our attention to something else. We kept smiling and joking. For three hours we were not thinking about beheadings, prison beatings, presidential candidates, Michael Jackson and or priests.
I am sure by the weekend we will have it all worked out and Carla will be smiling widely on her new ride…
Sometimes even the small annoying details can be fun.