Everything is Dirty

As in filthy. Grimy. Gross. Accumulated road guck.

I took a little break from work at noon today (I work at home) while my lunch was warming up, and removed the front brake assembly. I'm doing everything incrementally, one step at a time, because I'm not at all confident in my ability to remember where everything goes. I'm taking pictures of everything as I do it for later reference when I try to put it all back together, then bagging everything in labeled plastic zipper bags. I know, it sounded anal to me too when I read this bit of advice online, but so-help-me, it has SO helped me. I'd never remember where all the little washers and nuts and doo-dads go if I didn't label everything.

The main point of all this is that every piece that I take off is really dirty. I clean up the surface of everything fairly regularly, but I've never delved into the guts of the bike, and as I'm doing that, I'm realizing how filthy everything is. I'm also realizing that whoever had this bike before me did a lot of "improvising" when it comes to little parts. There are a lot of washers that don't seem to fit quite right, some nuts that are cross-threaded on bolts, etc. Anyway, I haven't cleaned the parts I took off yet, maybe tonight. Then I'll really know how dirty they were. The photo above gives some idea of the grime.