Bike Maintenance.

CyclARSEts talk in here.
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CLP
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

So the hot tip i learnt the other night was that before adjusting the rear derailleur, make sure that the freehub is properly attached to the wheel hub.

On Saturday night i was doing a cassette and chain swap for Miss V on her bike, which I would have thought would have been a fairly simple exercise. Turns out that the freehub had become loose. So i'd put things together and things were running rough, adjusted the gears and found out after all that the cassette was fairly free to move about 3mm side to side. Not ideal

Also found that for some reason, the usual chain sizing technique (chain over the largest gears plus 1 full link) didn't work that well when putting on a 28 tooth cassette for some reason. Anyone had experience with this?

both of these things combined turned what should have been a 1/2 hour job into a multihour maintenance extravaganza :(


Third thing I found out was that pinarellos seem to have the bottle bosses on the seat tube fairly high, so much so that i can't get a bottle into the cage :( Worse still is that I have a pair of new bottle cages on their way coming from torpedo 7 which i'm unlikely to be able to use . So i've ordered yet another pair of bottle cages (side loading) <sigh>
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by norbs »

I had a 25 on the back when I got the bike. Changed to a 28 after a while and had no issues. I didn't lengthen the chain at all from the one I had when it was running 25 tooth.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

norbs wrote:I had a 25 on the back when I got the bike. Changed to a 28 after a while and had no issues. I didn't lengthen the chain at all from the one I had when it was running 25 tooth.
hmm.. odd.. in the end, the difference was only 1 link. fortunately i had an extra new chain laying about, so i could get everything working nicely. Unfortunately Miss V has managed to do something to screw up the front derailleur setup.. more fixin' required.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

avro707c wrote:
Giant Contact SLR 90mm, bit shorter than before and much happier with this.
Woo.. sleek :) I quite like the look of that.

Interesting that your Di2 junction box is different to the one i have. Do you have an internal or external battery?

what brand of garmin out-front mount is that?
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GT VIRUS
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by GT VIRUS »

Anyone got any tips for removing the remains of the pedal? It appears never to have been removed in it's life, and won't budge!

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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by norbs »

Make sure you are unscrewing it the right way. :)

I always fuck it up.

I can't tell if that is left or right side, so I wont take a guess.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Duke »

I assume it doesn't have a hex head in the end of the spindle - inside the crank arm?

If not then can you hit the end of a spanner with a mallet obviously being careful to not round off the spindle faces?

What about machining a head onto the broken end of the spindle or welding a bolt to it?
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Shonky »

As norbs said, left pedal is left handed thread, right pedal is right handed thread.

Given the rust around the thread in the picture, spray the bejeezus out of it with WD40/CRC5-56/Penetrene and let it soak, if you can rig it, submerge the crank end in the stuff and let it soak in overnight.

Another trick would be to place the crank on a block of wood on a concrete floor and give the spindle a good belt with a hammer to break up the iron oxide along the thread.

The next trick would be blow torch or oxy acetylene (be careful with oxy, hot enough to melt the thing), being a steel thread in an aluminium crank the the different expansion rates of the two metals should see it come loose pretty quickly at a few hundred degrees.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by norbs »

Seeing as the pedal is fucked anyway.

If you are ok using a good sharp drill but that is a few mm narrower than the spindle, you could drill the guts of it out. I have done that on a tip bike I grabbed a couple of years ago. Centre punched the the spindle on the inside of the crank and took it nice and easy. I drilled it to about 2mm from the edge and made sure it went all the way through. Basically bent the rest of the pedal spindle till it fell off. Then just slowly went around what was left with a small screwdriver until I could pull the rest out. Took me about 10 minutes.

And a little tip. Do both pedals. :) I did the one that was broken off from the tip the niece didnt make it out of the drive before the other one went. :)
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Duke »

Actually thinking about this a bit more how about removing the crank & placing the pedal spindle in a bench vice & use the crank as the lever to remove the spindle.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

Flinty72 wrote:Actually thinking about this a bit more how about removing the crank & placing the pedal spindle in a bench vice & use the crank as the lever to remove the spindle.
given the state of the pedal, my guess is that the crank isn't going to be much easier to remove!
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by GT VIRUS »

or... it was a left handed thread :S

At least I know now! Thanks norbs
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

Asking for a friend, obviously ... one who also recently bent their derailleur out of whack. Does bending them back work?
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Shonky »

It can work, but it really depends on how far it was bent in the first place, if it's too far something will break while being straightened, be it the derailleur or the hanger.

If the hanger is straight it's better to remove the derailleur and try to sort it in a vice to save the hanger from damage while trying to repair.

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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

It was bent enough to touch the rear wheel spokes ... still does if I try to change into first (which it thinks is about 4th).
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Shonky »

I guess all you can do is give it a crack, I suspect it's too far gone by your description to ever shift perfectly again anyway and given the prices online these days I don't think I'd put a lot time in to fixing it, but you haven't lost anything if you make it worse trying.

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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

That's the idea ... it's already broken so if I break it more then it's not a big loss. My shifters aren't delicate modern things, they're simple bar mounted ones, so they might take better to some more bending. I'll give it a go once my shoulder's a bit stronger, I don't know if I've got strength for bending metal in it today.

Thanks for the advice.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

ideally you'd need a derailleur hanger alignment tool.

The process of aligning it is simply bending it back into place, but the tool gives you some reference point to do it!
http://www.wiggle.com.au/lifeline-derai ... ment-tool/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

I don't exactly have a workshop, as I live away from home in a rented flat in Spain. There's a decent repair shop that might be able to do a good job on it ...
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

Beryl's in for repairs. A more thorough look than the one I did whilst lying down at the accident site showed that the hanger was bent as a banana, as well as the derailleur not looking too fresh. They should be able to replace the hanger and re-allign the derailleur for less than I can buy the parts (and equipment) ...
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

Hashtag-BerylLives. Her old base-level Shimano derailleur has been replaced with ... a derailleur. Its features include ... changing gear. I'm actually entirely satisfied with this arrangement as this is the purpose of a derailleur and the speed of my gear changing is ultimately limited by having my shifters mounted to the frame, and my stubborn refusal to actually change gears in the first place.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

Swain OHaw wrote:Hashtag-BerylLives. Her old base-level Shimano derailleur has been replaced with ... a derailleur. Its features include ... changing gear. I'm actually entirely satisfied with this arrangement as this is the purpose of a derailleur and the speed of my gear changing is ultimately limited by having my shifters mounted to the frame, and my stubborn refusal to actually change gears in the first place.
Good to hear Beryl is back on the road :)
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by Swain OHaw »

And Norbs will be glad to hear that someone took pity on her and cleaned her a bit ... I put some new brake pads on today, nothing fancy but she stops a lot faster now with the cables having been tightened up as well, seems like she got a proper little service. Now I need to put the miles back in, only just got the legs loosened up today and my lungs are definitely feeling two weeks of British food.
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

After my last CX race through bucket loads of filth i decided to strip down the CX bike and hopefully make things run a bit nicer. in the process, plonking on a new chain and cassette since i think they're both well overdue.

Rear hub was sounding a bit crap so that was cleaned out.. i think it's better than it was anyway. though i haven't tried it out just yet.

Cranks were pulled out and a bunch of crap removed from in and around the bottom bracket. With the bearings sounding a little crunchy i thought a replacement bottom bracket was the go. a bit of research seemed to indicate that the cranks i have on there (FSA Gossamer) were compatible with Shimano HollowtechII, which is fortunate since no one seems to sell the FSA bottom brackets. 2x Token bottom brackets purchased. on fitting them and marvelling at their smooth operation I started putting the cranks back in .... no dice. <commence rage mode>

rather than trying to find a compatible bottom bracket i've ordered a new set of Shimano CX Cranks.

thus far this has been an exercise in frustration. Hopefully these new cranks arrive before the CX nationals!
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Re: Bike Maintenance.

Post by CLP »

adding to my CX bike maintenance dramas..

finally got back to looking at the rear hub, and convinced myself that it wasn't quite right. further inspection seemed to indicate that the the inboard freehub bearings were seized... not really ideal.

Looking online seems to show that the type of freehub i need (Easton V2) isn't exactly flooding the market. Annoying, but all good i'm thinking.. i'll remove the bearings and regrease/replace them. Could not for the life of me work out why the damn bearings wouldn't come out despite repeatedly smashing the crap out of them with a hammer.

time for more research, trying to sort this nonsense out.

I stumble upon a picture of a fulcrum freehub which to my untrained eye looks remarkably similar to my Easton hub. Hmmm.. research Fulcrum hubs.. someone's description of how to remove the bearings in a fulcrum hub seems to make sense in the context of my easton Hub. Bingo. bearings removed. I'm really impressed that the circlip kept everything in place despite me smashing the whole thing with a hammer :aussie: a bit of a clean out and regrease. things are better, but not perfect. I think i'll be replacing those bearings by the end of the week.

A little further reading seemed to indicate that fulcrum hubs are the same as Novatec hubs which are freely available. So i'll be grabbing one of those in the near future to try out i think.

still waiting on my new cranks. Should be awesome once it's all back together, ready for the Nationals! :D
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