dr.richtofen
New Member
I recently bought a MTB hard tail bike from Halfords, recently being two days ago. It arrived yesterday as home delivery and I began to start putting it all together. I will admit that I haven't purchased a bike in about 10 years and have probably ridden a bike about 10 times in the past 3-4 years. However riding a bike is riding a bike, you never forget the things you learn with them.
To cut a long story short, and forgive my non-technical language, I had a lot of trouble un-doing the outer nuts of the front wheel. The layout was pretty much nut, inner nut (holding the bearing to the wheel), the wheel itself, inner nut holding the bearing to the wheel on the other side, and then a nut. So from this, I deduced that the outer nuts need to be undone to put the forks on then to tighten the outer nuts so the layout then goes nut, one side of the fork, inner nut, wheel, inner nut, other side of the fork, nut. If this doesn't make sense I am going from the big bolt thing that runs in the middle of the wheel and holds the wheel to the forks.
If you are still with me on this, I took the front wheel to halfords (my car is too small to fit the whole bike in, either assembled or disassembled) and the guy told me, and I quote his exact words "the outer nuts aren't meant to be undone, this type of design is meant for you to just slot the forks in, if it doesn't go in first time you just need to use a bit of force to get them to slot in". Is what he is saying right? He told me to force the forks in between the inner nut and outer nut which were screwed together? Afterwards he then told me, if you still can't get them in just PULL the forks apart a bit and then try. Would you recommend just pulling the forks apart a bit to fit them onto the bolt thing?
Afterwards he undid the outer nuts for me (I couldn't get them undone because they were done up so tightly, even the bloke struggled) and I took the front wheel home. After trying to fit the forks on the bolt that goes through the middle of the wheel I realised that the bolt length was too small. The bolt length was so small that the layout became fork, inner nut, wheel, inner nut, fork and you couldn't even put on any of the outer nuts - which is definitely not right because the wheel would fall off.
Also I had no retainer clips(?) for the front forks, the instructions said to put them on so does that mean I should have had them or is it just for certain bikes?
If you understood what I have been saying, have I been following the correct procedures, is there something I must have done wrong?
To cut a long story short, and forgive my non-technical language, I had a lot of trouble un-doing the outer nuts of the front wheel. The layout was pretty much nut, inner nut (holding the bearing to the wheel), the wheel itself, inner nut holding the bearing to the wheel on the other side, and then a nut. So from this, I deduced that the outer nuts need to be undone to put the forks on then to tighten the outer nuts so the layout then goes nut, one side of the fork, inner nut, wheel, inner nut, other side of the fork, nut. If this doesn't make sense I am going from the big bolt thing that runs in the middle of the wheel and holds the wheel to the forks.
If you are still with me on this, I took the front wheel to halfords (my car is too small to fit the whole bike in, either assembled or disassembled) and the guy told me, and I quote his exact words "the outer nuts aren't meant to be undone, this type of design is meant for you to just slot the forks in, if it doesn't go in first time you just need to use a bit of force to get them to slot in". Is what he is saying right? He told me to force the forks in between the inner nut and outer nut which were screwed together? Afterwards he then told me, if you still can't get them in just PULL the forks apart a bit and then try. Would you recommend just pulling the forks apart a bit to fit them onto the bolt thing?
Afterwards he undid the outer nuts for me (I couldn't get them undone because they were done up so tightly, even the bloke struggled) and I took the front wheel home. After trying to fit the forks on the bolt that goes through the middle of the wheel I realised that the bolt length was too small. The bolt length was so small that the layout became fork, inner nut, wheel, inner nut, fork and you couldn't even put on any of the outer nuts - which is definitely not right because the wheel would fall off.
Also I had no retainer clips(?) for the front forks, the instructions said to put them on so does that mean I should have had them or is it just for certain bikes?
If you understood what I have been saying, have I been following the correct procedures, is there something I must have done wrong?