I think it's a tool that is quite useful especially with a steel gear hanger that's part of the drop-out. They do bend relatively easy and if the bike falls over onto its drive side, that can be enough to cause problems. It's reassuring to give the hanger a check when you've got the rear mech off the bike for whatever reason too (or even to remove the mech to give it a quick check). It's easy and cheap to make a functional one (hardest part is taking accurate measurements from the tool to the rim) - make sure you've got enough clearance to rotate the bar without fouling the wheel nut or mudguard/rack fixings - and they take up about as much room as a hammer. You could even use it open-ended as a lever when you're struggling to loosen something with a spanner - dual purpose. As well as the square section steel pipe (donated by a neighbour), I used a 10mm bolt with 1mm thread pitch, some nuts to match and some washers. The nuts can also be used to allow setting of wheel bearing preload with the QR lever closed (I find it easier that way than backing off the cone to allow for the axle compression). Here's my cheap, easy, make-do gear hanger tool.
View attachment 657882
Thanks - looks like a great piece of work! I assume you can use it for tweaking the hanger a bit as necessary too..?
I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem originates at the RD hanger but it'd be good to check and rule it out. I'll certainly keep my eye out for a bit of box section on my travels though; I guess the most difficult bits to source are the fine-pitch fixings.
09 Merc C220 CDI estate. I think it's ok now, but incredibly difficult to work on yourself when you've no space...And not easy to work on anyjow. Example: to replace the air filter, you have to unbolt and disconnect the entire engine management system...
Cool - tbh I don't envy you working on that! Seems that from maybe the mid-late '90s stuff started getting really silly to work on, especially the more prestige end of the market. Fingers' crossed you've replaced enough to make it reliable
My Spa is a self build. Everything right down to the wheels was done by muggins here.
The problems I have with it are down to the frame design.
A stand absolutely cannot be used on this bike as the chainstay bridge is positioned right where the clamp and bolt would go. The position of the rear disc caliper mounts prevent a stand being fitted there either.
The seat stay bridge was drilled vertically instead of horizontally so fitting a mudguard has to be done right first time as any adjustments in height require making the drill hole in the mudguard elongated which makes that point more prone to slipping/breaking.
The seat tube bottle cage mounts were drilled too high up and required a topeak bottle cage thingybob to make it useable.
For a tourer, it sucks at having front loads. The shimmy caused by front panniers is ridiculous. No amount of adjustment on the rack or bags/loading seems to stop this.
The front dropouts face forwards instead of vertical so the bike needs to be upright on its wheels before the skewer for the wheel can be tightened. A small issue but bloody annoying.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get comfy on this bike. I've had it three years and I've yet to take enough weight off my arms to prevent discomfort on my hands and when I do manage that, the weight is transferred to my arse or I'm stretched out too much. Never had that problem with any other bike in 35+ years of cycling.
Other things not related to the frame also seem to be a bigger pain in the ass to sort out than any other bike prior to this. I swear the damn thing is cursed.
The day I have enough money to replace the wretched thing can't come quickly enough. I miss my Dawes Vantage.
Sorry to hear about all those problems - I've heard some good stuff about Spa in the past so I'm surprised by some of the seemingly unforgiveably basic issues you've had and bizarre design choices... That must be really disappointing, especially considering it sounds like you went into it as a labour of love
Have you had a word with them about it? What are you looking to replace it with?
"Progress" with the Fuji has been even more glacial over recent weeks; the critical path being disrupted by issues relating to the sourcing of mudguards.
On top of this having done some more reading I decided to investigate the RD cable in the hope that this might shed some light on the shifting problem. I found the inner to be heavily kinked inside the outer, thanks to the previous damage it had sustained when the outer skewed in the barrel adjustor. This was causing a lot of drag and when it came out it brought with it several chunks of the liner that it had presumably eroded away.
I thought I'd give it a chance by straightening the inner with some heat (which may have eventually led to its failure; not sure what sort of heat treatment state they're usually in) but nothing ventured and all that. I got it nicely straight, however through a combination of the damage to the outer and frayed cable couldn't get it all back together again.. so a new cable it is.
While I'm at it I'm considering doing the brake cables too as the pull is bloody awful (heavy and draggy) compared to the Tiagra / 105 setup on my boardman; which apparently has the same cables. The choice of cables is bewildering; which coupled with a busy week still means I've not ordered any
Yesterday my mudguards finally arrived; another set of SKS Longboards as already proven on my CdF. I'd planned to spend the day throwing woodworm treatment at various bits of the house, however as the motivation waned and malaise descended, it was all I could do to hopefully prod at the pile of new bits for the bike; one thing led to another and I ended up getting them fitted.
As anyone with any experience will no doubt attest fitting these mudguards is a feat of commitment and endurance; however once done they're great. Typically it took the best part of a day to get them on.. and that wasn't the end of the story as I then found out that the Pannier rack wouldn't fit; which was supposed to be my big reward at the end of the night
This morning I looked at it with fresh eyes and managed to reach a workable solution, so the rack's now on, although the bike remains un-useable due to the cable situation and some areas of the recent work still need tweaking / sorting.
Anyway, as it stands (minus a few vaguely important bits):
I was concerned about mudguard clearance issues before fitting; turns out they're fine in all the areas I was worried about and crap in the one area I'd not considered (at the rack). Up front clearance with the V-brakes is absolutey fine, even with the mudguard as high up as it'll go.
All the fixings that came with the guards are M5 and BZP finished alloy steel capheads. As with the CdF I've replaced all of these with stainless button heads in the interests of corrosion resistance and aesthetics. Despite the lack of M6 fixings in the kit I think the front and rear brackets are intended to take this larger size which will also fit the fork and seatstay bridge; so I'll probably swap these in time as it should help to centralise the brackets a bit.
I ended up packing the guard away from the chainstay bridge by around 4mm with some washers to aid clearance between the mudguard and arm of the FD. Given the tubular nature of the chainstay bridge this all looks like a bit of a lash-up - I looked for concave washers to no avail and considered attacking a couple of the SKS spacers with the rotary tool to make some up; but with motivation as it was this was all I could manage. Perhaps a job for the future depending on how much it irritates me.
The mudguard struggled to fit between the chainstays and had to be squashed a bit to get the nut started on the bolt. I put a couple of bits of electrical tape on the contact surfaces with the insides of the chainstay in an effort to reduce the potential for rubbing / damage.
With this setup as it stands there's just enough room to allow the rear wheel to be removed from the forward-angled dropouts; with the 32mm tyres fitting very nearly inside the guard. I think this will be as large as I can go as anything bigger will likely hang up on the trailing / inner edges of the guard's front section during attempted removal.
Clearance at the FD is minimal but present. There is a bit of movement in the mudguard so I'll keep an eye on it once the bike's actually been ridden for a reasonable distance.
Thankfully there's plenty of clearance with the rear brakes too. Again, due to the round seatstay bridge the interface with the guard's bracket here is a bit sketchy, but it is what it is. If I could be bothered to knock up some concave washers..
After attempting to trial-fit the rack with the mudguards in place I was resigned to acceptance that it wouldn't fit without severely butchering something. In the end I managed to get it all fitted by releasing the two front / upper-most guard stays from the guard and running them through the rack from the outside to the inside, since there was insufficient clearance at the bottom of the rack to allow the stays to run inside.
This is all good, however does complicate things should the rack need to be removed. To reduce the amount of bending stress on the guard stays I packed them away from the frame using one of the 5mm plastic spacers that came with the kit.. not aesthetically ideal but for now it'll do.
The rack mount is spaced away from the frame with a small washer since there was evidently fouling at the frontal edge in the past. I also found that the RHS threaded boss on the dropout for the rack had apparently been welded on on't pish - not much I can do about that and it doesn't affect its use..
There's still contact between the stay and rack near its bottom, but this is light and depending on how things go I could separate the two parts with a bit of electical tape. Adding more deflection to the stays effectively made them shorter, however being of an anxious disposition I'd already cut them about as long as I could get away with so this didn't prove a problem.
So there we go - tantalisingly close but it's not going anywhere until I've sorted some cables, which is it's own can of worms. I think I know where I'm going with pannier bags and that only leaves a few small jobs remaining until I can hopefully get out and actually start using it for wholesome utility purposes
).
