What Have You Fettled Today?

[fossyant]

Washed the commuter last night and wiped the chain and cassette. Will need doing again tonight after the biblical rain. Might oil the chain too.

A whole 5 minutes to do the lot.

 

[pippy]

Found some NOS Campagnolo white hood rubbers so they are now on the bars for the Holdsworth. Those, however, then made the 'bar-tape appear very grubby in comparison but a little water, washing up liquid and some elbow grease worked wonders.

The last purchase, made on-line on Tuesday, before starting the reassembly of the bike was a 30ml bottle of touch-up paint and that has just arrived. A quick search on the www suggested that Porsche's (very 1970's!) 'Signal Orange' would be an excellent match and having just had a quick look it really does look exactly the right hue.

That will be a job for tomorrow.

Philip.

 

[avecReynolds531]

Cleaned the 5 speed freewheel & then the hub, fresh grease to the bearings & reset the preload - cup & cone meant 3rd time happy.
Added a washer to the axle as it was approx 118mm - now as the 120mm dropouts intended.
Quite a rare hub: stamped 9/77 - Sunshine Professional. Was NOS, spins beautifully and built up well with ACI Alpina spokes & the Kinlin MLD. (At the time, I had to move the axle across as the hub was set for single speed.)
Cleaned the drive train, polished the frame. All ok.

Have also been working on an old egg beater drill - simple tear down & back together again. A Metabo 0129 - even the washer reads 'Made in Western Germany.'

 

[parvez]

Spent half the day fishing out shifter Di2 cable from seat tube with bent wire hangar. In the end the cable was too short to take out fully, so had to remove BB and feed shifter cable up through the seat tube and continue fishing out from top....all in the name of changing the seatpost!. Was a bit of a mission, but satisfied I got it completed and working

 

[KuroSan]

Had a rearrange of the rear rack so I can mount my towing hitch more securely and prevent it from gradually drooping when the trailer is fully loaded. I still need to drill some new fixing holes in the rack for the hitch's new position but that can wait until later on as I suppose my neighbours might not appreciate me firing up a drill at 3am lol
While the bike is on the stand and the rear wheel is off, I might as well give that all a clean and re-lube if needed.

 

[Elybazza61]

Spent all afternoon cleaning the Stayer Al Road as it was much grubbier than I thought, had to take off the rear mech and get the jockey wheels out to give it a proper clean ;all back together though and lubed and oiled.

 

[KuroSan]

Restarted slopping annoyingly rubbish paint stripper onto the Boardman frame so I can have it ready for primer before the weather gets colder.
Also now need to find a new brand of airbrush paint as my usual brand is now far too expensive because of economic nonsense!

 

[DCLane]

The valve on my rear track wheel has only ever worked with one pump, which broke and I tried - but failed - to mend it.

So, I tried to swap the valve extension - but it didn't go in.

So, I took the tyre off around the valve - and found a bent valve. Changed that. However, it wouldn't connect to an extension because the valve was out of line. Worryingly that part of the tyre came off far too easily, as if I'd not glued it hard enough. I've been racing on that

So, I removed the tyre, re-glued the tyre thoroughly with a new extension that works with my usual pump. All good and I didn't even get glue everywhere.

Oh, and I de-rusted the wheels off the 1948 Claud Butler and re-greased the front wheel. They're ready for new tape / tyres / tubes. My LBS helped to separate the stuck bars from the forks so we're now ready to go with lacquering the cleaned frame to preseve patina.

The Brooks saddle from the same bike has been cleaned and is currently being fed thoroughly. I'm not sure when the leather was last fed but it could be over 70 years ago so it'll be quite hungry.

 

[Punkawallah]

The Brooks saddle from the same bike has been cleaned and is currently being fed thoroughly. I'm not sure when the leather was last fed but it could be over 70 years ago so it'll be quite hungry.

An old Brooks is commonly a sponge that can not be sated. What exotic unction are you using?

 

[DCLane]

@Punkawallah - it's called Naf Sheer Luxe Leather Food and is actually horse saddle feed, but works well.

 

[Gunk]

I made a change to my Van Nicholas CX bike today, it’s been set up as a tourer/commuter for the last 5 years but has not had much use as I tend to use a Brompton for short journeys.

This is how it was set up

So I’ve stripped off the mudguards and rack swapped out the Brooks B17 and turned it back into a CX/gravel bike so I can use it for light trails and tow paths.

 

[Gunk]

Quick test ride and although you can definitely notice slightly more rolling resistance it’s going to be great fun on loose surfaces.

 

[ktmbiker58]

Now that my knees and hips are well passed retirement age and collecting their pension I thought I might be kind to them (they are all original parts!) so I have had a 3 speed hub fitted to my single-speeder -

 

[Punkawallah]

@Punkawallah - it's called Naf Sheer Luxe Leather Food and is actually horse saddle feed, but works well.

Noted, thanks.

 

[rogerzilla]

I got a NOS Sturmey AW mechanism from eBay. Must be old as it's non-NIG. Anyway, I needed a 6 1/4" axle, not a 5 3/4" one, so I rebuilt it around one, then put it in a nice 1965 shell. Nice not to have to deal with the fiddly planet cage pawl springs!

This is for the Merlin (1966 or 1967) so the date is about right. I have a 1951 AM shell on a 1951 Holdsworth, but the internals are 1949.