What Have You Fettled Today?

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Pale Rider

Legendary Member
I wonder if the 2.4" balloon tyres on my bike are harder - or easier - to seal than narrow roadie tyres.

The rims are tubeless ready, so should have the correct profile.

The tyres are not, which may be another factor.
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
It wouldn't be a fettle for me if I didn't do one job and make another.

While upending the bike I managed to snap my bar end mirror.

It only cost me a fiver, but had done sterling service for the three years I've had the bike, and survived being clouted numerous times on A frames and other restrictions on bike paths.

Never mind, I need another for another bike, so I've ordered two.


View: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MOBILITY-SCOOTER-BAR-END-MIRROR-3-SAFETY-MIRROR-ADJUSTABLE-50-OFF-Pair/dp/B01LZNP8SI/ref=lp_458329031_1_48?s=cycling&ie=UTF8&qid=1581863717&sr=1-48&th=1&psc=1
 

Shearwater Missile

Über Member
I was going to replace the bottom bracket cable guide. I thought that after nearly 16000 miles it must be worn so ordered one and it arrived today.
First I slackened off the cables, moved the old guide down the cables and checked for wear first, then gave it a clean. No wear, so I thought why bother upsetting the cabling and re-aligning. So I slid the old one back and put in the nice shiny screw that came with the new guide. So at the end of that escapade all I achieved was an upgraded screw !
 
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MonsterEnergy

Well-Known Member
Today it's been quite wet in Scotland, but i managed to get out on my bike for a few hours, and tested my homemade bike ramps, and were not too bad.
I also when to my homemade trail.....(well not really a trail yet)........and just had fun......the woods im building them in is not a great place for digging mud, as its not good mud, and is hard to dig up...When u do dig it up, it all sticks stays together, and you can't build a descent jump/burm.....Rather annoying, but its just fun to ride your bike and get muddy, and skid and stuff,,,,so OVERALL wasent a bad day....apart from the whether😥
 

JhnBssll

Veteran
Location
Suffolk
A fun and unusual fettle for me this evening 😊 A friend's boat sank in storm Ciara last week and his small petrol generator went down with it. He's managed to refloat the boat but sensibly didnt try to start the generator :laugh: I got a call from him whilst out at the weekend asking if I was in, and could he drop it round for me to look at. I was out at the time and he didn't want to leave it out in the rain until I pointed out it was submerged in salt water a week ago, and the rain would probably do it good :laugh:

Anyway, I started stripping it down this evening 😊 I forgot to take a photo of it while it was still in once piece, but here it is with the first side panel removed...

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Fortunately it was only underwater for 12 hours or so - this means whilst there is some corrosion it's relatively minor and all the fixings came out without much fuss :okay:

First job was to get the electronics out and clean the salt water off them. They were already drenched, so I cleaned them with some detergent and rinsed them off. They're now drying on a radiator where they'll stay for a week or so to get the last of the moisture out.

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This left the fuel tank and generator unit to strip...

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I removed the inlet and exhaust next. Unsuprisingly this resulted in a minor escape of seawater from both ends of the engine :laugh:

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Never a good sign but not unexpected. Next I popped the rocker cover off and checked in the sump to see if the oil was contaminated...

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Good news, no sign of any ingress here :becool: The oil looks nice and fresh, I'll leave that side of things alone. I also popped out the spark plug which also looks fine, no corrosion at all and a good colour :okay:

I visually checked the generator coils, all seem ok but I'll take a closer look when I've cleaned it up a bit more. For now it's looking a little sorry for itself on my workbench, where it will stay for a week or so until it's dried out.

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I wonder if it'll ever work again :whistle::laugh:
 

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chriswoody

Legendary Member
Location
Northern Germany
Continued to work on the SRAM i-motion 3 hub, on my daughters old bike, over the last days. I've stripped it all down and cleaned all of the components up, the grease was in a truly awful state. All done now though, just need to pop it back together.

look closely at the pawls in this picture and you'll see how their not springing back because of the sticky grease:

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All cleaned up now though and ready for the rebuild:

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I love taking these kind of things apart just to see how it all works and the engineering involved.
 

pawl

Legendary Member
Bet this gets moved.Replaced the connection between the roof gutter and down pipe blown off in the recent gales.Multi skilled us cyclists 🚴‍♀️.
 

LeetleGreyCells

Un rouleur infatigable
So did something I've never done before today. As I've been mostly Zwifting in the past few weeks on my spare not-worth-anything bike which is hooked up to the turbo, my Fuji has been sat in the garage feeling unloved. As I'm doing my first Audax on Sunday, I thought I'd better give it the once over - best thought ever! Checked the rear gears - indexed nicely, but no freewheeling as the cassette/hub was stuck. What? What do I do? Get the tool kit out. I've never had to remove the sprockets before, but a quick search told me how. Fortunately, I have a tool kit that my wife bought me with all the tools I could need in it. Cassette off, gave it a good clean. Lots of wet grit around the [insert name of the bit the cassette slides onto] so gave it a squirt of GT85 and set to cleaning. A short while later, I had movement. More cleaning and another squirt of GT85 and it spun nicely. Sprockets back on, wheel back on the bike and all is working well. Thank goodness. I also fitted a new gear cable for the front derailleur. I've fitted cables before so that was a piece of cake.

I need to learn how to take apart the hub (I apologise if I'm getting the part names wrong!) so I can give it a good clean and re-grease the bearings. The Park Tools website was good for removing the cassette so I'll look there for instructions (or should that be destructions!).

I do like to be able to fix my own bike.
 

JhnBssll

Veteran
Location
Suffolk
So did something I've never done before today. As I've been mostly Zwifting in the past few weeks on my spare not-worth-anything bike which is hooked up to the turbo, my Fuji has been sat in the garage feeling unloved. As I'm doing my first Audax on Sunday, I thought I'd better give it the once over - best thought ever! Checked the rear gears - indexed nicely, but no freewheeling as the cassette/hub was stuck. What? What do I do? Get the tool kit out. I've never had to remove the sprockets before, but a quick search told me how. Fortunately, I have a tool kit that my wife bought me with all the tools I could need in it. Cassette off, gave it a good clean. Lots of wet grit around the [insert name of the bit the cassette slides onto] so gave it a squirt of GT85 and set to cleaning. A short while later, I had movement. More cleaning and another squirt of GT85 and it spun nicely. Sprockets back on, wheel back on the bike and all is working well. Thank goodness. I also fitted a new gear cable for the front derailleur. I've fitted cables before so that was a piece of cake.

I need to learn how to take apart the hub (I apologise if I'm getting the part names wrong!) so I can give it a good clean and re-grease the bearings. The Park Tools website was good for removing the cassette so I'll look there for instructions (or should that be destructions!).

I do like to be able to fix my own bike.

Excellent work :okay: The bit the cassette slides in to is called the freehub body, otherwise your terminology is spot on ^_^ Well done for having a go, and extra points for actually fixing it on the first attempt :laugh:
 

LeetleGreyCells

Un rouleur infatigable
Excellent work :okay: The bit the cassette slides in to is called the freehub body, otherwise your terminology is spot on ^_^ Well done for having a go, and extra points for actually fixing it on the first attempt :laugh:
Cheers! I've been watching YouTube videos today about cleaning and re-greasing the ball-bearings in the hub. I need to get some grease (I have copper anti-seize grease which I use for putting pedals on, etc., but which I don't believe would be suitable for this job) and a grease injector as it seems the easiest way to pack the grease in. I think it's white grease I need (from watching the videos). Plus a cheap magnet on a telescopic pole (which I know I can get from B&M or Home Bargains for £1) would be very helpful too to remove the bearings. I already have cone spanners. This'll be a job for after the audax as I don't want to not be able to fix anything I may get wrong in putting it all back together and stop my chances of starting/finishing the audax.
 

palinurus

Velo, boulot, dodo
Location
Watford
Rear wheel on the fixed commuter had developed quite a bit of play. Off work today so went out in the drizzle and wind to take a look at it. Bought the wheel on eBay a few years ago after hitting a big pothole, sort of as a temporary stop-gap until I could get something nicer built. So took it off, sprocket came off easily! (two winters and the anti-seize grease was still looking fresh under the thread). Was going to see about getting something built but figured since the wheel was perfectly serviceable I'd just change the bearings, wouldn't even have to get the tyre off.

Mounted the hub flange on some handy bits of wood and gave the axle a few whacks with the rubber hammer but nothing was budging. Went away and had a cup of tea, went back out, screwed a wheel nut onto the end of the axle to protect it and gave it two whacks with a lump hammer. That one did it, used the axle and hammer to get the other side out. Just got to wait for my new bearings now.
 
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