What Have You Fettled Today?

[Jenkins]

Not me - but watching a Halfords 'mechanic' try to fit a new wired road tyre straight of the display to a Mavic wheel. Yes, I could have paid for my brake pads at the main till rather than the bike department, but watching him struggle then realise he'd trapped & damaged the inner tube (me knowing what was coming seeing the way he'd tried to fit the tyre) was worth the wait

 

[ColinJ]

Should be fixable if you have enough patches

I am ordering 5 new tubes on Merlin Cycles. Their cheapo ones at £2.99 are good enough for my purposes. I am looking for other stuff to get the order up to £30 to get free p&p.

 

[Jameshow]

Thanks - and on a long hillclimb, yes. The bottle cage is an 18g Lightweight copy, so is OK for most things. A 30g bottle with about 50ml in doesn't weigh too much either.

Oh 98 gms in no so sure that's almost a full bar of fruit and nut to touring folk!

 

[cyberknight]

Got the commuter back yesterday £6 to fix it ,if you have the right tools it was an easy job but beyond my sleep deprived mind to see it

 

[TK421]

Help!
I have got myself a new frame to build and the headset is fully integrated and the top bearing sits in the cup with 2mm exposed. First, is this correct? Second, any recommendations for a good headset?

 

[fossyant]

Help!
I have got myself a new frame to build and the headset is fully integrated and the top bearing sits in the cup with 2mm exposed. First, is this correct? Second, any recommendations for a good headset?

View attachment 704965

Provided the top cap overs the gap - is it the right spec bearing ?

 

[TK421]

The bearing seat depth is just over 3mm to the conical face. There are no markings on the bearings but they measure 41mm OD, 30mm ID, and 6mm thick with 45deg faces on opposite sides. With the compression ring and top cap sat in place but loose, as in the photo, there is about a half to one mm gap.

 

[Windle]

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......eeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!!!!!!!

My mountain bike had a slow rear wheel puncture which I finally decided to fix this evening. It turned out to be unrepairable*** so I put a replacement tube in instead.

You know about doublechecking that the tyre is seated properly, and that the tube isn't trapped? Yeah, I ALWAYS do that too. Except tonight that is. And, of course, the inevitable happened...

View attachment 704875

Has anybody got any spare ears for sale at an affordable price?





*** The valve was ripping out of the tube. Bodgery might have fixed it, but I wasn't prepared to take the chance!

I always put a bit of air in the tube and go round pushing the tyre bead in slightly to make sure the tube isn't trapped anywhere ~ except when I didn't a few weeks ago. The level of sound / blast from a 100 psi road tyre blowing is truly spectacular, when mine 'went off' it actually stopped the cd player that I had on in the garage from several feet away and I felt properly stunned for a few moments .

 

[FrankCrank]

Puncture fairy struck on my morning ride. Managed to get most of the way home to do a fix, just walked the last ten minutes or so. Noticed there were quite a few patches on it already, total of eight now on a 20" tube. Can anyone outdo my thriftiness?

 

[Windle]

Puncture fairy struck on my morning ride. Managed to get most of the way home to do a fix, just walked the last ten minutes or so. Noticed there were quite a few patches on it already, total of eight now on a 20" tube. Can anyone outdo my thriftiness?

Every patch is an extra layer of rubber, so in theory the more patches there are the less likely you'll get another puncture?

 

[Windle]

Technically fettled last week but gave the Univega's gear shifter a ruddy good WD40'ing as it had stopped working at the low end again. Something in there is stiff and after freeing up and a bit of use it stiffens up again. You'd think it would manifest itself when changing to higher gears, i.e. releasing the tension in the shifter, but no, this does it the other way round with the thumb lever sticking and losing cable tension when trying to pull the mech back up the block. It'll end up getting a soak in turps an de-grease if it doesn't behave itself. The bike had also developed an annoying metallic squeak on the last ride, cured with a few slight turns of both the main crank bolts and chainring studs. Well it was cured, until exactly the same place on yesterday's ride where it started again . A partial strip down and copper greasing beckons. Or it could be the BB. I love playing bike-squeak-cluedo me .

 

[fossyant]

My rear hub (used M737 XT hub) started making noises on the way home on Wednesday last week - just not silent. Popped the wheel off and there was play in the freehub, not the axel. Striped it and noticed that the freehub was coming loose - on further investigation it looked like the thread had been stripped previously (bought used on ebay as in excellent condition). I applied threadlock, and tightened it up, although it wouldn't go 'tight'

It's come loose again, but I'd pre-empted the issue and got another hub off ebay. Turned out it's not an XT as advised, but pulled it to bits and fitted the replacement freehub. That screwed in nice and tight without feeling like it would strip the thread. Just had to re-use the axel and drive side cone off the 'replacement' freehub as it was ever so slightly different where it interfaces with the freehub. Non-drive side is the original cone.

That's saved competely re-building the wheel !

 

[Windle]

My Joeblow track pump's bottom has been tatty for ages and as I had some matt black paint left over from painting my bargain-tastic DMR flat pedals (previously in gold / chrome) I thought I'd give it a err blow-over. Before, after a brief emery papering: (it is awful, but I like it).

After, much tidier. Whether it survives much standing on whilst pumping furiously (also relevant to the painted pedals) we'll see.

 

[bikingdad90]

AM Fettle
Took some btwin gravel tyres off my wheels. They were really draggy and horrible to ride on any terrain. I replaced them with some schwalbe land cruisers instead. Will see how they fare instead.

PM Fettle
My clutch (pedal) became unresponsive and my car was stuck in 2nd gear after pulling up on the drive after coming home from work. Had to stall the car by rocking forward and braking to stop the engine so that I could disengage the gearbox and put it back in neutral. I think the master or slave cylinder has gone as depressing the pedal does nothing as the pedal is very light. Hope it isn’t the clutch itself as that requires the engine and gearbox to be dropped out and goodbye to the best part of £1k.

 

[biggs682]

Just found and fitted a 7 sis down tube shifter to one of my projects