What Have You Fettled Today?

[Shearwater Missile]

Whenever I try, I somehow end up with a spring, 2 washers, and a strange little metal plate that I forgot to put back in!

I am always amazed at programs like The Repair Shop when they take things apart, ie clocks. If I did that and then put it back together, even if it did work I`am sure the clock would go backwards. But then there is nothing like going back in time !

 

[EckyH]

Unraveled the mystery of the TPU leakage.
Turns out that I've had overseen a second puncture and applied the patch so that the second puncture was very near to the edge of the patch. With little pressure the adhesive power was strong enough to keep the patch and the inner tube together and therefore I couldn't find the leakage. But with high pressure within the tyre the pressure from the inside was stronger than the adhesive power and the air creeped out.
Unfortunately I couldn't remove the adhesive from the first patch completely, so the subsequent attempts to patch it were unsuccessful.

On the plus side: Now I know that TPU inner tubes can handle a bit more pressure than anticipated to locate the punctures and the many tyre-off-tyre-on-tyre-off-tyre-on in the last two days were good practise for changing tyres.

E.

 

[EckyH]

Uninstalled the Shimano Tiagra brifters and hydraulical disc brakes from the Van Rysel NCR AF and shortened it's steer tube.

E.

 

[Ian H]

I decided the Black Hallett could do with a bit of tlc, bring now nearly seven years old. So a new chainset seemed in order. I had to do a bit of research to find the right middle ring - it comes with a 36 but I wanted a 38.

 

[Ian H]

I also fashioned a lightweight saddlebag support for the fixed.

 

[fossyant]

Ebay Mavic Cosmic Elite wheels arrived - sold with seized rear hub. Basically these wheels hadn't been used in over 10 years and the grease/oil in the Mavic FTS-L hub had gone sticky. Really easy job to strip. Then checked hub bearings, and the grease was totally clean.

Zero wear on the braking surface - the original milling hasn't worn off. Did order £40 of bearings to fix, but not needed. They will go into stock.

 

[fossyant]

Don't buy Vittoria Corsa N-EXT. No wonder they were cheap.

Impossible to get on the rim. Even one side was a huge struggle and there was no way the otherside was going on. Even had to cut the tyre off the rim to remove it as it was so tight.

£20 a tyre wasted. I'll get some Rubino's or Lithion tyres instead.

 

[EckyH]

Don't buy Vittoria Corsa N-EXT. No wonder they were cheap.
Impossible to get on the rim.

Strange.
Have them (but in 32mm and 34mm, not 26mm) on several rims like DT Swiss and Rigida DP18 and it was no problem at all to get them on and off.

Seemingly your tyres either are from a monday batch or it's a problem with the 26mm model. Which rim do you use?

E.

 

[fossyant]

Strange.
Have them (but in 32mm and 34mm, not 26mm) on several rims like DT Swiss and Rigida DP18 and it was no problem at all to get them on and off.

Seemingly your tyres either are from a monday batch or it's a problem with the 26mm model. Which rim do you use?

E.

Mavic Cosmic elite. Could be that they are TLR and just not compatible with my rims. The 26c is mega tight.

 

[EckyH]

Mavic Cosmic elite.

An older generation which isn't specified for tubeless?

Could be that they are TLR and just not compatible with my rims.

Sorry - I didn't mention that I wrote about my experiences with the tube type (tubemore?) version of the Corsa next, not the tubeless.

Tubeless tyres on tubemore rims usually is... difficult - to say the least. Been there with Tufo gravel tyres and Vittoria Ridearmor. Fortunately the beads can be elongated-stretched-I-know-the-brabble-in-one-of-the-other-threads slightly ahead of the installation. Done so with the Tufos by putting them on the rim (H plus SON TB14) as far as possible and then placed two tyre levers from the opposite side of the rim so that they catch the bead of the tyre when I lever the bead over the rim. In that situation the bead has a lot of tension and (hopefully) eventually the bead backs down. The Tufos did so.
The Ridearmor were slightly less uncooperative on Remerx rims. I could put them on them eventually without damaging the inner tube. After a week or so with maximum pressure it was notably easier to get the tyre off and put it on again.

Fingers crossed that at least one of these methods works for you.

E.

 

[fossyant]

Never had an issue with MTB tubeless ready on tube rims at all, but the road in 26 are super tight on an older tubed rim. My mistake.

Ordered some 28c Lithions. Will be used on the CX bike for road and some bike packing (on road).

A little more fettling of the Cosmic rear. Appears the previous owner had tried to fix the freehub, but when I fitted it to the bike the freehub locked up. Pulled it appart again and removed the end cap on the freehub and found the spacer washer wasn't in the right place inside the hub. It was behind the endcap between that and the bearing. It shoud have been on the other side of the bearing. Removing the end cap allowed me to check the internal bearing, again totally clear grease so packed more in.

 

[sevenfourate]

Crank arm to BB; securing bolt(s) have loosened a couple of times in last few months. The arm hasn’t come loose on the tapered square drive BB - and I’ve never felt any movement between the arm and the BB. Just the bolt has loosened slightly. And both BB and crank are reasonably new……

So today I thought I’d do something about it. Tools and Equipment were assembled:

Old bolts removed:

BB internal thread / area around it cleaned with Cotton buds and White Spirit:

I was going to clean the grease off the bolts before re-fitting. Then noticed the two bolts I’d removed were different 🤷‍♂️ *Incase really old / re-used bolts had been mixed at some point; and for the sake of a few ££££ (And seeing as I had them ‘in stock’) - I quickly decided to refit with fresh bolts / new threads !

Extra Threadlock was applied to the bolt threads. Both inserted and then torqued to 45lb-ft.

Let’s see how this goes 👍

 

[DCLane]

Whilst out this morning with a rare fairy visit I looked at the rear tyre on the Giant FCR: cracked. With the front being similar.

They were fitted last year on purchasing the bike with the intention of moving it on quickly, something that hasn't happened.

So this afternoon it received new Vittoria Rubino front and rear tyres. Which should help given the old tyres were sliding quite a lot.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Another of the kids bikes I occasionally work on: I was asked to sort a new tyre and a cassette that had "fallen apart". Both needed to be at short notice as the lad it belongs to was competing in his first mountain bike race on the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend. They ordered the tyre themselves once I'd confirmed what they needed and the cassette issue was that the freehub had come apart and I was able to reassemble it fairly easily. The front tyre also had a puncture but I was assured that he could sort that.

On the Friday I had a message asking if I could help out with a problem getting the front wheel off as they were having difficulty. I was at work so the best I could do was to drop by on my way home to look at it. Unfortunately it was another overtightened Maxle which he'd clearly already had a good go at and despite trying various things it was not possible to get it out without rounding off the hex. Since I was working the next day too (with an early start) there was no way I could effect a fix before the race and I felt a real cad at having to drop this bad news. I went back on the Sunday morning and was able to get the axle out with the use of a stud extractor and a LOT of leverage. A new one with a lever rather than an allen key fitting is on order and hopefully will be a lot harder to overtighten.

Another ruined Maxle. The third I've seen recently. The damage on the body is from clamping it to get the stud extractor out - it had taken that much effort to remove the thing!

 

[Gunk]

Our 7 year old Range Cooker has not been right for a while, both oven bulbs have gone, I couldn't get the glass covers off by hand and the main door was not closing properly, clearly one of the springs in the hinges had failed. Knowing nothing about cookers I assumed it would be a big job, however some Googling and Youtube convinced me that I could easily fix it.

The manufacturer, Brittania wanted £299 just to turn up and a set of hinges from them was over £100 . I sourced a pair off eBay for £45 and the stuck glass covers for both the oven lights ended up coming off just by using a rubber glove to get a proper grip and use a bit of brute force (two bulbs were a fiver)

Looks like the problem was a broken pin in the hinge, it was a bit of a faff fitting them both, the door had to be stripped and the glass removed to change them over, but it only took about an hour.