Bike maintenance
Aug. 26th, 2004 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenOne of my most hated jobs in the world, as is anything that will get my hands all greasy.
But, between 5:30 and 8:00pm, I've fixed 2 out of 3.
First came the Birdy...
I managed to remove the inner tube from the Birdy - my little folding bike - find and patch its puncture, find the shark-fin shaped fragment of flint that caused it, replace and reassemble it. All without removing the back wheel, since it is a combined 3-speed hub and 7-ring freewheel assembly. The control cable for the hub goes in the right-hand side of the axle and I cannot see how you remove it. I couldn't get the wheel out with the left-hand retaining nut removed.
Now all I have to do is find my soldering iron and reattach the power lead from the dynamo to my front light - that's been broken for a year.
Then came the Honda H100...
I've retensioned the chain on the H100. After a brief hunt, I found my Haynes Book of Lies for it - amazingly, filed in the odd-sized-volumes bookcase under Haynes manuals. [F/X: stunned amazement] It tells me the chain's fully enclosed and to use the inspection opening to find the stiffest spot in the chain. Well, the chain isn't fully enclosed and I don't know how to check for tight spots. It all moves fairly freely, but at a couple of points there was a rattling noise from the gearbox sprocket. Don't know what this means.
The HBoL then says: remove the split pin (there isn't one), remove the sprocket retaining nut and the wheel nut (what's the difference? How do I tell which is which?), and adjust so that both sides match (well I knew that). It doesn't tell you to do anything about the control linkage for the rear (drum) brake, so I didn't. This worries me - it was a vital step on my old GSX250.
So, I have done this. I didn't have a spanner big enough to fit the right hand nut, but an adjustable just went big enough. It was quite loose, too. Almost finger-loose.
I've checked with a micrometer, and from 2mm off the 2nd notch on the frame, it's now 1mm off. Play in the chain has gone from 3-4cm (in which state it kept falling off) to about 1cm - maybe 1.5-2cm if I push it hard. Does that sound about right? It feels quite stiff and tight. [Oo-er] The wheel spins freely, though, and the rattling from the gearbox seems to have stopped.
I nearly forgot to retighten the main bolts - only came to me when I was repacking the toolkit. Erk.
Now, though, the right-hand nut - opposite side from the sprocket - has nearly 1cm of bolt showing, while the left-hand side nut has maybe 1mm of thread visible inside it, when before, the bolt actually protruded on both sides. Is that bad? What can I do about it? Any attempt to tighten the RHS nut merely spins the bolt around. I am a little concerned by this.
And finally, the recumbent.
My rear tyre burst on the penultimate leg of the London to Brighton in June. I bought a new tyre and tube, since it was an explosive failure not a puncture and slow deflation, and I could see that 1-2cm of the tyre's bead had separated from the sidewall. This struck me as a Bad Thing.
The wheel is quick-release and came off fairly easily.
However, while the new tyre is the same size as the old - 28 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 - the new tube is bigger. It says it's 27 x 1 5/8 x 1. It's fatter than the old one (which seemed very skinny for the fatness of the tyre) and it's substantially larger in circumference - put a little air in it, lie tyre and tube on the ground, and the new tube fits easily over the tyre with a 1/2cm gap between them all the way round. That's way too big, surely? Back to the shop for me, I think.
Found a 1cm split in the old tube. I tried to patch it, but even a small amount of inflation and the patch failed. So I still have no recumbent.
Anyone who knows anything about bikes - with or without engines - please read this and tell me if I have done anything blatantly stupid!
So, I have no transport that will get me to Wales for the weekend. However, the weather looks like crap, and I've just discovered that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geoffcampbell's big CiX bikers' party will have Stuff™ at it. So I'm a lot less keen to go. Maybe I should try and find a B&B and go to Infest instead? Thoughts, anyone?
But, between 5:30 and 8:00pm, I've fixed 2 out of 3.
First came the Birdy...
I managed to remove the inner tube from the Birdy - my little folding bike - find and patch its puncture, find the shark-fin shaped fragment of flint that caused it, replace and reassemble it. All without removing the back wheel, since it is a combined 3-speed hub and 7-ring freewheel assembly. The control cable for the hub goes in the right-hand side of the axle and I cannot see how you remove it. I couldn't get the wheel out with the left-hand retaining nut removed.
Now all I have to do is find my soldering iron and reattach the power lead from the dynamo to my front light - that's been broken for a year.
Then came the Honda H100...
I've retensioned the chain on the H100. After a brief hunt, I found my Haynes Book of Lies for it - amazingly, filed in the odd-sized-volumes bookcase under Haynes manuals. [F/X: stunned amazement] It tells me the chain's fully enclosed and to use the inspection opening to find the stiffest spot in the chain. Well, the chain isn't fully enclosed and I don't know how to check for tight spots. It all moves fairly freely, but at a couple of points there was a rattling noise from the gearbox sprocket. Don't know what this means.
The HBoL then says: remove the split pin (there isn't one), remove the sprocket retaining nut and the wheel nut (what's the difference? How do I tell which is which?), and adjust so that both sides match (well I knew that). It doesn't tell you to do anything about the control linkage for the rear (drum) brake, so I didn't. This worries me - it was a vital step on my old GSX250.
So, I have done this. I didn't have a spanner big enough to fit the right hand nut, but an adjustable just went big enough. It was quite loose, too. Almost finger-loose.
I've checked with a micrometer, and from 2mm off the 2nd notch on the frame, it's now 1mm off. Play in the chain has gone from 3-4cm (in which state it kept falling off) to about 1cm - maybe 1.5-2cm if I push it hard. Does that sound about right? It feels quite stiff and tight. [Oo-er] The wheel spins freely, though, and the rattling from the gearbox seems to have stopped.
I nearly forgot to retighten the main bolts - only came to me when I was repacking the toolkit. Erk.
Now, though, the right-hand nut - opposite side from the sprocket - has nearly 1cm of bolt showing, while the left-hand side nut has maybe 1mm of thread visible inside it, when before, the bolt actually protruded on both sides. Is that bad? What can I do about it? Any attempt to tighten the RHS nut merely spins the bolt around. I am a little concerned by this.
And finally, the recumbent.
My rear tyre burst on the penultimate leg of the London to Brighton in June. I bought a new tyre and tube, since it was an explosive failure not a puncture and slow deflation, and I could see that 1-2cm of the tyre's bead had separated from the sidewall. This struck me as a Bad Thing.
The wheel is quick-release and came off fairly easily.
However, while the new tyre is the same size as the old - 28 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 - the new tube is bigger. It says it's 27 x 1 5/8 x 1. It's fatter than the old one (which seemed very skinny for the fatness of the tyre) and it's substantially larger in circumference - put a little air in it, lie tyre and tube on the ground, and the new tube fits easily over the tyre with a 1/2cm gap between them all the way round. That's way too big, surely? Back to the shop for me, I think.
Found a 1cm split in the old tube. I tried to patch it, but even a small amount of inflation and the patch failed. So I still have no recumbent.
Anyone who knows anything about bikes - with or without engines - please read this and tell me if I have done anything blatantly stupid!
So, I have no transport that will get me to Wales for the weekend. However, the weather looks like crap, and I've just discovered that
geoffcampbell's big CiX bikers' party will have Stuff™ at it. So I'm a lot less keen to go. Maybe I should try and find a B&B and go to Infest instead? Thoughts, anyone?
