southpawboston

This is a tangent of "Show us your Frankenbikes". So rather than bikes made with a hodgepodge of components, how about components themselves hybridized from a hodgepodge of parts?

I love it when a component is made using bits of two or more different ones to arrive at something new, whether to gain a new functionality or just out of budget constraints. Things like RD parallelograms with non-original cages, and MAFAC brakes with upgraded pivot bushings... those sorts of DIY mods come to mind. Or lacing 40H hubs to 36H rims.

Recently I pulled my winter commuter out of hibernation and gave it a pre-season go-over. I realized my TA French-threaded BB had bitten the dust (one too many sandy salty winters, I suppose, had resulted in very pitted spindle races). I could have replaced the spindle with another sourced from eBay, thus restoring the component to its properly matched configuration. But I didn't feel like spending eBay prices for just a new spindle, and I didn't like the idea of a non-sealed BB for winter duty, anyway. Maintaining the provenance of the component was not important to me. So I looked in my parts bins and found a set of Phil mounting rings for French BBs and an OMAS spindle-- the same length as the TA, and milled for cartridge bearings. Perfect! Now I just had to source the bearings. I ended up sourcing a pair of Enduro sealed cartridges for $15, shipped. So now I have a Phil/Enduro/OMAS chimeric BB, and it's smoother than the TA ever was. And better sealed!

Tell us about your DIY'd and cobbled components. Pics highly encouraged.

Fred Smedley

Shimano eight speed cassette cogs, Shimano 7 speed spacers and last two cogs. Fulcrum 5 for shimano freehub. Campagnolo Record 8 speed Brifters and RD. Shimergo !

crank_addict

Thanks to the help from fellow BF/CR members, this thing went thru some transformation to make it work. Running a 3x3x2 that also uses the original 1/2x1/8 pitch chain. After some punishing miles, I had to re-tweak adjust everything but it's now been super reliable bulletproof. I finally acquired a correct rear wingnut for the shift side yet I have to drill and tap for the non-drive side (anyone have Whitworth thread taps?).

noglider 

I've made derailleurs out of two different model derailleurs, both not working. No pictures to provide.

I made this expander seatpost out of a stem and a seatpost.

southpawboston

@Fred Smedley @crank_addict @noglider, good ones! The seat post wedge expander trick is interesting, hadn't seen that before!

Henry III

There's a couple folks here that have my long cages I made for NR/SR derailleus. Jimmueller sure likes to show his off on his Masi GC. I've got one left from about a dozen I made. Also made some chainring adapters for 50.4 bcd crank arms. I've got a NR rear derailleur that's got the cages and ti bolts from a SR if that counts on my Guerciotti? Lol.

Roger M

I've had this 7400 series long cage(someone else idea and build) for a few years. I'll find a use for it someday..

noglider 

I had to make that seatpost, because the bike originally came with one. But the seatpost was absent when the bike was picked from the trash. Here is the bike as I built it. I also had to straighten the fork.

I've made a few frankencomponents, but I can't remember any others at the moment.

fietsbob

Sort of like 3rd post , A S-A 3 speed , triple cluster in place of the 1, and a triple crank For a 3 cubed, 27 speed.

did this as a kid in the early 60's , shifterd the 2 Huret Derailleurs and the 3 speed hub with downtube shifters ..

A-D Puch-JC Higgins bike ..


Studded Tire Bike began as a old MTB frame with a broken Dropout . put it together from Bits and Pieces.

southpawboston

I had an RD-7402 that I would really have liked to do this to. From which RD was this cage originally? Early XT? 105? I'm guessing the max cog is still limited to 26T, but this just give you more chain wrap for a larger front chainring difference.

Roger M

I think it's an early XT cage, not sure though. If you look at this picture below, the upper pulley appears to be mounted higher up on the original short cage(on a 7402 rd). That long cage may give a little room for a bigger cog in back?..

Pompiere

I took apart a set of stem shifters to use the cable stops on the downtube bosses on my wife's bike, so that I could mount thumb shifters on the North Road bars.

southpawboston

Yes, I believe that should work with a larger max cog. How did you replace the parallelogram pivots?

Roger M

I didn't build this piece, southpaw. I acquired it second hand(as stated in my original post). I haven't taken it apart, so I dont know what was involved in the change to the long cage. I really need to mount it up on something and give it a go. It would probably work nicely with some retrofriction shifters, a compact chainset, and a 7 speed freewheel.

dddd

I first saw a 74xx long-caged derailer on a tandem, and it had both original D-A knuckles (8s, i.e. no bolt showing at the "A" pivot).

The owner told me it was an XTR cage, and he was running D-A STI levers and 12-32t XTR cogset in the hillclimb tt.

fietsbob

Un screw the Bolt that holds the derailleur Pulley cage , there is a spring on that one to wrap up the chain Slack .


I got a Nashbar shipped Short cage Olympus Campag MTB RD, then thru LBS, got the spare Long Cage ..

this was a while ago before either were discontinued completely as they are Now.

Ditto the Long Cage Mavic 803 parts to put on the short cage 851 SSC rear D.

likebike23

How about some nice stem shifters? I know some of you will say "nice stem shifters" is an oxymoron, but they can be cool on a townie. Find some of these crappy stem shifters ($3 in a used bin at a LBS).


Remove the plastic levers and put on any nice Shimano indexed down tube shifters in their place, and voila, nice stem shifters.

jimmuller 

You mean like this one? It's a great piece, looks terrific and does what it is supposed to do. Plus it attracts attention every so often! I wonder how many of the others are currently in service. (Note, there is only one "e" in jimmuller, the second one.)



I've Frankened up a few parts here and there. When I built up our tandem one of the brake return springs was AWOL. Try finding a return spring for Mafac cantilevers. So I forced a Shimano spring into service. With sufficient persuasion by pliers and curse words it finally submitted and has performed nicely for over 5000 miles.

Another Frankenization was a cable guide for the tandem's BB. I cut down a Shimano clamp to provide a housing stop.

BF member @top506 gave me a set of nice metal Simplex shift levers to replace the tandem's plastic ones. They work nicely and feel great (though the plastic ones worked and probably bothered him more than they bothered me). However the screws had a different thread pitch. So I had to swap the screws and tightening wings. Okay, so that's not such a big deal but it did require mixing pieces not intended for each other.

fettsvenska 

How about this custom Huret drop out adapter. This allows me to use a Suntour Cyclone derailleur on my Motobecane Grand Jubile that has Huret drop outs in the rear. I didn't invent this. I'm not that smart. Here is the link to the guy who thought this up. Bronze Gears: Huret Dropout Adapter Mine is pretty ugly but it is hidden behind the derailleur so no big deal.

Custom Huret Dropout Adapter by FatSwede, on Flickr

Suntour Cyclone RD by FatSwede, on Flickr

jonwvara 

This isn't really a frankencomponent because it's all Suntour, but I recently made a two-speed freewheel for a winter "doublespeed" (some would call it a "dinglespeed," but that word rubs me the wrong way for some reason) out of a five-speed Suntour Perfect body, of which I have many. I put three spacers on the cog-less body, followed by a splined 26-tooth cog, which then fills top spot of the splined part of the body. That's followed by a half-thickness spacer and a threaded 18-tooth cog with built-in spacer.

I haven't road-tested it yet--waiting for a seatpost the right size--but it works well on the stand with a 42-34 combo in front. No derailleur so you have to loosen the rear wheel and manually move the chain from the 42-18 combo to the 34-26. Both total 60 teeth, so the same chain length works for both. The high ratio should work most of the time, but I'll need the low one to get up the 3/4-mile-long hill to my house and some other long hills around here.

You could do something similar with a cassette hub, of course, but this lets you use a stronger 120 OLD wheel. No need to redish or respace the wheel, either, because the two cogs are almost exactly in the center of the freewheel body. The chainline is perfect with the same spindle that came with the 120-spaced frame.

Sorry, no pictures yet. I'll post some once I've had a chance to take the bike out on the road.

clubman 

Wow...pics of the rest of the bike?

m_sasso

Not so vintage however the frame has some history, 1985 Marinoni, Marinoni Special and I didn't want a bunch of carbon parts on it.

On the SR front derailleur, I purchased a used 11 speed entire unit with the customarily beat up and damaged carbon/Al. reinforced cage and some slight white logo blemishes, otherwise perfect for next to nothing.

I am not fond of the Campagnolo FD carbon/Al cages, seen way to many of them damaged through routine use. So rather than purchase an expensive SR replacement cage, I purchased a new Veloce front derailleur for well under the cost of a replacement SR cage. On wear components I will gladly exchange/accept the minimal weight penalty for reliability.

The SR cage attachment pins and the Veloce cage attachment rivet/pins are the same diameter 4.0mm and the attachment spacing is almost equal, the slight difference being cage material thickness. Circular SS metric shim is available through McMaster Carr, 4.0mm ID, 8.0mm OD in various thickness starting at 0.1mm, 0.5mm thick, part number 98089A330 if required.

On the Veloce FD I drilled out the cage attachment pivot pins/rivets peened heads, pulled the pins and removed the cage. On the SR FD I popped the C-clips on the cage attachment pins, pulled the pins, removed the cage.

The SR FD reassemble required some wrestling with the springs, pushing the attachment pins through the lined up actuating arms, springs, shims and cage attachment holes, snap the C-clips back on the pins and your done.

Oh, and there was some minor additional dabs of Phil waterproof grease in there also the derailleur is perfectly activated through some Simplex SLJ 6311 down tube shift levers.

Italuminium

MAFAC's with Ti bolts and Koolstop pads, not really a Frankenpart but here we go. Braking is a little less than stellar with Campagnolo Ergopower levers, but they'll do.

P1080726 by ctjr, on Flickr

southpawboston

Nice weight trimming, but at a cost-- I did the same thing with my Rawland Stag with Tektro CR720s. Swapped out the bolt for Ti and pads for KS. I had MAFAC cantis on a couple of bikes but the shorter non-tandem ones really don't give a lot of mechanical advantage. They're okay on the rear, but only the tandem length MAFACs work well enough on the front, in my experience.

Fantastic mod!

rhm

I made this quadrant-style shifter to operate the Trivelox derailleur I got for my Fothergill.



The lever is cut from 1/4" bar stock aluminum. The side plates are from some scrap aluminum I found. The mounting clamp involves a steel coaster brake band and part of a clamp that came on a razor scooter or something like that.

It works well; the lever is a simple toggle, it just has two positions and there is nothing holding it except cable tension, which makes for very light action. In the photo you can also see the fulcum for a three speed hub; had I been clever, I would have incorporated that role into the mounting clamp for the shifter. I mean to correct that oversight one of these days....