What have you been wrenching on lately?
 

A couple of years ago we had a Secret Santa game, and we were to make an educated guess on what your chosen recipient should get based on his/her posts. My Santa was @oddjob2, and he found a comment of mine that I don't overhaul my bearings often enough. He sent me some grease and some bearing balls. :lol:

Last week, I discovered severe neglect in the freewheel and rear hub of my old Raleigh Super Course, and a few months ago, I found the same in the BB of my old McLean. OK, time to get things back up to snuff.

I still haven't organized things well enough, and I couldn't find the 5/32" balls I needed for my Super Course's headset, but I overhauled it anyway, reusing the balls I was able to catch without losing. It's a crude headset, not precisely ground, but it spins freely enough and evenly enough and will last a lifetime so perfection isn't a goal.

I overhauled the front hub, too.

I removed the cranks and cleaned the chainrings. The BB is a Shimano cartridge type, and it's working fine and doesn't need anything.

I cleaned nearly the whole bike, even the tires and the rims. It still looks like hell because the paint is so awful. One of these days, I'll sound down the bad spots and touch them up. In the meantime, the bike is functionally as close to perfect as it will get, and that's satisfying. Now I have to do all my other bikes.

I'm finding keeping them all in good running shape to be a bit tough, especially since home projects are more important. I'm thinking again about how I should own fewer bikes, but I can't figure out what to let go of. I'll be watching how much I ride each one. I own ten, including our tandem.

Now I need a recording system for maintenance. I think I can use ridewithgps for that, and that's a wonderful thing.

All City Nature Boy Zona

Red, white and blue, maybe a 2013.

Put a new cartridge bottom bracket in my Univega today. The old cup and cone one was "indexed".

I picked up a nice wheel with Mavic MA40 (red) rim but unknown hub. Opened it up to give it a repack and it looks like a Superb Pro! :) Big surprise because the other MA40(green) has a plain jane Shimano RSX hub. I have a couple others that need new rims, one 27" with a Campagnolo hub, another with a Phil Wood hub, and an Open Pro with a flat spot dented into it.

No wrenching on my own bikes this time of year - that's winter work. I did clean up the rust spots on my vintage Kreitler rollers and created a mounting stand. At the LBS I've been building lots of new bikes and doing repairs. A C'dale F600 came in recently with an odd feature - 9 speed fixed gear!! The free hub was locked up with corrosion - seemingly the owner had not noticed. "The front brake needs work".

And the Boss took in a vintage CCM which I'm still figuring out. Campy Record hubs on tubular rims, Suntour drive train, 26.8 seat post and some center pull brakes I've not seen. No name but a wee engraved logo on the pivot bolts that I cannot make out. I'll need a good light and a glass. Kinda fun them old sleds that ring nicely when you ting the top tube. Also kinda fun that the Boss keeps such a thing out on the main floor for a few days cuz he also thinks the old steel is cool.

Made some adjustments and re-test rode the Peloton with its new 10-speed Record/Chorus/other stuff (that matches!!!). Proper machine she is (once again).

Preparing to complete the Raleigh's 8-speed Campy build. RD and string everything up. She, the Peloton, and my Ross (which I really love riding) were/are part of a three-way parts swap, because of course they are when the fleet is 6 or more!

When I take a break from digging holes down to bedrock or bucking dead falls, I work towards completion of this all chrome plated something or other. Hoping to sand it down and shoot the white sometime this weekend. Just ordered the decal set yesterday...

i think i'm shrinking.

so i had to rid the 115mm stem and cinelli 66-40 bars on the davidson and put a 85mm cinelli stem and 64-38 bars on there.

the bar drop difference is pretty huge. (yuge!). my aging back thanks me.

i deanodized and polished them today. whew. glad that part's behind me.

I am trying to collect all the parts for my current F. Moser project. I overhauled all of my bikes earlier this spring so there's not much work left to do. ;/ Recently I regreased Dura-Ace hubs I had laying around which are part of the DA group I'm not even using lol. That how bored I am :P

But I ride alot :D

Hmm, a week or so ago I tightened the timing chain on the tandem. Cleaned some of the gunk off the RD pulleys on one of the bikes but I don't remember which one. Haven't had time to do much wrenching, and fortunately haven't had much to do.

Last wrenching was two weeks ago when I replaced the free hub on the RockHopper with one that would accept a 8 spd cassette. Had to re-dish the wheel and replace the twist shifters too. Nice improvement with more even spacing of the gear ratios, at least for my riding. Like the bike a lot more now!

Bought a set of spoke wrenches too.

Too much for this time of year - I've stalled on building a few wheelsets needed to wrap up three projects.
-Woodrup: front derailleur arrived yesterday, need to get to paintfill and rebuilding the rear wheel
-Motobecane: converting to 700c, need to rebuild rear hub and build wheels, clean and install brakes, decide on tires
-Klein: build wheelset(s), waiting on Motobecane wheelbuild to figure out if I can build a strong wheel with DT Revolutions (manage windup)

The Windsor will also be getting new old derailleurs soon (XC Pro) to see how well a slant parallelogram improves rear shifting. May switch to 7sp friction.

The MTB got a bunch of new goodies this spring, been enjoying the heck out of that.

I honestly have no interest to do any significant bike wrenching at the moment. I bought a very neglected Raleigh Twenty with front dynohub that I had immersed myself in.....now I'm just sick of working on bikes.

I like riding more now.....

Just the normal general maintenance tasks, still letting my funds rebuild from my first foray into building a C&V. Cleaned chains and freewheel/cassette, then checked everything else over. Something to do between rides rather than burning up brain cells in front of the television.

Bill

A bit on Frank the Pirate, and a bit on the Faggin. Next will be renovating the brakes for the Faggin.

Bought a beautiful red Raleigh Super Course MK II mixte as a flip candidate.
Took a bunch of takeoffs and a Puch frame to the Hub of Detroit/Bike City.
Stripped a Peugeot PX10 of its parts.
Trek 930 Purple - Rear tube replaced on my $5.00 ebay find.
Schwinn 1989 Paramount - took off hybrid tires mounted by a WPB shop and mounted a set of Serfas Seca.
Trek 950 1993 - Clunker 100 candidate (?) completed overhaul and fine tuning fit. Probably changing front tire to a road tire.
Dawes Galaxy - rear hub cone adjustment.
Miyata 610 - (to be flipped) full teardown and rebuild in progress.
Identified mtb availability for Henry III. (This is harder than you think with a large hoard)
Cleared up workbench top.

Since Sunday, probably 5 hours of saddle time this week and 3 weightlifting sessions :D

Yacht racing today!

I've always got s few projects going on. Right now, my Holdsworth Mistral is apart being reborn with a new wheel set and tires, and a new drivetrain. My Trek 660 is in line for a good cleaning and general going through, and I recently acquired a mid 80's Schwinn Tempo frame that is being built up as a 650b conversion. I haven't used my Trek 600 yet this year due to a bald rear tire. Too much going on!

A tubular wheelset being prepped for the Trek 760 Pro Series. Minor truing, major shining and selecting a decent set of sewups.

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Waiting on a friend to bring a bottom bracket spindle today so I can finish my Merckx. Picked up a trek 460 yesterday with a bent fork. Got it pretty cheap and didn't notice the Mavic rims with Campy hubs until I got it home. I got the forks straightened last night, I'll keep this as a beater because of the repairs I made.

Since I've been pretty much occupied with wiring my pole barn, bike work has been on the back burner. I did take some time to install triathlon bars on my niece's bike. Also, I swapped the stem on the Paramount to dial in the fit and did a 40 mile road test.

I recently finished my Peugeot A08 upright conversion and spend most of my bike related time riding in this perfect weather. I did thoroughly clean my U08, Super Course TT and Fuji Ace last weekend too to have that out of the way for a bit. I have yet to decide whether the PX10 or the Gitane Hosteller is next on the list. No rush though, the cool weather is when wrenching picks up again in earnest.

@oddjob2, spoken like a retiree.

Awaiting the bottom bracket which will complete the component acquisition for building up the Gion frame I got from rccardr. Going to put a Campy chorus 10 speed group on it. Next in line after that is changing out the headset on my Tommasini from a Miche to a Campy Record to match the rest of the gruppo and while I'm at it will put on a set of shallower drop 3T bars.

Man, retirement is looking sweeet! I have a lot of shaky reasons for why it's okay to keep buying bikes, and one of the them it that I can sell or flip them when I retire or if I get fired to bring in extra cash.

Ever get a new-to-you vintage bike that's almost cherry enough that you might not need to do the usual lube routine? I'm working on this Black Lightning and the bottom bracket and hubs still have wet grease showing and they spin well. I know I should repack everything while I'm cleaning the chain and changing tires, but the weather is really nice this weekend.

If only there was some way to see exactly what the grease looks like in the bearings without disassembly.

Plan for now is to ride it today and hopefully have the energy to repack and adjust bearings this evening.

While I took a break from flipping bikes this spring working on my shop rebuild I did work on one bike for a friend.My buddy Dave called me and said he bought a Schwinn Collegiate for $30 at a yard sale, he said it just needs tires and he wants to put new cables on it, & he is going to do the work himself. As soon as I saw the bike I knew it was going to need a lot more then tires & cables and I told him to leave it with me and I will take a look at it once I get to a point I can take a break with my shop rebuild and he agrees.

The first thing I notice is that the kick stand doesn't work and seems bent and after wheeling it in & out for a few days something just looks off, turns out the PO changed the wheels from 27" to a really beat set of 26x1 3/8" wheels which don't fit at all. The second thing is that I can see that this bike lived outside for a long period of time & the PO cleaned all the chrome with some really coarse steel wool scratching all the chrome parts bad. The BB & Headset bearings were a little crunchy feeling & the chain was beyond service limits and heavy with rust. The first thing I do is call Dave & bust his chops about the $30 boat anchor he bought and he replies All it needs is tires I was riding it!, after I stopped laughing I told him I will see what I can come up with and let him know what if anything can be done with it without sinking a boat load of money in it & this is what I came up with,

All Parts used were from my bins & in stock, which is the only reason I moved forward.The only original parts left were the Frame, fork, fenders stem & handle bars, everything else was replaced to make it work.

Wheels- Used Araya 700c rims w/sealed bearing fw hubs, rebuilt w/new bearings & rear converted to solid Axle & both drilled for Shrad valve tubes ( I knew he would have problems w/Presta valve tubes lol ). I also used the 6spd UG FW that was on the wheelset.
Brakes- Weinmann Center Pull, 610 in frt 750 in Rear, new pads, this required changing the seatpost clamp & installing cable hangers frt & back.New cables.
BB & Headset replaced with good condition used replacements.
Derailleur & Shifting- Shimano SIS Alivio long cage, 6spd thumb shifter, all new cables.Also had to modify a Suntour Claw hanger for the RD to mount.
Pedals-Union Block like originals.
Tires- Michelin Dynamic Sport 700x28, Picked these up last yrs from Nashbar $9.99 ea but didn't work out for my needs.New tubes.
Misc- Modern Schwinn seat post with the standard size for seat clamp, Schwinn MTB seat, newer rubber Schwinn grips, a cleaner set of brake levers, vintage Cats Eye reflectors, Suntour Dork Disk, Used rear rack.

This bike fought me tooth & nail getting everything to work together but I am happy to say that I am very pleased with the outcome, it rides smooth, shifts fast and is comfortable. I told Dave if he doesn't pick it up soon he is not getting it back lol.

Glenn
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