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04-30-21, 06:08 AM

#66

Geepig

Senior Member

Join Date: Sep 2020

Location: Eastern Poland

Posts: 744

Bikes: Romet Jubilat x 4, Wigry x 1, Turing x 1

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Well, with some of my other projects out of the way, or at least on hold, it came time to do something about BSO. I have been looking forward to riding a bike with rear suspension since I first saw one in about 1982, and while this bike is cheap and heavy, and so of no particular interest, I do want to try it out as a bike and as a test bed for its bits. Does the V-brake work, how do the rotary gear changes feel, and if I dropped the front wheel out and disconnected the rear suspension, would it fold up enough to fit easily in the back of our car?

I removed the rear derailleur from Best and fitted that in place of the one on BSO as it was missing its pinions and, annoyingly, one of the pinion side plates. I put a Zebra tire on the rear, fitted the wheel, pumped up the front and fitted that as well, then added the seat. All this was just enough to turn it over and sit on the thing for the first time - and photograph it. Just rolling it far enough to take the picture indicated the lack of adjustment of the rear suspension and fork stem. It also looks like that the front fork is bent back, and it did steer a bit like a cow when I pushed it.

Pigdog, Turing and Best - my non-folders, suppliers of parts for the folders.

That just left splitting the chain to fit it, reconnecting and setting up the gear change, and sorting out the rear V-brake.

The rear brake cable was stiff, but even after lubing it the brakes were reluctant to release. I tried to remove the brake arms, but the bolts were seized on and so I do not know how much spring tension they each have. So I thought I would pop on a set of cantilever brakes from Best at the front - but one of the mounting points was damaged and I could not fit the mounting screw. In reviewing the condition of the surviving cantilever parts I reckon I might have to use cantilevers on the front of Best and then the V-brake from BSO on the rear. At least I eventually got the rear brake to operate, even if I did have to release it manually each time.

This meant it was rideable, but I cannot say that it was a memorable experience. The slightly bent front forks, the vaguely stiff steering when turned and the sheer weight of the bike meant it would quickly dart to one side and then had to be hauled upright after the exit from the turn. It was comfortable enough over bumps while sitting, but the frame as set up now was too short/low for me to stand. All in all, it was like rolling over the landscape on a too-small motorcycle with the engine switched off.

The throttle-style gear changers were rubbish as it was easy to accidentally rotate the lever on bumpy ground as the bike rotated under you, not helped by the lack of handlebar grips - although the stiff cables did help in not triggering the derailleurs. The front derailleur, which I had not looked at, did nothing in response to any input. The rear did move the derailleur, somewhat, but not consistently. The cranks and sprockets all felt OK, once a gear had been selected and the derailleur stopped half-heartedly trying to pull the chain onto another sprocket - for which I blame the cables.

With enough work I could achieve a half-decent bike, but Best was still better as a bike even with a lot more hard miles under its belt - BSO was just a cheap bike that some kid rode, experimented with and trashed. The test earned BSO a new name - Pigdog the Unbranded, or ‘Pigdog’ for short.

While Danusia remains out of action, awaiting a replacement seat stem and the fold lock to be rebuilt, I thought it would be a shame not to keep Pigdog in the cycle rack outside our block. In the snow, as it turned out. I must admit that Pigdog does look good in the rack. Purposeful, even

Best has been back on the bench, primarily to finally pull off those cranks. It was quite easy, once I managed to get the threads of the puller to engage with the removal threads in the cranks. Once they were off it was just a moment’s work to remove the axle and its almost grime-locked bearings. Currently the back of my bench is knee-deep in BB and fork stem bearing sets, as many of my bikes seem wanting in that department. I need to process them, including the reserve coaster brake hub that has been sitting there waiting since January.

The dumb story: I bought a metre of thread stock to use in stretching frames and inserting bearing cups (BB and forks mainly) in the garage, which I then took to the cottage because I planned to work on Turing there - but since I changed my mind and took Turing to the garage the thread stock came with it. Then I woke up and realised I needed it at both locations, and half a metre would suffice for all applications. So out came the saw to fix the problem permanently, since I had already bought enough big washers for two tools anyway.

In the warsztat (aka ‘coal room’ or ‘workshop’), pronounced ‘varsh-tat’, I had a table to put my toolbox on and fiddle around fixing stuff, but then we needed it in the kitchen (‘kuchnia’) and I was left with the coffee table (‘bike stand’) and a chair. Barns being barns, I went in search of something else and came up with a largish table collapsing under the weight of our spare flooring panels, and a small one lacking a top. As there was a ready supply of particle boards from the other odd units we had removed, I took the topless table and soon had my new workbench mk 1, plus I also found a small cupboard unit which I could mount on the wall or something. Once we start replacing parts of the kitchen I will be awash with units

I also found an old handle for a scythe, and then half an hour later found the old, thin and rusted scythe blade lying on top of a pile of stuff in the yard, right at 5-year-old’s hand height. I am making quite a collection of old farm implements, and found several really cute chick feeders, one of which will clean up as a pen box for wifie’s desk. Eventually, though, I finally got around to setting up my computer and logging into the work’s system. This might come in useful much earlier than we thought, as we have just heard that the maintenance have informed us that they want to renovate the tiles on the balconies. I can hear the crash of tiles now, dropped four floors down into the skip.

With Pigdog together, it was time to start working through my current stock of bearings to clean those cluttering up my workbench. But first I needed to get that locking lever in My Wigry’s fold lock. By hammering in various pieces of metal bar that fit the hole in Danusia but were too big for My Wigry (such as the knurled steel handle of a pin punch) (and this was the first time in the 40 years I have had the set that I have used one by hammering on the ‘pin’ end’). The hinge is thick rolled steel, but not welded, and with the pin hammered in I could hammer a screwdriver into the gap at the end of the rolled steel frame. I then tapped the pin punch out, put copper grease on the locking lever and carefully but firmly hammered the locking lever in.

It worked! I now have a Wigry that locks as firmly and easily as my Jubilats. All I need to do now is fit the My Wigry system to Danusia, for which I need to device some way of stopping the pin from dropping out of the fold when the bike is folded and upside down. My Wigry had a small plastic plug, but once you have fitted a Jubilat type lever it is too loose to stay in.

Next I cleaned and greased up the front fork bearings on My Wigry and assembled the lot, replacing the high front lamp mount with the spacer disk from Turing. Now in all the years that I have been working on bikes, I have read and read and read that you need that washer in case there are not enough threads for the lock nut. What a load of tosh! There must always be enough thread for the locknut because there was already enough threads for the upper bearing cup/adjuster. The secret is that slot in the fork tube and the tab on the washer / upper basket mount / high level lamp mount. The tab engages in the slot so that once the bearing has been adjusted using the upper bearing cup/adjuster, tightening the locknut cannot affect the position of the adjuster. The bearing adjuster is merely knurled on my bikes, so it would be hard to prevent it from turning as I tightened the lock nut without that washer.

My Wigry ready for the road - including its 'new' locking lever for the fold lock.

The only significant tasks left were to replace the front wheel bearings, refit the wheels and finish installing the bottle carrier to the seat stem, and then fold it ready to put it in the back of the car so it can rejoin Flash Wigry in our farmyard location. This gives me more room in the garage, but I will soon need some kind of bike storage solution in my warsztat.

Life down the garages is warming up, with owners coming out of hibernation, winter tires being exchanged for summer ones and even bicycles poking their noses out for that first roll around the yard.

Finally, I drew up on my whiteboard in the garage a list of all the current tasks for each of the bikes I have. I also still need to fix the whiteboard to the garage wall, but I did not add that to the list, in case the board noticed - it fell down from the bench the other day, in protest I believe for being forgotten. Anyway, I cannot finish work on Tigger because one of the tires is on the rear wheel of Best, which I want in place until I can test Best, which is not going to happen until I strip Pigdog. I might even test out Best’s gear levers on Pigdog yet, while continuing to get the different systems on the bike to work or at least to be removable - both of which apply to the rear brake.

I did find the time to install My Wigry’s fold lock mechanism on Danusia, so at least I can store it leaning up against the side of the garage amongst rather too many non-folding bikes.

#romet #rower #bicycle #wigry #jubilat #shopper #poland #polska