unterhausen

That's sad that no local shop has a crown race cutter. I know they are better than most, but my lbs has a crown race cutter for all the ridiculous number of sizes out there.
How much does a crown race cost? Mail it to me with a shipping label and I'll cut it and send it back.

himespau 

Thanks, I found a shop where the head mechanic used to work with the one local framebuilder (who has since moved away) and who also was a machinist in the air force before moving here. He's got a full machine shop in his basement at home (and an alignment table), so he's going to mill down the fork for $40. If he does a decent job, I'll move over to using him from the current folks (probably should find someone new anyway). This guy is at a Specialized-only shop and I'd love to find a shop that is experienced with my preferred style of bikes (old steel), but I haven't managed to find that and a good mechanic is a good mechanic. Still prefer to do the stuff I can by myself.

The bike I was riding when I got hit this May (that the current bike is meant to replace) had the rear triangle go pretty far out of alignment. Once the insurance gets taken care of, if this guy can back up his talk with actual performance, I might see if he can put my frame back into alignment on his table. There is a very well regarded frame-builder who lives near my parents who said that he could/would do it, but that's a 5-6 hour drive that I don't plan on making until Christmas and would prefer not to have to try to fit an extra bike frame in there with all the family stuff/Christmas presents. Still would prefer the actual frame builder, but, if this local guy knows what he's doing, that might be good enough. Especially if the repaired frame goes to trainer-only duty.

himespau 

Well thank you all for all your help. The mechanic with the machine shop milled down the seat so it was a tight fit (and re-faced it to make sure it was nice and flat). Fits perfectly with no wiggling.

As you can see, it's getting closer to looking like a bike, but there's still a long way to go (pardon the mess).




Does anyone know what the threaded hole immediately in front of the race number holder is? It's threaded the same as a water bottle screw. Some sort of screw in pump peg that was removeable on race days because it'd interfere with the number? If so, I'd imagine it'd be pretty much unobtanium at this point, right? Something else, totally obvious (or not), that I'm not considering?



My next problem is that the front derailleur braze on is a touch too low to clear the outside ring with any of the front derailleurs I have on hand. Not 100% sure what I'm going to do about that, but am soliciting suggestions if anyone has some ideas.

jccaclimber

Can we get a picture of the derailer installed and the hanger just to be sure it’s nothing obvious?
What size front ring are you running?

himespau 

It's a 53T outer chainring with a Centaur Triple crankset and appropriate 115.5 BB, I've tried a Mirage Triple FD and a Record Triple FD. Both just lightly hit the teeth (maybe 2 mm or less height issue. I can push it past it. An Ultegra Triple FD clears the ring with the outer plate but it's designed for a 39T middle and hits the 42T middle ring.

No pictures at the moment, but I can get some.

Reynolds 

So you need to raise the FD 2-3mm. Could you file the braze on slot that much, is there enough material?

himespau 

I'll try to post a picture tonight when I get home and have the camera out so others can judge if there is enough room.

To keep things separate, I've started a new thread on the FD issues here.

I've ordered an angled shim to see if lifting the tail of the FD up would help, and am also considering (in order of cost/effort) slightly grinding the outer plate of the FD, switching from 52-42-30 chainrings to 50-40-28, and getting a couple of files and removing a touch of the braze on. In an ideal world, I'd just find an FD with a lower mounting point and not change anything, but I'm open to trying other things.

Right now, the bike will most immediately be used as a trainer bike and the difficulty is such that I really only use the big ring, so I'll either just leave the chain on the big ring with no FD, or manually position an FD on the big ring and lock it in place as a chainkeeper. I'd like to get to riding the bike outside as something more than a 1x though.

himespau 

From my thread on this issue.

jccaclimber

I’m throwing out guesses at this point, but what are the odds the crank is too close in toward the frame? I’d think you would have an interference issue with a chain stay then, but being out would raise the cage.

himespau 

The BB is 115.5, which is the spec'd BB spindle length for this crankset, but I was wondering that too. Enough that I'll probably take the cranks off tonight and remeasure to make sure, but it did say 115,5 right on it so I didn't bother measuring when I installed it. I did get that FD to work on a different bike with another italian threaded campagnolo bb that was 113. Can't say 100% that one isn't ISO and the other JIS which would change how far they go on the spindle, but they're both Italian-threaded Campagnolo BBs (the previous was Centaur, this is Record). I do have an old 115.5 Centaur BB that I could throw on if this one is off in addition to that 113. This isn't the same crankset as I'm planning to switch to waxed chains and this crankset was off the bike, so I could clean more of it (pictures show I didn't do a great job because I didn't pull the rings).

himespau 

Whelp, I got the calipers out and I'm measuring the spindle at 115.6. There's definitely a lot of room and I could easily move them in 2-3 mm on each side, probably more like 4-5 without any worry about contact with the stays. Good idea though. I suppose I could try an even longer spindle if I could find one, but I might be at the limit of the FD to reach at that point.

SkinGriz

Bicycles.

Why have one size as standard when 10 will do?

himespau 

Indeed. Also, classic, hand built bikes have craftsmanship that modern, robot assembled bikes lack. On the other hand, robots don't go out and have a few beers with lunch and then just weld FD braze ons and brake bridges wherever the F they please resulting in a wide range of which tires/components will fit within a model run.