Retro Grouch 

I've had a Klein hard tail mountain bike frame, actually belonging to my son, in my basement shop for a couple of years. I decided that I could build it into a gravel grinder bike to use on the Katy Trail and the like. Neither my son nor myself need such a bike but I figured that I could piece it together from accumulated spares and such for little or nothing.

HAH!

Bit-by-bit I keep having to buy all new parts. I had the big stuff, frame, wheels, cassette, shifters and derailleurs so I thought I was good. Every time that I go to work on it, I find something new. I'm missing one of the through the down tube cable stops so I decided to make it a 1 X 9 and skip the front derailleur, then I discovered I didn't have headset spacers, then I didn't have a star nut. The last set back was I discovered my BB was too short for the crank. I haven't even gotten through the mocking up stage yet.

Sounds like fun - right?

Road Fan

Sounds too familiar! My Terraferma took me through crankset test-fits of about 15 crankset installations to find the best fit!

bobbyl1966

.No have frustation in the end you go build nice bike i have read online klein bikes is good. I have my self simmilar problems example. i have buy road bike from pawn shop i was getting flat i used new innertubes same problem replace rim tape i take in two diffrent bike shops is give me the rim tape. But the problem not fixed. One bike mechanic is have seen the rim tape is moved is put back correc.t i buy new innertube and the mechanic ask me if i wanted install the innertube. I think the bike mechanic is was nice want install the innertube but finally is charge me. If i knew that i have do that my self home. the mechanic is not was sure if the rim tape go stayed and put the half pressure on the wheel. When i get flat again i see the mechanic is was not sure for the job is do. Finally i buy my self the correct rim strip and the problem fixed. General i have five bikes projects but no money and parts i need do all that projects.

h2oxtc

There's another positive to the frustration of which you speak, of which I am also familiar with. The plus is that you now have more spare parts for the next build, and on it goes. Constantly justifying the next bike project. My last started with, "I have to find a bike for this spare set of wheels".

downtube42

Just be glad it wasn't a mid 70's French frame.

David Bierbaum

Heh. One step forward, two steps back, then a hop to the side and spin till you're dizzy. It sounds almost as frustrating as doing one's own plumbing, where installing a drain trap turns into digging into the wall to take out a rotten water pipe, as fixing one section breaks the next section in line...

qcpmsame 

I'm really glad I am not the only one this happens to.

Bill

Retro Grouch 

That is funny. That's exactly how I started this project. I had a pretty nice set of mountain bike wheels and no frame to hang them on - so I stole my son's frame. (It serves him right for leaving his stuff at my house.)

I still have a pretty nice set of road bike wheels staring me in the face every time that I go down to my shop. Now I not only have to steal a road frame but I also have to find a crankset that will match one of my bottom brackets. My life is so hard!

CliffordK

I just rode my regular road bike (25mm or less tires) on the Katy Trail.

It was generally fine, except after freshly melted snow.

BlazingPedals

Your BB was too short for a single-ring crank????

PS - I've discovered the same phenomenon. I saved all those 'good' parts only to find that they're not quite good enough to re-use for a project bike.

Zinger

I've shimmed up a BB on two flats of the axle to set a crank out further once. Worked OK.

Retro Grouch 

That was my first thought too. I used to have some 2 mm spacers in my small parts but all I could find yesterday was a 5 mm one. If I spacered the BB out 5 mm I was afraid that the left crank arm would hit the chain stay.

Retro Grouch 

I hear what you are saying. I used to regularly ride the Katy on 23's. It's not about the bike, it's about my compulsion to tinker with the damn things.

Retro Grouch 

113 mm Bottom bracket, Dotek crank. Chainline would probably be off with 135 mm dropouts anyway but I never got that far with the mock up.

Retro Grouch 

Gonna be a real cool bike when it's done. I didn't plan it this way but it's turning out to be an anti-Shimano bike. The only Shimano part is the bottom bracket. If I had thought before I ordered it, that would be something else too. Anybody want to buy it? I'd let it go for what I have in it. You'll probably be able to do cheaper at Bike's Direct but it won't have nearly the panache of a Retro Grouch bike.

Zinger

What I did was shim the slanted axle flats on two sides to make it effectively bigger. I just used machine shop shim stock that I had in my toolbox but you could use spark plug spacer matl or something like that I guess. I can't remember what size but .005" sounds like it might be a good starting point to see how it might fit before tightening the crank.

CliffordK

I have troubles with cranksets on my Litespeed build (currently triple, but double would be the same).

The problem I ran into was the MTB chainstays are very wide.

My Dura Ace crank arms hit the chainstays.

I've mounted some MTB crank arms which were wide enough, but my large ring (54T) comes extremely close to the chainstay. I should probably drop down to a 53, but I certainly can't go with anything bigger.

Oddly, the Suntour derailleur that came with the frame barely is able to reach the large ring with the outer stop completely loose.

Retro Grouch 

I figured out what you were saying. Don't have either. I even thought about trying aluminum foil, which I do have on hand, but decided it would be more trouble than it's worth.

Zinger

I wouldn't do the foil if I tried it. You could get machine shop shim material at a machine tool supply house either locally or from Traverse or MSC or the like.

Travers Tool Co. - Find Metalworking Tools, Machine Tools & More

https://www.mscdirect.com/

2manybikes

It could be worse.

My brother in law has the same exact problem with his house, his cars. his camper, his boat and .....everything............ nothing is ever finished. My bike builds eventually do get finished. I hate half done projects.

FBinNY 

To be fair, headset spacers and star nuts or expanders are par for the course and pretty universal. You can't blame not having them on anything buy low inventory.

The missing cable stop was obvious from the getgo so here again shouldn't have been a cause for frustration.

But I'm 100% with you on the BB issue. I cam to the sport and business in the mid sixties when it seemed nothing was standardized. Over the ensuing decades people worked hard to create standards making it easier to replace parts at will without problems. But that all stopped and in the last 20 years or so we went crazy ignoring any concern about interchangeability. It started with tube diameters and seatposts, then index shifting, then bottom brackets, then ever changing nos. of speeds and axle widths, then types of axles and QT systems, and continues with frames and parts unique to each other and not interchangeable with anything.

I'm not opposed to progress, but the current trends have made stocking replacement parts impossible for most dealers and distributors, and parts to repair or modify bikes only a few years old can be impossible to get.

As the trend continues bikes will evolve from being modular to use until something breaks, then discard and replace. Or consumers will need to estimate the life of their new bike, and the life of some of it's components and buy replacements to set aside for future use almost immediately.

So, yes, it can be very frustrating to work on anything but the newest bikes, though it shouldn't be.

Retro Grouch 

The hits just keep on coming.

The mounting bolt system for my Sram derailleur isn't all there. It must be a common problem because replacement small parts are readily available. Another week waiting for parts.

And I haven't even started playing with the Magura hydraulic rim brakes. How hard could that be?

BluesDawg

Frustration? Sounds like fun to me. This is how I learned to be a bike mechanic.

Retro Grouch 

BluesDawg, you have a point..