My new winter bike

[phil tregear 2]

ammonia will dissolve the crap between a steel and aluminium interface. heat will make amess of the paintwork and expand the ali into the steel. so pour some ammonia down there , leave 24 hours, then use a big lever to rotate the post.

[Martin Moore]

pour some ammonia down there , leave 24 hours, then use a big lever to rotate the post.

Are you sure? a bit of googling shows ammonia to be corrosive to ali. I think

[NathanM26]

Are you sure? a bit of googling shows ammonia to be corrosive to ali. I think

Yea, I'm not going to risk bringing chemicals anywhere near a fresh paint job anyway. As mentioned the seat is at the perfect height so post will remain in situ for the time being. It will become an interesting topic of conversation when out on the road I imagine.

Final pictures to come, but last night I got the new tecktro levers fitted, the cable outers cleaned out, and the new inners (gear and brake) fitted. What a bugger it was trying to route the rear brake cable which is routed inside the top tube. No doubt there is a simple technique but I did not discover it last night.

This will definitely come in under budget. Current costs are:

26 - Bike
25 - Postage
40 - Paint / Sandpaper etc
10 - Tecktro Brake Levers
18 - Schwalbe Blizzard Sports
10 - 7sp Cassette and Spacer (to fit an 8sp hub)
06 - Bar Tape
05 - Set of new Gear and Brake Cables
Free - Seat
Free - Wheels
Free - Sram dual pivot brakes
Free - Pedals (Shimano R540)

I do also have a set of mudguards but this bike has no eyelets. I think if I order some rubber-lined P-Clips I can use those to attache to the forks / rear stays and then attach the mudguard guide rods to the P-Clip hole. There is also basically no clearance between the tyre and the back of the seat tube, so there's no way the mud guard will sit in there. I can easily trim a bit off it to fix this.

Total Cost = £140 and about 15 hours work, most of that spent prepping for paint.

There will be some additional cost re' sourcing some decals for the bike. It has lost its original decals and Raleigh emblem. I'd like to replace those at some point.

Hopefully the bar tape arrives at work today. A fine tune of gears / brakes and it can go on its proper 1st run. Ohh yes, and I'll take some time 1st to measure my other bike for sizing, and try to replacate that on this bike. Thanks for the link Bally.

N

[NathanM26]

Well it's all done (minus the mudguards because I don't have P-Clips yet)

Ordered green bar tape online, as it seemed to be a close colour match. Ha! Not even close. Ahh well, I'll get my money's worth and then swop it out for something nicer. Maybe in the summer I might change to brown tape and a brown saddle.

Can't wait to get out over the holidays and put some miles on her!

[NathanM26]

Well the bike got a couple of good runs this week and rides very well.

I have a couple of issues however:

1) every so often the nuts on the rear wheel axle loosen, even though they have been properly tightened. I think the solution to this as mentioned in another thread is to convert the rear wheel to a QR axle.

2) the headset also keeps loosening and I can't figure out why. It's a threaded headset which I'm sure some of you have used before. I have tightened it up (even to the point where the bars feel stiff to turn) but it still ends up getting loose (even over a short 23 mile run). Any ideas on this one?

N

[Martin Moore]

Your clearly aren't tightening the rear wheel nuts enough! Unless the cones are buggered and wearing and allowing the inside to loosen.

Tightening the h/s until stiff is just a bad idea - you've probably damaged it already. What you've probably missed is the lockring - a washer/spacer with a small tab that doesn't turn. This goes between the 2 top bits of the h/s. Another tip is to tighten these 2 together by holding the top steady and tighten the bottom one. This means it needs to be a bit stiff first. Sounds wrong, but it came from a very good source!

And buy a maintenance book....