Well after rummaging around in my garage I came out with a frame and back wheel. Sweeping back a few more cobwebs revealed the front wheel hidden behind an old bucket. Taking the bike parts all out into the sunlight revealed the following:
1. front inner tube had deteriorated and needed replacing
2. front tyre was split and needed replacing
3. front derailler wasnt aligned correctly
4. rear gear lever was hanging off frame
5. most mechanicals had rusted
[all in all not as bad as I had feared]
Time to get the old elbow grease out and get busy. First thing we did was give all the parts a good clean and the frame a proper wash followed by oiling the mechanicals. Fortunately we had already bought a spare inner tube just in case and I had a spare tyre so we next repaired the front wheel.
Once we had the front wheel back on the frame and the bike in a basic riding condition we moved on to repairing and reattaching the rear gear lever. We took a screw from a spare set of light brackets to replace the broken screw that had held the gear lever in place. It was a bit long for the frame so I had to cut it down to size. (I knew my grandads old tool shed and tools would come in handy eventually).
Lastly we spent some time aligning both derailleurs to allow smooth gear changes. This took a while as the arm spring on the front derailleur was either pulling the derailleur too far or if the cable was slackened off a bit to combat this the derailler couldnt move far enough. I think we must have scratched our heads for about an hour playing with that front derailleur. Eventually I spotted a small dial on the actual gear lever which as it turns out is for fine tuning how much the spring moves the derailleur. One twist of that dial and the problem was sorted.
So, after an afternoon getting burnt in lovely sun we had a functional bike...now we just had to get Steve riding it.
No comments:
Post a Comment