Smackhead Express - Raleigh Routier

[wafter]

I have a Shimano tool but not the Suntour tool, last time I removed one Windrush Bike charity in Witney removed it for me for a small donation.

Thanks and no worries - I've just bought a Shimano-fit tool as this probably won't be the last time I'll need it.

Tbh I might cut off the crappy cassette as it's all scrap, or if that proves difficult just remove the accessible spokes for spares and scrap the rest.

Cheers for the thought anyway

 

[wafter]

Got back from the pub last night after a particularly unfulfilling day and set about the rim-donor before all the day's caffeine wore off.

Thanks to RJ the Bike Guy on youtube I'd learned how to strip the freewheel in situ; meaning I could remove the sprockets leaving just the smaller-diameter internal portion of the unit on the hub and allowing me access to remove the spokes.

This was particularly satisfying as it found a use for some particularly cheap, soft and nasty punches I'd considered chucking out at the weekend but ended up keeping

I'd oiled the nipples and they all came out fairly obligingly using a screwdriver from inside the rim channel. The rim cleaned up quite nicely with some soapy water, a scrubbing brush and scotch pad; the worst bits being some corrosion stains and burrs around the nipple holes in the rim channel (the latter of which I might clean up with a jeweller's file)...

I also have a box of bits; most of which will be going in the scrap..

I'm now waiting for the freewheel removal tool to arrive for the other wheel so that I can get that stripped and start to rebuild it with the new rim

 

[Gunk]

A good tip for swapping over rims is to use masking tape to tape the new rim to the existing wheel (line it up with the valve hole), easy way of swapping spokes over

 

[wafter]

A good tip for swapping over rims is to use masking tape to tape the new rim to the existing wheel (line it up with the valve hole), easy way of swapping spokes over

Thanks - I did consider doing similar, however I want to give everything a good clean before it goes back together so really want it all in pieces first.

Anyone want to offer odds on me ever ending up with a serviceable wheel after all this?

 

[Gunk]

Thanks - I did consider doing similar, however I want to give everything a good clean before it goes back together so really want it all in pieces first.

Anyone want to offer odds on me ever ending up with a serviceable wheel after all this?

I’ve built a couple up and it is super rewarding, you just need to take your time and have plenty of patience.

 

[wafter]

I’ve built a couple up and it is super rewarding, you just need to take your time and have plenty of patience.

Cheers - I can see how it could be really satisfying... equally it obviously has the capacity to be extremely frustrating if I make a b*llocks of it

Was going to start today but the day has been swallowed by the Fuji... maybe I'll have a crack later this evening or tomorrow. I really want it back together by Monday if possible in case I need to use it, while I'm much less of a prick at the Tuesday night pub visit if I've been thoroughly exercised for an hour beforehand..

 

[wafter]

I am now fully committed

Need to finish cleaning the the spokes, nipples and probably cassette tomorrow, then I can hopefully crack on with the wheel build

 

[Gunk]

A bit of fine wire wool and WD40 will get all that looking like new

 

[wafter]

A bit of fine wire wool and WD40 will get all that looking like new

Cheers - I gently used a scotch pad in the end on the spokes as they appear to be galvanised and I don't want to take off what remains; the rest was just washed in paraffin.

The entire day's efforts bring me to the point where I now have an approximately planar disc-shaped object on the back of the bike; that's more planar and disc-shaped than the one that came off..

Brain is too numb for a full post-mortem; suffice to say that it went OK - spokes fit fine, it's reasonably true and doesn't rub anywhere..
I did rediscover the old alignment problems with the frame; in that if getting the gaps either side of the wheel correct at the chainstays it's kicked over to one side at the seatstays

With the nuts slackened off the rear axle has an amount of play along the slot in the NDS dropout, however this really only affects the attitude of the wheel about the vertical axis while I think my problem is indicitive of rotation about the axis along the length of the bike.

Also I noticed that the new rims are evidently designed to be run with Schrader valves, so their holes are larger. Not the end of the world, however it's additionally irritating that the cheapo (but decent) Decathlon tubes fitted don't have threaded valves / the ability to fit nuts.

Anyway, other than the fact that the rear wheel now actually rotates the bike feels much as it did before. Except the back brakes are even worse; I suspect because it's still running fibre pads which will be replaced at some point.

I guess the big question now is whether I want to start work on the front wheel (which should be significantly quicker / easier) or do I wait to see how this rim holds up..? It would be nice to get some closure and two tatty knackered bike wheels out of the dining room..

 

[DCBassman]

Except the back brakes are even worse; I suspect because it's still running fibre pads; which will be replaced at some point.

If the old rim was steel, you need to change the blocks pronto. As I remember it, fibre pads will eat alloy rims in short order.

 

[Gunk]

Cheers - I gently used a scotch pad in the end on the spokes as they appear to be galvanised and I don't want to take off what remains; the rest was just washed in paraffin.

The entire day's efforts bring me to the point where I now have an approximately planar disc-shaped object on the back of the bike; that's more planar and disc-shaped than the one that came off..

View attachment 657943


Brain is too numb for a full post-mortem; suffice to say that it went OK - spokes fit fine, it's reasonably true and doesn't rub anywhere..
I did rediscover the old alignment problems with the frame; in that if getting the gaps either side of the wheel correct at the chainstays it's kicked over to one side at the seatstays

With the its nuts slackened off the rear axle has an amount of play along the slot in the NDS dropout, however this really only affects the attitude of the wheel about the vertical axis while I think my problem is indicitive of rotation about the axis along the length of the bike.

Also I noticed that the new rims are evidently designed to be run with Schrader valves, so their holes are larger. Not the end of the world, however it's additionally irritating that the cheapo (but decent) Decathlon tubes fitted don't have threaded valves / the ability to fit nuts.

Anyway, other than the fact that the rear wheel now actually rotates the bike feels much as it did before. Except the back brakes are even worse; I suspect because it's still running fibre pads which will be replaced at some point.

I guess the big question now is whether I want to start work on the front wheel (which should be significantly quicker / easier) or do I wait to see how this rim holds up..? It would be nice to get some closure and two tatty knackered bike wheels out of the dining room..

Well done, you’ve done a good job. It’s not easiest thing to do.

 

[wafter]

If the old rim was steel, you need to change the blocks pronto. As I remember it, fibre pads will eat alloy rims in short order.

Thanks - plan on ordering some pads shortly and the bike won't be getting much use for a few days anyway

Well done, you’ve done a good job. It’s not easiest thing to do.

Cheers!

I owe a sizeable debt of gratitude to the video below which helped me nail the spoke lacing order / pattern - had I tried to figure it out myself I'd probably still be at it..



It literally only covers the lacing pattern but a mate reminded me of differential spoke lengths the other night and the rest was pretty easy to figure out.


I've oiled the crusty nipples on the front donor wheel and will at least aim to get that stripped this weekend so I've got the bits to do the front one as and when.. Sooner would be better than later as the bike will be going back to Oxford on Monday, and accommodating as my colleagues are I don't think they'd be too keen on me spending an entire paid working day rebuilding a wheel


Finally it appears that schrader to presta hole adaptors are a thing, which has brightened my day more than it probably should

 

[wafter]

The donor front wheel has now been stripped and the rim thoroughly cleaned as per the rear.

The nipples on the rear wheel were tweaked today as the spoke tension seemed somewhat lacking and I took it out for an unsuccessful 3-4 mile egg run just to check it wasn't going to collapse beneath me when I actually needed it to work. Over this short distance the rim acquitted itself well; including on some mild gravel

I also had a brainwave earlier and have made myself some DIY valve hole grommets by running a groove around the OD of some appropriately sized O-rings:

They're not perfect and I have my reservations about their longevity, but they're worth a try; especially since most of the off-the-shelf offerings are apparently intended to fit double-walled rims - so likely to interfere with the tube in these single-walled items.

Half of me thinks that the tube will push them out of the hole - I guess time will tell!

I'm going to take the bike back to Oxford tomorrow then assuming the rear rim's survived will swap the front one over later in the week; by which time my more appropriate brake blocks should have arrived..

 

[wafter]

A bit of an incosequential update, as much as an aid memoir for my benefit as much as anything else.

The bike is generally performing well and feels both a little more spritely and comfortable for its new rear rim; although of course this could be entirely psychological. Today I did another work run on it and got stopped by a chap on another old Raleigh (a Record Sprint IIRC) who has the Mixte version of my Routier, and was very complementary

Something remains clearly amiss with the alignment of the rear wheel. The rim runs true on the hub and is pretty much central in the chainstays (mybe 0.5mm offset to the LHS, measuring to the rim), however is around 5mm offset to the RHS at the seatstays. I've measured (as best I can) the distance from the crank centre to of the rear axle on both sides and there seems to be about 1mm difference.

At the chainstays the rim is about 305mm in front of the centre of the wheel in the horizontal plane, while at the seatstays this distance is about 150mm.

I think in theory I could get the rim central at both the seatstay and chainstay through a combination of skewing the axle in the dropouts and altering the offset / dish on the rim. In practice I think this would require too much movement in the axle (which by crude measurement already appears to be fairly well aligned).

I'm wondering if the frame's wonky - either due to squiffy manufacture or damage.. need to find a way to measure it I guess!

*EDIT* It appears that the NDS end of the axle is maybe 1-2mm further behind the crank than that on the DS, as best as I can measure with my tape.

If I rotated the wheel about the (near) vertical by skewing the axle in the dropouts, increasing the offset at the seatstays by 5mm (for 10mm offset total) would increase the offset at the chainstays by around 10mm.. giving a comparable offset at each point. I could then correct this by altering the wheel on the dish to bring the rim 10mm across the axle towards the NDS to centralise it.

The problem with this is that to get the 5mm I potentially need at the seatstays would require around 4mm forward movement at the NDS side of the axle; which seems a lot. That said the dropouts are angled downwards slightly, so moving the axle forwards would also pull it down a little and bring the top of the rim down with it at the seatstays.

*EDIT 2* - I've just made an effort to measure the angle of the dropouts, and over 10mm horiontal they seem to drop by about 4mm, while the ratio of lengths between the 120mm axle and 300mm-ish radius of the wheel at the seatstays suggests that 1mm of vertical movement at the NDS end of the axle will move the rim at the seatstays horizontally by around 2.5mm.

So in summary I think I should be able to get away with moving the NDS end of the axle forward in the dropout by maybe 2-3mm, which in combination with the fall in the dropout should allow me to dish the rim more and get everything more central. The axle doesn't naturally want to sit in this location though, so I might have to tweak the DS dropout inward a bit too..

This whole process is complicated somewhat by the fact that the NDS of the axle is secured with a ridged washer which has bitten into the paint and makes small adjustments difficult.

Looks like my next day off work's going to be fun!

 

[wafter]

So... got home and played with the rear wheel with not a whole lot of progress.

I took the opportunity to check the frame alignment with the string method (around head tube and dropouts, measuring at seatpost tube on each side) and found a discrepency of around 5mm between both sides; suggesting an offset of around 4mm towards the NDS at the dropouts.

Looks like I need to find a big long sturdy piece of wood to brutalise the frame with somewhat before I attempt any more wheel alignment..