What Have You Fettled Today?

[Cyclopathic]

I got the worst of some unsightly gouges out of an alloy seat stem with an abrasive sponge type thing and some wire wool. Couldn't get them all out (to do so would involve functionally reducing the diameter of the stem) but got most out and it looks a lot better.

 

[gavroche]

cleaned my mtb yesterday after 25 years ( 10 of those were just gathering dust in the garage). Still have orginal tyres and brake pads! I noticed that the chain needs changing though......one day.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

Fitted a new front derailleur after a nice drive to CRC.

 

[compo]

This will be a work in progress. Part 1. I completely stripped the project bike Raleigh I bought yesterday. I have removed everything off the frame and removed the forks. The headset is rusty so that is up for renewal as are the wheels. I spent time with a hot air gun removing all the frame decals and coloured flashes and the frame is now bare. I did a trial rub down on one of the frame tubes with a wet/dry foam pad and it comes up quite nice. There are some rust spots on the chain stays. I rubbed one down to shiny metal and it is all solid so some anti rust primer should do the trick. That's as far as I have gone today. I now have to decide what colour to paint it.

Finished rubbing down and the frame has had several coats of primer/undercoat. Now need to just give the primer a very gentle rub down, tack wipe it then start the top coats. I will do some photos soon.

Well Picasso I am not. I made a right pig's ear of spraying the top coat.
It is off to the powder coaters to be blasted and coated properly. What I should have done in the first place!

 

[HovR]

A while ago the Peugeot commuter developed a creaking/clicking coming from the bars/stem area. I solved it then by greasing the stem clamp bolt, and it was fine for a while. Slowly but surely it started creaking again, until it was getting too loud for me to ignore!

So today I loosened up the stem's bar clamp and put a large excess of copaslip on the metal to metal contact. That removed one of the creaking tones, but there was still a slight clicking, so I took apart the quill stem's expander bung mechanism and copaslip'd all metal on metal contacts as well as all threads on the stem.

Success! It's quiet again! And there's enough copaslip in there to prevent corrosion for decades.

 

[JoeyB]

Last night I ordered a 25mm tyre!!! I'm going to replace the 23mm front and see if it improves comfort on the bike. I also ordered a Carradice Carradura Maxi saddle bag as my current Bell saddle bag has seen better days (and came from Asda)

Just now I decided to flip my stem, looking forward to seeing if that makes any difference to comfort also. I have a bike fit booked for the 15th April...can't wait!

 

[IncoherentJeff]

Discovered the Emmelle Grampian has a bent rear axle. Ordered a new one from China, getting this bike back on the road for as cheap as possible.

So I went for a snowy 26 mile cycle on the Magna Extreme 500, to cheer me up, surprised the tyres held out the side walls look perished! Until they die I'll keep using them.

Nice change to do some budget cycling after seemingly spending a fortune on the road bike

 

[Cyclopathic]

No fettling as such but did tidy and rationalise the workshop.

 

[billy1561]

New spoke, cones tightened and wheel trued.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Had a terrible squeak on the bike since yesterday. Identified the culprit - was the GPS bike mount - so fixed that

Changed the front brake pads and mickled the chain in preparation for expected rain tomorrow.

 

[Psycolist]

A spare 1/2hour today might have saved me some serious injury. I'm a great believer in a little maintanance very often, and in todays quick look over the bike, found that both brake pad securing screws on my back brake were loose. One was so loose that I was able to move the pad without using any tools. A VERY LUCKY ESCAPE. But i've only got myself to blame, had them off at the weekend along with the pads on 2 other bikes, and cant have finished putting them back properly. A lesson learned. Check, double check, then check again in future.

 

[TheDoctor]

I assembled a flat pack made a table!!
I'd take a photo, but it's dark, and the table's out in the garden.
None-the-less, it's a table and I made it

Oh, and I tightened up the headset on my fixed.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

after doing some gardening

 

[derrick]

Fitted a Garmin out front mount to the handle bars, does that count.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Fitted 700 c's to my 1981 Schwinn Voyageur, 27" tires getting a bit few and far between. Took the bike out on a 3 mile test ride. 3 miles, because 1.5 miles into the ride, cold rain and lightning sent me back home. Pleasing bicycle to ride.