What Have You Fettled Today?

[Elybazza61]

Yesterday re-adjusted and torqued the fork bung on the Helium.

 

[NeilM]

Removed and refitted the Zefal front mudguard on my KTM Revelator. I thought I had done a good job the first time, but the scrreeee ich ich ich, eee ick eeee ick, noises that accompanied me for the whole ride the other day clearly indicated I'd done a shoddy job.

Much fiddling with the stays later and I think I've got it sussed.

The next ride will tell all.

 

[mangid]

PDW full metal fender fractured on me on my morning ride, managed to limp home with some rope work:



Fitted a crud racer until replacements arrive. Looking to get some grommets for next fitting, hopefully they're last longer than 18K,/18months ;-)

 

[RoubaixCube]

Currently fettling some

The bottle was blocked by something but i gave it twist and its now fixed and flowing smoothly like water.

 

[Elybazza61]

Icarus was a bit of a state after yesterday's ride and it's only been given the odd wipe down for a few weeks; so it was off with the wheels and chain for a thorough clean.

Also hopefully fixed/bodged the Garmin HRM with some kitchen foil, will see how it is during the week.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Started moving the components from the donor Ribble winter bike to the new frame. It's never quite as straighforward as it should be is it? Almost within seconds of starting I realise that the seat post is too short - the Ribble is a horizontal frame, and the post is as short as it could be for my existing set up, and the new frame is very much more compact - so an order to Ribble for a sale price Ritchey seatpost (and a new bottom bracket, while I'm at it). Then, brakes off the Ribble, yes they fit fine, but the front caliper Pivot Bolt is too short for the new beefy carbon forks - another order sent off for a 30mm bolt! Oh, and new cables ordered earlier, just in case in need them. Hope thats it as far as new bits go, this wasn't supposed to cost much

 

[NeilM]

Spent part of this wet afternoon cutting a slice out of a VERY stuck seatpost on my early Dave LLoyd road bike.

I have been soaking the damn thing in all sorts of suggested release agents and penetrating oils for several weeks, all to no good, so as the post started to break up while I was twisting it in the vice (again) I just tore the damaged top section off and set to with a hacksaw blade to cut a series of vertical slots. I had one or two false starts but in the end I managed to gat a slice out and with that the remains of the seatpost came out.

The alloy corrosion was so stuck to the inside of the seat tube that I had to use a half round file to break it up and a flap stick on a battery drill to remove it and smooth the inside of the tube..... what a job!

All done now.

 

[Drago]

Waxoyled the Ford Fusion of elderliness. The stuff is still messy and stinks to high heaven, which is a sign the health and safety Nazis haven't messed with it yet.

Now I don't work I'm going to repurpose my Winter commuter as a general purpose all weather roadie, and strip crud guards off the summer bike and keep it as a dry weather road toy. Got some nice Blumells guards to replace the tires ones on the winter commuter, and loosely assembled them up with all the stays and brackets. Will fit them tomorrow.

 

[Jenkins]

Two bikes given the full deep clean treatment thanks to the state of the roads for the past couple of weeks. Another two had the basic wipe down and chain clean.

Also photographed the frame numbers and took an ID pic of all the bikes for reference.

 

[Arjimlad]

My SKS Chromos snapped on the way to work on Friday so a quick trip to Giant shop at Bradley Stoke saw me equipped with SKS Commuter guards. The front guard fitted neatly under the brake caliper too which was a bonus after all the footling about with the last set.

Drawback is the new guards are a little shorter than the old set on the back, but I have got a slightly longer mudflap I can install if required.

 

[Drago]

Fitted the new Blumells guards to the Pinnacle. Tricky, because it's a medium clearance frame and I'm running 28C's, so there ain't much space to play with. Two hours of cussing, swearing, and even offering to sell my soul to Trump, I finally got them fitted and very carefully bolted up to the tight clearances required without any rubbing. Phew!

 

[DCLane]

My 12yo changed the tyre on his commuter Formeula 700 after it got a split.

Then we set about setting up his Argon Krypton 18 race bike for this season. Or rather, hoping it'd still fit him . The alternative was to find ways to make him shorter:

• Wheels and frame checked,
• Newly fitted 3T ultra-lightweight seatpost raised. And raised again. Then lowered. And raised a bit more. There's about 5cm there which'll hopefully last him until October.
• New Dura Ace pedals fitted
• Discussion about whether he needed a longer stem. Which it turned out he doesn't (just). One's available when needed.

Overall we've got it down to 6.8kg for this season although there's still a lightweight chain to go on at some point once the 'wet' early season races are done.

 

[Salty seadog]

Currently fettling some

View attachment 335406

The bottle was blocked by something but i gave it twist and its now fixed and flowing smoothly like water.

A perfectly serviceable and oft overlooked whiskey.

Well done for unblocking it....

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I tried to remove the bolts holding my road bike's brake pads to the brake shoes, the first time I've had to do it since I bought the bike, and after I'd done roughly 9,000km on it. The bolts wouldn't budge with Allen keys, and I was in danger of stripping the hex holes in the bolt heads. Then I realised that the exposed ends of the bolts were stubby enough that I could grip them with the serrated part of a pair of pliers and turn them that way. As it turns out, that's a lot easier than using Allen keys, so I'll just use the pliers in future.

 

[ColinJ]

@Oldfentiger met me in Todmorden to give me his old Garmin eTrex Legend HCx. In its day (8-10 years ago) that was a top GPS. This one is generally in very good condition but Oldfen had left it in a drawer for years with batteries in. The batteries had leaked and corrosive battery chemicals had damaged the battery compartment. It seemed a shame to chuck out the GPS but not worth paying a shop to fix it, so Phil donated it to me to see if I can revive it. I am using an even older and less powerful eTrex so if I can get this one working it would be a significant upgrade for me.

So, here you go ...

Garmin eTrex Legend HCx fettling, part #1

This is the device I am talking about:
View attachment 154340

I thought that I might be able to get away with cleaning the battery contacts, or maybe wedging in some folded up pieces of cooking foil to make a better contact. That didn't work ... It wasn't long before one of the battery contacts fell off. The corrosion had obviously trashed it. I needed to dismantle the device ...

View attachment 154343

You can see the disintegrated battery contact.

In this picture you can see that the contact is no longer there ...

View attachment 154342

When I had a look inside the case I discovered that one of the internal power wiper contacts had gone. You can see two metal pads on the printed circuit board, There are supposed to be flexible metal wipers feeding power from the batteries to those pads. Wiper #1 and pad #1 are fine. Wiper #2 has vanished and pad #2 was corroded.

View attachment 154341

I have cleaned up pad #2 and will solder a wire onto that to connect to a new spring battery contact. I'll have a think about what to use for the replacement contact. I could use part of the old contact but I think I might improvise one using something else.

I'll report back when I have replaced the contact. If it works then I will need to get some double-sided adhesive tape to seal the sides of the GPS and attach its rubber surround.

Watch this space ...

PS Thanks for the GPS, Oldfen!

I might just use thin single-core cable, strip a length of it and wind that into a coil to form a contact. The batteries are a tight fit so the negative end of the battery should wedge that coil of wire against the end of the compartment ... That is an easy thing to try. If it works, fine. If not, I will have to come up with something more sophisticated

I used multicore cable because it is more flexible. I had 2 goes at it this evening. The first one failed - the wire pulled off the pad when I closed the case. I tried again and ...

Oooooh!

I'm not confident that the repair will last because it was very hard to get the wire to stay on the pad and there wasn't much room around it due to various surface-mounted components in its vicinity. Still - it's a promising sign!

I'll reassemble the GPS and see how I get on, but it would be sensible to carry my reliable older Garmin with me for backup.