Monday, March 13, 2006

Finito!



After a long week at work, I wanted nothing more than to get back to work on the bike, where I couldn't get the shifters to perform properly. So, I rode off to Acme again for some assistance. I corraled Sarah on her way in and got some much-needed assistance. The derailleur cage was bent. The shifters were assembled backwards. Thanks be to Karma that they had another set just like them as a reference. And then Sarah discovered the rear hub needed a rebuild. So I got to learn about rebuild a hub, taking out all the bearings, degreasing the interior and wiping it down, degreasing the bearings and wiping them all down, putting in a new batch of clean grease and putting it all back together. We reinstalled the rear derailleur and got it all going.

I rode it home to tape the bars and complete the Azuki project and found I couldn't shift into the big ring so I started tinkering with the front derailleur and broke the screw that holds down the cable. So this time, I loaded into the truck and took it back to Acme where Mis Chief found another front derailleur for $5 that works just fine. She showed me how to set it with the high and low limit screws.

Now it has really nice Serfas tires. I cut down the bars and removed the suicide levers. The seat came from a Raleigh Mountain Mike I bought from Craigslist and I'll take to the Low Countries this summer. But that's another project.

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