How to fix a buggered bike…

Well, it’s not that buggered, it’s just old really.

I’m talking about my old DiamondBack (DB). My intial plan was to strip it of parts then dump it, but while doing this, Mum had the idea of doing it up so it worked, and sending it to Cambridge for my older brother. His current bike is very old and slowly falling apart. If it were me, i’d have improvised and kept it working, but he’s going to be a vet, and is busy in Cambridge and isn’t overly fussed about bikes / cycling. But anyhow, I also thought this was a good idea, so agreed to the plan.

One major problem was the fact i’d stripped the handlebars already. The flappy paddle shifters/brakes, which are a single combo unit, I’d taken from the DB, and put them on my youngest brothers bike (looks quite good), wired it all up – which took ages, so long i wasn’t taking them off again to go back on the DB. So i needed a 7 speed shifter. My intial idea was to use the 6 speed twist-grips shifters, and just have 6 gears out of 7. However, this was but a minor problem compared to the deraullier. I hit it when having fun on (or should that be off) black ice, so it’s rather very buckled. I thought i’d give it a go at straightening it. But, i looked at it, bent it this way a bit, then up like that, oh, back a bit maybe. It just wasn’t working, and then the hanger snapped – so it wouldn’t work at all.

I decided I needed more parts than I had at the time. I looked at the possiblity of getting one of the old crappy rust buckets from the science park, they were ment to be used by the employees to ride up to the shops or whatever but weren’t. Dad could get one for free, and I could use if for parts, Deraullier, shifters maybe, cables, deraullier hanger. This plan failed when Dad asked he was told there were none left, but he could see them out the back. While talking to his colleuges, one mentined he had some old dodgy things down the bottom of his garden. Yet another plan was hatched.

So, a few days later I took delivery of two beat up rustbuckets. Both only had their front wheels, but everythings else was there, rusty and not very good looking, but there. So I tooke them apart; brake levers, cables, blocks, arms; gear shifters, cables and deraulliers; handlebars; chains; a few bolts; suspension forks, and a middle suspension spring / damper system; light brakest and reflectors. Soon I had a pile of parts and two frames. The chains were badly rusted, the wheel treads were weathered and cracked, a set of brake levers were simply awful, so I threw those away.

Good news; one of the bikes had a 7 speed system. Bad news; the deraullier had been in a crash or something, and the deraullier cage was really badly bent. Still, I now had a 7 speed shifter if nothing else. The other bikes 5 speed deraullier was still good, but too small for use on a  7 speed set. But, it had a nice cage. I stripped both deraulliers down, used the straighter cage from the 5 speed to renovate the 7 speed, chose all the shiniest bolts and bushes and reassembled the 7 speed deraullier, at a later date i straighted the bent cgae out in a vice and have reassembled the 5 speed, though it needs a new jockey wheel.

I used the brake levers off youngest bros for the DB already. So I now had brakes, a 7 speed shifter and matching deraullier, and no hanger. I tried to work my way round the missing hanger, but with the DB’s frame thats not possible. A trip to halfords and £15 later I had a new hanger. I bolted it in place, perfect, now for the deraullier. On it went, I split the chain, unthreaded it from the old deraullier and through the new one. Selected the least rusty cable, threaded that through the shifter, mounted the shifter an the bars, threaded the cable down all the casing to the deraullier and connected it.

Here we go, pedal. Bit of a noise, but nothing I can’t adjust out of. OK, we’re in 7th, down to 6th – deraullier didn’t move. 5th, still nothing. 4th, it jumped into 6th. 3rd had it in 5th, 2nd on the shifter was 3rd on the cogs and 1st was 2nd. Dam, not too good. Oh well, new deraullier (relativly) new cable and shifter, first time, no adjustment, crappy changes were to be expected. Half an hour later, however, it still wasn’t working. i’d adjusted everything and still it was crap. I took another look at the deraullier position, hello… that top jockey wheels at a peculiar angle. squinting at various angles I realised it wasn’t just the cage that was bent. I took the deraullier off again, and went at it with several tools. It’s a spindle / pivot thats bent. No way to get to it without specialist tools. Bugger.

I’ve a friend at church who is a bike nutter, and has been for years. He’s the old 60-ish year old who can do 20 odd miles and still be up for more. Anyway, the dreaullier was shown to him, and he said he might have somthing similar in his shed. So hopefully, i’ll have a better 7 speed deraullier before too long. If not, i’ll consider a smaller deraullier and just wire it up so it gets 6 out of 7. Also the hanger is an issue, the deraullier must have the correct arm for the hanger. So I may not find anything suitable.

If thats the case, it’s back to Plan A – parts and dump. But I hope that doesn’t happen, it’s a good bike, faithful and sturdy. It’ll enjoy a simple life in Cambridge I think. So I hope i can get the parts needed.

We’ll see, the future is unwritten, what comes next is unkown.

Untill the next post,

Uncle Austin Wozzer