Luigi de Guzman said:OK, cycling comrades.
I'm back from Chicago, and my little brother and I have been working
on the Follis.
We finally got the tires and tubes, and got them mounted without much
drama. Got the chain on it, and Mom was reasonably impressed--"looks
like a new bike!"
Rode it around the block a few times; the chain keeps derailing.
There is no front derailleur, remember--I'm waiting on that.
if the chain keeps derailing, should I eliminate a few links from the
chain and increase tension that way?
Is that a new chain? Or did you clean and lube the old one?
In any case, I think there's something wrong that does not involve the
absence of a front derailleur. AFAIK, my front derailleur does nothing
much to keep the chain on a front sprocket. It doesn't, for example,
rub against the chain unless it's literally derailing it. And five
speed bikes, when they were common (early '70s) had no front derailleur,
yet did not drop their chains.
You might check how often, and under what conditions, it drops. It
could be a bent chainring tooth, or perhaps the entire chainring is
bent. (Be sure they're running straight and true.) It could be a stiff
link in the chain. (When you install a chain, you must loosen up the
link you fastened with the chain tool.) It could, I suppose, be
derailleur pivots in need of lube and/or cleaning. (Mostly, I'm
thinking of the pivot for the jockey pulley cage.)
Chain length should be enough to handle the "big-big" sprocket
combination, with not much excess.
Quoted message said:
Also, the plastic spoke protector seems to be rubbing against the
chain, or freewheel, or both.
Hmmm. You need to look more closely at that to see exactly what's
happening. You may need to remove it. If the derailleur is adjusted
absolutely correctly, it serves no purpose. But if you're not confident
about the derailleur, you may need to replace that protector.
Unfortunately, replacing it requires removing the freewheel...
Quoted message said:And it seems that the freewheel turns
with the pedal both forwards *and* backwards.
.... which may mean you've got to remove the freewheel anyway! If your
freewheel isn't freewheeling, that's _got_ to be fixed. (And perhaps
that's connected with throwing the chain?)
First thing to try is this: Take out the rear wheel. Clean all the
grunge off the outside of the freewheel, especially the right side of
it. Lay the wheen down on lots of newspaper, freewheel side up. Look
for the tiny space between the freewheel's stationary part and its
rotating part. Spray WD-40 into that crack, then spin the freewheel
backwards. Repeat many times.
You're trying to flush a few decades of dried crud out of the freewheel.
Once the WD-40 runs clean, you've probably done that. You should feel
the freewheel spin nice and smooth, not gritty.
Let it drip dry, then run just a little motor oil in there. Wipe off
excess liquid (keeping it well off the braking surfaces) and reinstall
the wheel.
If the freewheel doesn't free up, it needs replaced. Visit your bike
shop with the wheel. They should have the rather uncommon tool used to
remove the old freewheel.
Quoted message said:But my brother likes the bike.
Well, he should! It sounds like a cool bike!
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Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]
