All done! Wrenchette in training has completed her first bike.
In case you've been ignoring me, I have had a project. For quite sometime
now I've wanted to rework The Tank, my steel Giant HT with a pos RST fork,
center pull brakes, quill stem, comfort seat and other timeless wonders.
I've been setting aside parts, including some AMB donations.
So picture this. I'm out in the shop with my nice Salsa apron and Park
workstand, a box of bike tools leftover from Mr. Adventures
build-a-full-campy-roadbike-while-in-college days, and a copy of Zinn. Also
picture that I don't know wtf I am doing. So I read everything two or three
times, stand there for about 20 minutes, and then tentatively tackle the
task at hand for that evening. I just about had an anxiety attack cutting
all the old cables off. I gently dismantled everything; I did not have to
bring in manpower to undo anything, I am happy to say! Whew, that was
intense but you have to start somewhere.
One of the goals of this project was to spend as little money as possible,
as this rework has now turned into "trail worthy bike for college kid" for
my son to take to Flagstaff with him. The Tank has always been a hair too
big, so it should be just right for him.
So here's what I did. The only part I did NOT do was put a new threadless
headset on. I replaced the pos-rst fork with an old Judy that was laying
around the shop that came of Mr. Adventure's bike. We now have some nice
xt-v-brakes, courtesy AMB. We went from a 7 speed cassette and shifters to 8
speed cassette and shifters, brake & shifter levers also courtesy AMB. I
replaced the old quill stem, again with hand-me-downs from Dad's bike, with
a nice shiny Ritchie stem. A mtb saddle was installed to replace the old
comfort saddle. I got rid of the bear trap pedals and put some flats on.
Put a new chain on. The bottom bracket was toast, and I found a replacement
for $9, installed that and torqued it properly. Last but not least, new
cables and housings, and adjusted everything. Oh, got rid of the bar ends
and installed new grips, too.
The only thing I asked for help on was removing the old bottom bracket, it
took me a while to figure the whole cartridge thing out.
I did have a little trouble with the brake adjustments. When I switched out
rear wheels, from one that was so screwed up it would not true to one that
was basically OK, that helped a lot but they were still really mushy. The
front brakes were very mushy but beyond me at that point.
I bought my mechanic friend a mocha, and he went through it, just to check
my work. The brake pads required a little master mechanic tweaking as did
some little tiny spring doo-hickey, but he said my drive train was " just
about dead on". VBG.
The only parts I had to buy were headset, flat pedals, new chain & 8 speed
cassette, bottom bracket, cables & housing. Everything else was either
laying around or donated.
Penny