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| Coming along |
When I left this series I had encountered a problem or two, or five. As you can see above the bike is starting to look like, well a bike. It has a ways to go, however, I feel like I am in sight of the home stretch, but lets talk about how I got here.
Problem 1: BB spindle nuts. I had bought nuts that were too big, this was fairly easily solved when I went to a local bike shop, Recycled Cycles, and asked the guy at the service counter if they had the nuts and he pulled out a whole box and encouraged me to take 3 just in case. This was the easiest issue to resolve.
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| Now I have enough room to tighten it! |
Issue 2: Rear brake straddle cable too short. This was a bit of a pickle as I couldn't find a straddle cable with the round pieces on each end that were any longer than 110 mm. When I was at Bike Works I pawed through the bin of old brakes and came across some Mafac racers (I posted about them a while back
here) and it made me think that might be an option because of the adjustable straddle cable. Unfortunately due to the funky rear brake setup you need a brake with a long reach and the only Mafac Racers I have ever come across are standard reach and therefore too short. Dang!...but what if I could combine my current Weinmann center-pull that works reach- wise with an adjustable brake cable like the Mafac? hmmm. As it turned out I had once incorrectly bought some cantilever brake straddle cables that had the length I needed but had a funky grandfather clock looking end that wouldn't work with my center-pulls but what I if nipped that part off?
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| looking like a Mafac Racer solution |
Using the bolt from a straddle cable hanger, with the hole in it for cable to go through I could fashion a Racer like solution on one end of the center-pull brake arm. Like this;
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| Thats more like it |
Issue 3: Fork steerer length too long. Now all I needed to fix this issue was a hacksaw, a vise and a steady hand. I only had the hacksaw and decided this was a job for the local bike shop, they did a great job, made a nice clean cut and didn't mess up the threads as I feared I would. Well worth the $5 they charged me.
Issue 4: Wrong fork race. As I mentioned I should have ordered a headset with a 27.0 fork crown race but had ordered a 26.4 and so it didn't fit which meant I couldn't connect the fork. I was saved again by having ordered wrong before. When I was building up an
Azuki as a single speed -7 years ago-I ordered a new headset which I took to a local bike shop for them to install only to be told I had purchased the wrong size. They ordered a correct one and the one I ordered has been rattling around in my parts box for almost a decade, fortunately it had a 27.0 fork crown race-whew. With the correct race seated I was able to mount the fork and now I have a headset with a 26.4 fork crown race to rattle around in my parts box. As you can see from the picture at the top it all came together.
Issue 5: Front Derailleur is too big. In the same trip that got me the correct BB spindle nuts I was able to pick up a different front derailleur, a nice old Shimano. This time I was smart enough to bring a %$#@! caliper so I could measure it.
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| FD sorted |
So now its time to hang some parts, run some cables and get it dialed in. More to come soon. Until then -Ride.Smile.Repeat.
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