Allez Refurb: Front Wheel

On Tuesday I hunkered down to tackle the front hub, not wanting to stall out on yet another refurb at the wheels.

And in no time I had the axle out, the covers off and all the guts for the hub in my Park Tool magnetic bowl, the 10 bearings per side where all there and looked good enough to reuse.

Its important to have all your tools laid out and at the ready, especially ...

The patience enhancer, in this case a Ninkasi brewing Tricerhops double IPA.  And it was a bit warm out so a cold beer was nice to have.

On Wednesday after cleaning the races and bearings I had the hub back together with fresh grease, for the front hub I don't worry much about mixing up the bearings if I am reusing them but for the rear since the two sides have different stresses I would be careful about tracking which side went where, if you are replacing the bearings with new then you don't have to worry about that.

Before 

After soapy water

Tonight I wanted to clean the rims, which like the components were anodized aluminum.   I first tried soapy water and didn't see a significant difference.

On the black marks Mothers did a great job but on actual scrapes it didn't have much effect.  I think I prefer chrome.

I also put the wheel in my truing stand to confirm what I already suspected, it was very true, always good to verify.

I noticed some sticker residue that I wanted to try and remove before moving on to rubber.

I bought this product, Goof off, to deal with some sticky spots on the Trek 420 frame and figured this would be a good place to test it.

As the Brits would say, it worked a treat, no more sticky residue.

As I was cleaning I noticed the hubs, like the rest of the components except the 105 FD, are Shimano RX100.  I kind of like a bike with the all the components from the same group, it doesn't really matter but it gives a nice symmetry.

And for my final trick, mounting the new rubber.  I had decided the 700 x 32s were too big for the bike but the odd braking sounds may have been the missing nut on a brake pivot bolt, nonetheless I had bought new tires and I was going to use them.  The 700 x 28c are Panaracer but the Tour model which is about $16 a pair cheaper than Paselas.  And I figured that by the early 90s black walled tires were a thing so it wasn't going to look odd on the bike.

I am a bit anal but I like to make sure I have the directional markings figured out first so I can mount the tire so it turns in the right direction

And then I like to mount the tire, one side over the rim first, so that the label lines up with the valve stem hole, also the inflation info is usually near the label so its convenient when pumping up the tire.

I put the valve stem in, then attach the threaded nut, and I've added a couple small pumps of air to the tube to give just a bit of body so I can stuff it into the tire casing.  Then, being careful to avoid the tube getting pinched I start the other bead over the rim starting from the valve stem and working my way around, I tend to use tire irons for the last bit.  I run my hands around the join of the tire and rim to make sure there are no anomalies and then inflate to about 40 PSI and check again and then inflate fully which for me is about 80 to 85 PSI.

Front wheel done.  I am hoping and get the rear wheel and a bit more done this weekend.  I didn't get the Allez finished in July but I would take the first weekend in August.  Fingers crossed.