Ok thanks. I'll have a look for threaded headset servicing. Though you mention both threaded and threadless?
You have a quill stem, with a threaded fork. The nut at the top of the fork should be loosened to allow you to move the handlebars etc.
Take out the handlebars, there'll be a wedge in the head tube take it out, put the bolt back through the stem, and rethread the wedge back on. It doesn't need to come off completely when you move handlebars etc.
Here, have a look at these
Thanks @cletus for the info. I got the hanldebars off with the loosening of the nut at the top of the fork, with a fair bit of elbow grease. The wedge came out when I turned it upside down. All good now, reassembled.
I know it’s all sorted now but just to be picky the nut at the top of the fork is for securing the fork, not the handlebar or stem. You shouldn’t have to touch this nut at all. Usually what may be required is a sharp tap on the Allen bolt with a piece of wood after you have loosened it. This will dislodge the wedge nut.
Your most likely right hesker, it's a long time since I had to do anything with a quill stem, bit fuzzy. Wedge was already dropped into the head tube.
He did want to service the headset too, I think.
Thanks lads. Maybe the nut i loosened wasn't relevant - it could be that having loosened it i gave it more elbow grease to pull the handlebars up and out. I tapped it a few times but it was good and stuck to be fair, it fought coming out all the way!
I did indeed want to service the headset.
Glad you're sorted. Bookmark the Park tools YouTube channel, and make it your go to resource for bike maintenance
Thanks @cletus I was aware of the site, I just didn't know which stem/fork type i had so I wasn't sure what I was working with/what video to watch.
By chance would anyone kindly know where to have a Bosch PowerPack 500Wh Battery repaired?
It only had light use and never got wet but failed after 2 yrs.
Thanks
is there such a thing as a good tube and a bad one? Have a wheel looses air over time. Checked under water, guess high pressure when in tyre maybe looses it through the valve.
All tubes lose air over time (about 4-6 months to go down to about 20% of original pressure), but if a wheel is going soft quick than the other, check the valve core is tight (if it's removable), or change the tube. Cheaper brands sometimes leak quicker than fancier stuff, but it's not a rule.
What do people do to prevent damage to electronics when stored in damp sheds?
I keep my bike with electronic gears and smart trainer in my garden shed, which is relatively weatherproof but still a bit damp. There would sometimes be condensation build-up on metal in the shed after particularly heavy rain. I’m worried about the electronics.
Keep the bike in the house instead of the shed….or buy a new shed.
i would hope the bike can cope with a bit of damp!
not so sure about the trainer though.
Out of curiosity I did a bit of digging with Claude. Assuming for the moment it's Shimano, they don't actually publish IP ratings for Di2 at all, and some bits are reckoned more susceptible than others. The comms bridge which is usually hidden away in the bars in particular. Where this might matter is if condensation formed on the inside (more a potential issue on a metal bike I'd reckon). In practical terms, the suggestion is to make sure the bike doesn't get put away wet, and make sure there's airflow through the shed.
If you're anywhere near the coast though, all bets are off - humid salt air will chew through anything in short order (speaking from experience).
how 'worn' is a new chain?
because i was off the bike for several months, and sporadic other stuff getting in the way, i lost track of which cassette had how many chains on it etc.; and my chain wear checker only shows 0.75% and 1% wear, it doesn't have a 0.5% wear option.
anyway, on my 'good' bike the chain was showing not quite 0.75% wear; the checker was starting to drop into the gap but it definitely had not reached 0.75%.
so i bought a new chain, and hung it and the old one from the same spot from the shed ceiling(both on the same 3.5mm drill bit, FWIW) - and over about a 1400mm length, the old chain was somewhere between 2.5mm and 3mm longer. that's equivalent to about 0.2% extra wear over a brand new chain. but i assume a brand new chain would show 'wear' anyway.
FWIW, i'm going to clean it and put it back on the bike for now.
I would have thought the opposite, even if your checker had a 0.5% wear option, it shouldn't show on a brand new chain.
a google showed that a new chain would show 0.25% 'wear' upwards straight out of the box - i think due to tolerances in the pins and collars (or whatever they're called) allowing them to actually move?
one of the park tool chain wear tools seems to suggest a new chain can be between 0.25% and 0.5%:
Fascinating, for two reasons. One I am wrong for what should have been obvious reasons to me, but more so because there was a fad of the super nothing better to do group of amateur racers to get twitchy at 0.5% wear not that long ago.
On a unrelated note, it goes the other way, I witnessed a race at the weekend where multiple riders dropped back to the Comms about a rider with a chain so worn it slipped everytime he got out of the saddle, and one rider (a poster here) wondered could he pop in and grab a chain during the race to give to him.
I also hold my hand up, where in a race, I think the Frank O Rourke, where I started the race and my chain dropped during roll out, the Comm car actually paced me back it was so early, and I immediately slipped again because my chainring and chain were so worn.
Practice what you preach was the lesson I learned that day.
i must take the new chain out again and actually measure it, making sure i have it under enough tension. see if it is exactly an inch between links.
if the chain, at the length i need it, is approx 140cm, that'd imply about 1cm of stretch at 0.75% wear, and i was only about a quarter of the way to that on the older one.
i did see a reference when looking it up last night that if the chain shows more than 0.5% wear straight out of the box, it's probably a cheap chain.
Bike related …
Zipper on my summer Boards.ie jersey corroided , has that green coppery colour now, won’t budge any solutions ??
@devonp Anything mildly acidic. Vinegar, lemon juice etc. Scrub with a toothbrush, clean thoroughly, and give a blast of graphite spray or similar.
FWIW i picked up a tub of 'elbow grease' citric acid in mr price recently - i saw a video on youtube about mixing it with dish soap to create a rust remover. might be worth a try?
though with the caveat that obviously it's a different metal here.
this was the video - i'm sure there are shorter ones with the same information content:
i haven't tried to diagnose it yet - but downhill from howth summit yesterday (past the cemetery), i realised my bike wasn't shifting down to the two smallest cogs on the cassette. just feels as if the shifter thinks it's bottomed out already - shifting up and down between cog #3 to #11 works perfectly. when you try to shift from cog #3 to #2, as mentioned, it behaves exactly as if you'd expect it to if you try to shift past #1. so i'm not sure yet if it's a cable snagging or something preventing the shifter itself from doing so.
(first time i'd tried to shift to those cogs in nearly a year, or first time i've noticed the problem anyway! ultegra 6800).
Probably not the issue you are having, but I had the opposite a while ago, the chain was shifting down past the smallest cog and came off the cog. I realised that my through-axel had been left loose after a service and the wheel was loose so the alignment was wrong. So maybe check your wheel just in case?
Definitely the shifter - I undid the cable and shifting down from top, it stops shifting two from the end. it's turned into a 9 speed shifter.
i've flushed it with some spary lube, leaving it to sit and penetrate for a bit and will try again.
turns out the cable is frayed in the shifter which is hardly surprising.
but from what i can see, the shifter needs to be shifted down fully to expose the cable stop in the little 'window' in the side of the shifter - and it's not getting to that point. off to raid my wife's collection of jewellery making tools for tiny pliers.
Make sure you get all the strands out. I had an issue a few years ago after replacing cables where shifting was off - bit similar to what you're describing. Drove me demented for a few weeks indexing the gears to sort out one end only to have the other go off. Took it to the LBS and drove him demented for a couple of days until he found the culprit - a single strand of about 5mm that had got stuck in the wrong place
A known issue with that range from Shimano, takes years to happen but it goes in the shifter, and is a pain.
