Golden spanner award.

[jack]

I removed the chain guard, gear wire attatchment, chain and back wheel, and couldn't see anything obviously wrong. I put them all back again, and found that the wheel was tilted into the frame, and I couldn't take the nuts off again because my ersatz spanner from the bike repair kit had finally worn away at the corner. Taking the time to walk to B&Q and back, with an adjustable wrench, I redid that. It superficially worked -- the wheel span, the pedals turned the wheel. Then I tried to tighten it up.

To put the wheel not touching anything it has to be screwed tight with the axel half way up the slot in the frame. I thought I had it, then it slipped when I tested any weight on it. There are innumerable nuts and washers on the axel, together with the wheel and the sprocket[1], and when I looked it didn't feel right. But it seems possible I can get it fixed myself. However, I won't be cycling tonight.

The other thought is that my munged bike is in the shed with a twisted frame, but has a presumably servicable back wheel with non-hub gears and trimmings; I don't know if it's conceivable at some point to transplant this, ending up with a monster in the shed with ever more broken parts.

[1] I still can't believe that's a word.

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't try cross-breeding a three-speed and a derailleur bike. They are two different species. Even if you can get them to fancy each other, any offspring is likely to be so badly mutated that it succumbs to an early death.

Sorry. :-(

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Why is it so implausible?

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Because the whole construction is different. As someone else (apologies for forgetting who it was) explained, the gears work in a completely different way, and the other moving parts of the bike are set up to allow for that. Well, not your front wheel - that's independent, obviously. But if you replaced the back wheel of your ailing three-speed with one from a derailleur bike, you'd also end up replacing the pedal mechanism, probably the brakes (because three-speed bike wheels are almost always thicker than on derailleur bikes, as those hefty hubs look odd on a thin wheel), and heaven knows what else. It's a long while since I did any serious cycle maintenance, for obvious reasons, but I still remember enough to know that that is a job I wouldn't have even thought about tackling... and I used to strip down the bike and overhaul it pretty regularly.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, fair enough. I do also have the old brakes... :) No, point taken.

My opinion

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

That's not how wheels are supposed to go on. Your slots are wonky. If this was a second hand bike, it's had a bodge done on it before sale; if it was a new bike, the frame is faulty.

Re: My opinion

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Or the mud guard was attatched wrong? If it's pushed to the back, that's what it hits, I think.

Re: My opinion

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh right, I sort of assumed that when you said it hit things, you meant permanent and immovable things. Yes, in that case your mudguard is on wrong. Do not compromise the £50 wheel to make the £5 mudguard work more easily.

Re: My opinion

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Indeed. My thinking was, that that was obviously how the wheel had been on before -- as I'd have noticed if it was in the same place as the mudguard, as the superposition of charged elementary particles would have created a vast explosion -- and I assumed that must have been how it was supposed to be.

*thinks* I can't remember if the mud guard was easily movable, will see if that can be done. Nor am I sure if the breaks would need to be moved.

Re: My opinion

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

*thinks quite hard*
Brakes will probably need to be moved, but to somewhere they can still reach. I had a back wheel that had almost that problem, except that the spindle in the middle was the wrong size (duuuhhhh) and when I put it back on after fixing that, the brakes needed a bit of a fiddle.

Re: My opinion

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Also: no wonder it didn't bloody work.

Re: My opinion

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, it *used* to work. Gah.

Thanks for the advice, I'll let you all know what happens.

Re: My opinion

[ewx.livejournal.com]

IME mudguards usually fail by being too easily movable. I had to apply a drill to mine after some rivets failed a while back. (And then someone knocked the bike over with sufficient force to tear the mudguard, rendering my repair moot.)