Cycling UK Forum

Hi Brucey,

Thanks again for your help because your advice is invaluable as I'm pretty clueless at the moment but I'm doing my best to start on learning how to maintain my bike myself.

I don't have any vernier calipers or a stash of bolts to use as a reference point but I'll go back to my father-in-law to see if he has any of these things.

I'm going to start by taking the broken axle to my LBS to see if they have a direct replacement.

If they can't sell me anything to replace the broken axle then I've looked at the SJS link that you've sent and I saw this one from Wheels Manufacturing:-

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/wheels-manufacturing-10-x-1-quick-release-hollow-axle-146-mm-length-prod21233/

and they also have this:-

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/wheels-manufacturing-cromoly-rear-axle-hollow-quick-release-95mm-3-8-inch-x-26-146-mm-length-prod12977/

But I guess that without the vernier calipers it's going to be almost impossible to measure my existing broken axle accurately enough to know for certain what size axle I need as a replacement.

In that case I might be best going for the Shimano axle that I found on the post earlier, copy link below, beause being a Shimano part hopefully might give me the best odds of getting a replacement which works.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/shimano-rear-universal-qr-146mm-axle/

If I get really stuck on this then it'll be back to the plan of buying a replacement wheel including a cassette hub but I'm keen to avoid that cost if I can.

Cheers,

John

Hi Brucey,

Thanks for the message and I'm sorry for asking a stupid question but I'm just trying to make sure I buy the right axle this time and re: your message saying I need to "identify the threading on the axle" is this just a case of counting the number of threads and looking at where they are?

I did try a quick internet search for Wheels International axles but on a really quick search I didn't find anything but I'll try again later. However I did find this Shimano axle for £8.99

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/shimano-rear-universal-qr-146mm-axle/

Or there was this one made by Weldtite for £7.07

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/weldtite/hollow-quick-release-axle-ec023001#features

One thing I'm starting to think is that if I have to be extremely specific by matching the axle thread pattern to the one that I had before it might be better if I take the broken axle to a LBS and ask if they can get something that matches.

When you say I should buy a good quality CrMo axle what sort of price range should I be looking at? I am trying to keep the costs of this repair down if it's possible because I am saving towards a new bike but I do want to make sure that the axle that I buy is of sufficient quality to be safe and last at least through the next winter/spring until I've been able to save enough for a new bike.

Thanks again!

John

Hi Brucey,

Many thanks for the advice in respect of hub sizes and it makes sense that the axle would be wider than the hub.

Therefore I'll look to buy a 145mm QR axle to replace the one which snapped but did measure 145mm.

I've followed the original link for the previous 135mm QR axle kindly posted by gregoryoftours and following that it linked to what I think are a couple of options as follows:-

Option 1 £3.99
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hollow-QR-Quick-Release-Rear-Wheel-Hub-Spindle-10mm-145mm-MTB-Bicycle-Bike-Axle/231520845645?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20141212152715%26meid%3Deacfaced075e4084a8cd756b0045c2f6%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D28%26sd%3D281601026140

Option 2 £10.45
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cyclo-Rear-QR-Quick-Release-Axle-Hollow-M10-x-145mm-Bike-Bicycle-Wheel-Axel-/281635866386?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4192ce4712


I have absolutely no idea whether or not spending more money buys a better axle but do people think that either of the axles above would do the job of replacing my snapped 145mm QR axle?

Also if anybody had a tip of a different axle that I should buy instead I'm open to ideas because apart from the 135mm axle that I bought the other week I've not bought an axle before so didn't have much knowledge/experience of a good one to go for.

Thanks in advance to anybody for their advice.

Cheers,

John

Hi again,

I'm sorry to ask yet another question but I'll be grateful of some more advice if possible.

Firstly there's been a gap since my last post because due to my kids having been ill getting the time to work on the bike has been painfully slow.

Anyway I cleaned up all of the parts this weekend and I've identified a stupid mistake on my part which was not to measure the original axle in the first place before ordering a new one. Still you live and learn and it's noir a hugely costly mistake and I'm learning all of the time so I'll know for next time.

Having cleaned everything up I noticed that the new axle looked to my eye a bit narrower than the old one that snapped in two. Admittedly when measuring the one that has broken in two I might not be getting a completely spot on measurement but I think that when I put the two pieces together the old axle measured 145mm whereas the replacement that I bought is 135mm.

I just wondered if 145mm is also a standard measurement because I wanted to check with people if this sounds about right or if I need to go back and try to measure it more accurately?

If a 145mm axle does sound normal then I just wondered if anybody can recommend a hollow quick release 145mm axle that'll hopefully work on my bike?

I'm not sure if it's needed or if it helps but I've posted a couple of photos of the axle below.

Also lastly when I get a new axle to use should I reuse the old spacers (I hope that's the right word/term) or any new ones that come with a new axle?

Thanks again for all of the help & advice!

John

Last photos.

Thanks again in advance for any tips/advice.

John

More photos.

More photos of things before cleaning.

Hi All,

I'm sorry to be a pain but with this being the first time that I've done this can I ask another question.

Tonight I've started by taking everything apart before I embark on cleaning everything. At this stage I've just got a question about the bit where the ball bearings are. I'm hoping that I use the right terminology but I've not certain so is the cup & cone?

Anyway on there was a sort of ring covering the bit (cup?) where the ball bearings are held. On the drive side this cover seemed to me to be quite misshapen and I'm wondering if I can reuse it again? If not does anybody have any tips as to what part I actually need and where I can get one (or a pair if I need one for both sides) from?

At this stage just before I've cleaned everything I've posted a few photos of how things look right now. I'm cringing in advance because it doesn't look great and I'll hold my head in shame because to my knowledge the hub has never been serviced. As mention earlier the bike is circa 2006 and it was bought new by a friend who used it for all year around commuting in all weathers and never cleaned it plus kept it outside. I bought it secondhand from him and I've used it as a daily commuter including all through the winter in all weathers so it's fair to say that the hub is pretty dirty.

I can post photos of the parts as soon as I've had the time to clean them if that's more helpful in terms of looking at the cone cover?

Thanks,

John

Hi again,

It's amazing the difference that having the right tools for the job makes.

I took the wheel to my father-in-laws and he had a vice. Having secured it in the vice I was able to get the freewheel off with relative ease having been unable to budge it at all when just using a long spanner.

Now onto the next stage of servicing the hub.

Thanks all for the advice & help.

John

Hi fastpeddler, Natural Ankling & gregoryoftours,

Thanks for the advice and unfortunately I don't have a vice but I think that mu father-in-law might have have one so I'm going to pop over to see him today and fingers crossed he's got one that I can use.

Also thanks for the tip that I should do this with the tyre on. I should have thought about this before because yesterday I had the tyre off when I was trying to get the freewheel off and whilst I was trying various places to try & get a grip plus a bit more leverage I wasn't really concentrating on protecting the rim and stupidly I have ended up scratching the outside of the rim a bit but I'm hoping that I've not done too much damage. Logically it would have made much more sense to keep the tyre on but whilst caught up in the moment of trying to summon as much brut strength as I could (which wasn't nearly enough) I didn't quite think it all through and ended up with scratching the rim.

Anyway hopefully I'll be able to use a vice at my father-in-laws and have a bit more luck this time.

Thanks,

John

Hi All,

Following the above I've decided to try and do the maintenance myself. I'm hoping that the rim will last a little bit longer and if I have a go at the work from the YouTube video I'll hopefully learn a new skill that I can use again in the future.

I've watched the video recommended by milkonesugar and I've started to try and do the job but I'm struggling to get the freewheel off. Therefore I just wondered if anybody has any tips to help get the freewheel off?

I've bought all of the items kindly recommended by gregoryoftours and so I now have the freewheel remover tool. I'm also using an adjustable spanner that has a pretty long handle for leverage. However I've not got the luxury of a big bit of pipe to add to the spanner like the guy has in the YouTube video.

Any tips/ideas will be gratefully received.

Thanks,

John

Hi again,

Following my previous message the second set of photos is attached.

Cheers,

John

Hi recordacefromnew & Brucey,

Thanks for the info in respect of rim wear.

I've taken a closer look tonight and actually I found that on the braking surface of the rim there was a faint line running around the wall of the rim. In respect of spoke holes I did give it a visual inspection and I couldn't see any cracking.

Back to the rim wear indicator line on the braking surface though and although it was faint it was just there and in places if I ran my fingernail across the rim you could just feel a slight indent where the line was. However in other places the rim wear line was very faint / almost not there.

I've tried to take some photos which I hope attach ok but I think that there's a 5 photo per message max so I might have to spread it over two messages. I appreciate that diagnosing rim wear by photos which are not great (because it was hard to focus on the rim) isn't the best way of trying to assess the wear on the rim but I thought that I'd post them just incase they're of any use / interest.

Thanks again for all of the continued help & advice!

John

Hi recordacefromnew, gregoryoftours, milkonesugar and Brucey,

Thanks for the extra posts above as they're all really helpful.

Further to the last message from Brucey I'm really glad that you've mentioned the cassette / freewheel element because it needed to be said to me again because I wasn’t getting it. My apologies because being a completed novice to trying my hand at maintenance and trying to get used to all of the components and terms used I’ve now realised that I had completely the wrong end of the stick with respect to this but I was being very dim and it's taken a while for this point to sink in.

Before I started this thread when I’d had the problem and I started looking at how to tackle problems with the hub I think that just by chance all of the images that I was looking at featured a freehub and cassette. Therefore I wrongly assumed that they were all like this and having not taken the parts off my bike I stupidly didn’t realise that there were different types. Following Brucey mentioning this I’ve now had a D’Oh / eureka moment and I now get what you’ve all been telling me all along. I’m sorry for being slow on the uptake!

Following the messages yesterday I then looked at the Sheldon Brown website, link below, and now that I’ve seen the parts plus can relate it back to the YouTube video link that was posted previously I now understand what I have.

http://sheldonbrown.com/free-k7.html

Now that I’m starting to get a better understanding of what I’m working with I now need to decide what to do next.

Thanks to all for all of the links to tools and parts above! I was tempted to order them all straight away. However I’ve thought first of all that I should try to take a closer look inspecting the rim for signs of wear. I did quickly look at the rim to see if there was any sort of wear indicator on the Matrix 750 rims but I couldn’t see anything and so either there wasn’t a wear indicator or potentially more worrying the wear indicator was worn off a long time ago, if for example it was a line around the rim. I don’t have any tools to assess the rim wear but I’m going to read up when I can and do the best that I can to check it. If the rim seems fine then I’ll go ahead and order all of the parts above and give it a go myself.

Thanks to gregoryoftours for mentioning that there is a bike kitchen that I could go to and that sounds like a great idea and a good way to learn. Unfortunately I’m a long way away out in the sticks in Norfolk however thanks for the offer! If the rim does look ok then I think that I’m happy to give this a go based on watching the previous YouTube video.

If the rim is worn out then I’m tempted to be a bit extravagant and use this as an excuse to treat myself to something that I’ve been wanting for a while. I know that the idea of dynamo lights are a bit like marmite and lots of people have perfectly good arguments both for and against. However given the winter commuting that I do I’d like to try dynamo lights just so as I don’t have the constant task of charging batteries & lights.

Now only because I know that dynamo lights seem to be more popular / readily available in Germany than over here I started my search on the Rose Bikes website and they had this:-

http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/article/shimano-dh-3n31deore-fh-t610-with-xtreme-sari-t-19-r-28700-c-atb-wheel-set/aid:716124

If the link doesn’t work it’s the following for £112 plus postage.

Consists of front and rear wheel:
Rims: Xtreme Sari T-19 R, 36 holes
Hubs:
FW: Shimano DH-3N31 hub dynamo, 36 holes
RW: Shimano Deore FH-T610 black, 36 holes, compatible with 7-/8-/9-/10-speed Shimano HG
Hub width: FW: 100 mm/ RW: 135 mm
Spokes: DT Champion 2 mm
Nipples: DT Pro lock
Tyres: Vittoria Randonneur Reflex, 700 x 35 C (these would be helpful because my current tyres are worn out and need replacing)
Including: quick-releases, inner tubes and rim tapes

If I do go down this route in addition to the obvious dynamo lights I’m guessing that this might unfortunately be a slippery slope of spending money because presumably I’d also need extra parts/components such as the following?

* Axle (the website doesn’t say if you need to buy an axle separately but I was kind of hoping that the hubs would come with the axle’s included;
* Shimano cassette to go on the freehub. The existing bike has the mixture of Shimano & Bontrager (plus some unbranded) parts/components and is 7 speed so I’d buy a 7 speed cassette that would hopefully would work with the current shifters. Given my previous confusion between knowing what a freewheel versus a freehub & cassette I’m hoping that I’m not now looking at the wrong thing again;
* a new chain.

Now I’d be much happier going with the far cheaper option of getting the repairs done if I can but if that’s not an option due to a worn out rim I’ll consider the above if I can scrape together enough money. However now that I’ve listed the above not to mention any additional parts/components that I’ve missed off the list due to not knowing they’d also need to be replaced, I realise that this is a bit of a financial slippery slope because the cost seems to be mounting up.

If the rim/wheel replacement is necessary I’d also search around to see if there’s a better way of getting all of the parts from either another website or my LBS but I just started with the Rose website as a starting point to get some idea of what the cost might be.

Thanks again,

John

Hi milkonesugar,

Thanks for your message as it's really helpful. That video is really good and has shown me exactly what I need to do. Also thanks for pointing out perhaps what should have been obvious to me that the axle is broken.

However I will now have to get a freewheel removal / extractor tool. I'm sorry to ask more questions but how do I know which freewheel removal tool to buy?

Can I buy anything labeled as a Shimano freewheel removal tool such as this?

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/shimano-tlfw30-multiple-freewheel-remover-prod870/

I'm a bit confused because there seem to be lots of free hub removal tools such as the ones on the following page (if the search page works on the link below).

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/page/find/?n ... ver&page=1

Also I appreciate that this is a slightly different question but whilst my rear wheel is in a state of disassembly should I also be able to use the cassette removal tool to get the cogs off the freewheel because whilst I'm doing all of this I thought that I'd give these a good clean because it'll be easier to clean them thoroughly now as opposed to when everything is connected to the bike?

Lastly when I'm thinking about the individual parts that I'm going to have to buy such as a new axle, maybe bearings and other parts it's now started me thinking about other parts on the bike (which we now think is from 2006). Before I bought it from a friend he used it for all year around all weather commuting when it was stored outside, it was never cleaned and none of the components were replaced.

Since I've had it a cycle mechanic replaced the cassette & chain plus I've replaced cables and brake pads but everything else on the bike is original and has been serviced. Therefore the hubs have never been serviced and items such as the rims have never been replaced. It had quite a hard life before I got the bike and now I do roughly 4,000 to 5,000 miles a year in all weathers on my commute.

I'm saving up to replace the bike, because it's not the ideal fit for me because my friend who had the bike before me was a fair bit taller than me. However I've not saved enough yet but I'm wondering if at this stage given that I want the bike to last at least another year and go through another winter should I invest some of the money that I've saved into new parts right now? I wondered if it might make sense, partly for safety sake, to buy a new wheel which comes with hubs and also buy a new cassette and chain? Or would this idea be throwing away money that I'm saving towards a new bike when I could repair what I have with a new axle plus cleaning regreasing what I already have?

Thanks again for any thoughts and advice because I'd be lost without this help!

John