adjustable pin spanners

[tommydog]

I have been looking at adjustable pin spanners, and the current park tool offering looks like this:

But years ago I used to have a pin spanner that looks like this:

I much prefer this design as you can lock the desired width with a screw. Does anyone know if you can still get such a design?

[peetee]

Not sure but I have some cheap and cheerful circlip pliers that have stiff jaws that stay put and work just fine. HTH

[kwackers]

Drill the rivet out and replace it with a bolt and wing nut?

[gaz]

A quick google of "adjustable pin spanner": https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/hand-tools/ ... gJ-N_D_BwE

[Brucey]

in use, there is virtually zero force trying to open or close the tool. Thus there is precious little advantage to having a locking adjustment.

I had a similar scissor action tool and I had to grind the jaws to a new shape to make them fit some parts.

cheers

[thirdcrank]

I presume that the benefit - if there is one - of a tool that can be set to retain the distance between the pins is for somebody repeatedly doing the same job where the seconds saved in constantly getting it right would add up. While gaz was finding something exactly like the OP picture, I found this from VAR, which looks to be more designed to retain the required distance between the pins than to allow fine adjustment.

https://www.vartools.com/en/adjustable- ... r-p888.php

[Suffolker]

I have been looking at adjustable pin spanners, and the current park tool offering looks like this:

bottom bracket tool.jpg

But years ago I used to have a pin spanner that looks like this:

bb old.jpg


I much prefer this design as you can lock the desired width with a screw. Does anyone know if you can still get such a design?

I've got one of those but with red handles. The make is "Leda", it came from Freewheel, and the price when I bought it in 1985 was £4.90. I haven't seen anything like it for a long while. Leda don't seem to be around any longer, but they made (or distributed) a lot of cycle tools; ring spanners, extractors, freewheel removers for Shimano, Atom, Campag and Normandy, third-hands, etc. etc.
Facom make an adjustable pin spanner, but it's more like the Park Tool one with a screw adjuster towards the hinge end. It's also very expensive.

[thirdcrank]

... I've got one of those but with red handles. The make is "Leda", it came from Freewheel, ...

(<- That should be a very big red face.)

Suffolker's post reminded me that I have one too. I've learned not to raise hopes by saying I have something and then not being able to find it so I have been and dug mine out. I cannot imagine why I bought it because IIRC, the only thing I have which it might be used for is a Stronglight BB for which I have the official Stronglight peg spanner.

Anyway, I'd describe it as chocolate teapot grade as far as tools go. I fancy that Leda is wordplay on leader rather than anything to do with mythical swans. It was what jogged my memory.

More to the point, if you want it, it's yours as a gift from me. Just PM your address. If you don't want it, it will go in the bin rather than back in my garage where it has lain unused for at least a couple of decades.

[gaz]

I cannot imagine why I bought it ...

I used to have a set of Park Tool SPA6 and I couldn't remember what I'd bought them for, so I sold them.

About a month later when some maintenance was required I discovered what I'd bought them for .

[tommydog]

More to the point, if you want it, it's yours as a gift from me.

That's for your offer - PM sent!

[Suffolker]

I bought the Leda pin spanner for the express purpose of installing a Red S (another disappeared brand, Japanese, I think) sealed bb into the Cheltenham Pedersen that Chris Margenout built for me.
The last time I needed a pin spanner was to unscrew the plastic top cap on a track pump. The Leda wouldn't close up enough, so I bought the basic Park SPA-2 (a u-shaped piece of plastic coated round spring steel with turn down pin ends) which is "sort of" adjustable, and seems adequate for most of my occasional pin-spannering needs.

[thirdcrank]

In the words of car tax dodgers everywhere "It's in the post."

[elPedro666]

...the basic Park SPA-2 (a u-shaped piece of plastic coated round spring steel with turn down pin ends) which is "sort of" adjustable, and seems adequate for most of my occasional pin-spannering needs.

I have the same one and must confess - slightly shamefacedly - that I've used it to install/remove multiple Hope and Royce BBs. I do now have a proper 6-pin tool which bolts in place, machined and anodised by the excellent Chris at the sadly short-lived Intrincycle. It is a thing of beauty but the basic Park got the job done, just!

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.