Bicycle

Bottom Bracket Removal

Hands itchy again. This time ‘tiak’ BB. Similar to pedal, remember there’s the left and right hand thread for loosening and tightening. Tip: To loosen the right and left pedal, the wrench is turned towards the back of the bike

My ‘dinosaur’ square-taper cartridge bottom bracket

Linear Pull Brake – Dismantle/Adjust

‘Tiak’ dino ah pek brake. The spring inside quite dirty, lots of trapped sand. Flushed with diesel, brushed and wipe clean. Shoot GT85, lube & wiped away excess.

See below extracted Instruction from Tektro:

Cleaning gone Ultrasonic

So from just wiping down with a cloth, to soaking in diesel & violent shaking in a bottle …. what’s next? No more violence now … using ultra sound. I use this ultrasonic cleaner to clean my skate bearings too.

Read how it works at wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_cleaning.

UltraSonic Cleaner

Dismantle Freehub

Did this sometime back.

Freewheel or Freehub? See picture. Left is the traditional screw or thread-on Freewheel and the one on the right is the newer Freehub/Cassette configuration.

Picture from Sheldon Brown

Typical Freehub

Hand itchy, this time tiak Freehub. I think this is the one Sultan last time said noisy. Anyway, after tiak liao machiam a ‘black box’, nothing much to play with. Just remove the rubber seal/washer, flush with degreaser and relube.

I use a 11mm hex wrench to loosen the freehub holding bolt. Sizes may differs. eg typical Shimano hub is 10mm, others may be 12mm etc

Can see the steel balls after removing rubber seal.

Spin it in Diesel. Then shake it violently similar to cleaning chain :)

Spin & shake to remove as much trap degreaser as you can. (lazy to use dryer). Then inject lots of oil (I use Engine Oil) into the exposed bearings. Spin it and continue to inject oil until excess oil//trap degreaser flows from the underside.

Remember to grease both the pawls and holding bolt before assembly.

Custom Cassette

From Sheldon Brown:

Shimano wants you to use one of its standard combinations, and offers a wide-enough choice to suit the needs of most cyclists, but you don't have to if you don't want to!

Shimano cassettes that don't use spiders have most of the sprockets held together by 3 small bolts or rivets. These are not essential. Their function is convenience, in allowing the cassette to be installed slightly more easily. To make a custom cassette, you will often need to remove the screws or rivets. Just discard them: they are unnecessary in practice.

Some cassettes use screws with a 4 mm hex head. These can be removed with an adjustable wrench.

Some cassettes use screws with a 2 mm Allen head. These are frequently mistaken for rivets.

The easiest way to remove rivets is to grind off the heads where they protrude from the largest sprocket. I generally do this on a bench grinder.

……………………….

For example, Shimano doesn't make any true "corncob" (one-tooth-jump) cassettes for time-trialists or flatland riders. In 7 speed, the closest is the J (13/14/15/16/17/19/21).
If you remove the 21-tooth sprocket from a J, you can make it into a 13-19 corncob by buying an 18 to put between the 17 and the 19. Alternately, you could make it into a 12-18 by removing the 19 and the 21, and buying a 12 and an 18. …………
---------------------- read full article click here --------------------

Inspired by the above article, my hands itchy again. I dismantled my 9-Speed spare cassette and replaced a few sprockets on my current. If your hands also itchy, do note on compatibility issues. Make sure to read up the below mentioned articles first.

Sources : Compatibility / Customization