Revival Time
Things have slowed down quit a bit at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective, but they haven't come to a standstill. By no means! This is the time of the year that I try to get into those "projects" that will take up some time and will require a lot of focus. Things that are not wise to try to do when you might be getting interrupted on a fairly consistent basis.
One of those projects is a 1959 Schwinn Corvette 3 speed. We had this bike up in the stand back in the Fall but when I realized that the internals of the Austrian made 3 speed hub were frozen up, I had to take a different approach to the job.
The bike, overall, was in pretty decent condition considering its nearly 66 years of existence on the planet. Sure, it was scarred up, but it had all its original equipment parts still on it, which, for a boy's bicycle, is rare. Even the fenders were decent.
So, I wanted to try to save the originality of the bike and not swap out the wheel for a similar one. My first approach was to soak the internals in penetrant, which thankfully was easily enough done due to the design of the hub. The manufacturer pretty much copied a Sturmey Archer design right down to the metal oiling port cap. I simply opened it up and loaded the hub with penetrant and sat the wheel in a corner for a month and a half.
Recently I got back to this project and focused on the hub. I partially disassembled the axle which allowed access to the internal Sun and planetary gears. I was able to get those loosened up and then I was also able to get the hub to shift again. A little cleaning up, reassembly, and new oil and she's good to go now!
That means the Corvette project can proceed. Next hurdle: Tires (maybe) and a different saddle.
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| Image from a warmer time... |
The Wheel Saga Continues
That DT Swiss wheel I have worked on is still giving me fits. I replaced all the alloy nipples and test rode it this past week and....
tick.......tick......tick......
Gah! What the....!!!
Okay, so it could be a spoke loading and unloading in its straight pull socket. It could be something else. All I know is that this tick-ticking will not be tolerated. So.....
I'll try another wheel set just to make sure it actually is the DT/Roval wheels. And if it is, then....
I have a set of Velocity Blunt SS rims sitting there doing nothing. I would just need to buy some nice hubs and well, build a proper set of wheels. There are possibilities to rebuild that DT Swiss hubbed Roval rimmed wheel set too, and yeah.....I could go that way, but either way, a set of J-bend hubs and spokes would need to be purchased.
I think something like this needs to happen. Funny what an annoying noise will do to a bicycle mechanic. The thing is, at single-digit wind chills and with that cold possibly skewing my results I think this may have to wait until things warm up a bit. Then if that noise is what I think, there will need to be some hubs and spokes ordered.
2 comments:
Good work on the Corvette hub! Patience is a virtue when it comes to things like that. But your clicking hub sounds like a crappy situation. From the sounds of it, you might have an issue inside one of the bearings, or in how one of the bearings is seated. Ugh… That is a frustrating one.
@MG - Hey Brother! Yeah, you could be right about the bearing. It is a similar/same noise I heard last Summer. I'll confirm it isn't something else and then I'll move on from those hubs or the wheel set entirely.
It all depends on what I find for something new out there. Leaning toward White Industries at present. But there are so many good hub companies now.
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