6 March 2011

Another Spring, another Speedy-Tuneup

This year I did it earlier than usual, because my yellow darling had a flat rear tire and taking the rear wheel out is so much work that I used the occasion to also replace the chain and clean the gear actuation on the hub with much affection.

I had learned from past experience that taking the chainglider off and back on will bring dirt on the chain, so I did everything with much care this time. I spent a lot of time on everything, but I think that's perfectly ok to do once per year. For this year, I want to protect Speedy better from rain. I didn't get a basement to rent in my building, but I have a nice bicycle cover for outside or could take him up in my room with the other two bicycles.

I had felt that the chain had suffered a lot in this year's rain. Standing outside day and night is much worse than occasionally riding through rain and having a dry place to sleep. I thought that the sprocket might also need to be replaced, since last time changing the chain, the new one wouldn't fit on the old sprocket. But in fact, I measured the chain and it was just worn out, not totally over worn-out and the sprocket looked just a little worn. In any case I was thinking of getting a larger sprocket to vary my gears a little bit, but because of the flat-emergency I didn't have time to purchase one. (Special-size sprockets are rare!) I guess I'll do the sprocket-varying next year.

I am quite satisfied how the clean-up went. I am only doing it once a year or even less often, and last year at Thomas' shop in Schaffhausen, I didn't pay attention to everything he was doing, but I still remembered the steps well (or at least figured them out). For the rear wheel, the brake cable and torque arm need to come off, then the chainglider (at least the rear part), then the shifting cable, then the wheel comes out, then I can take apart the gear actuation to clean it. When putting things back together I thought of using the tuning-marking to adjust the shifting cable really well. I also thought of giving some slack in the cable housing so it doesn't un-adjust when the rear wheel is moved a bit to tension the chain (as had happened just two weeks ago). I just thought about it after doing the adjusting, so I had to do it again.

Reminder for myself: when I cleaned the gear actuation I found that the dust cover of the hub had a little crack. I need to get a new one, so I can put it on next time I change the chain. Shimano part Y-34R 98110. I also need to find out which tool is needed to take off the sprocket since I never did this myself.

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