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On 3/10/2020 at 4:11 PM, rockshins said:

Thinking I will just go ahead replace all the bearings. Looking at bearing presses and pullers to get the job done at home.  

Have any of you successfully replaced bearings without having to run to the shop? Any suggestions on a decent bearing press/puller for a home mechanic that doesn't break the bank? Should I just pay a professional?

After 6700 miles, the 5010 was way overdue for a bearing change. So this was the scene this weekend during the rain:

 tools.thumb.JPG.40a9b71bd7fc6a39294d08996ed5fbbb.JPG

 

Since these tools get used twice a year at most, I fairly went cheap with pretty much everything. I ebay'd my press kit. The lead screw was a little thinner than expected, but it all worked flawlessly and I recommend it. You can configure it any number of ways to press in our out bearings under various scenarios. 

 

1615517066_options2.JPG.0f575055bda45be2a689c2af3fe659b2.JPG     options.JPG.2b3460dbb3931f2c3ec6b0fc82d6562c.JPG

 

I Amazon'd the slide hammer. It was a blast to use, and works great for the medium size and larger bearings. But for some reason I couldn't get the smaller bearings to pull out with the hammer. I eventually broke the smallest collet trying to get it tight enough to pull out. But the press was configurable enough that I was able to press out those small bearings without issue. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Barry said:

After 6700 miles, the 5010 was way overdue for a bearing change. So this was the scene this weekend during the rain:

 tools.thumb.JPG.40a9b71bd7fc6a39294d08996ed5fbbb.JPG

 

Since these tools get used twice a year at most, I fairly went cheap with pretty much everything. I ebay'd my press kit. The lead screw was a little thinner than expected, but it all worked flawlessly and I recommend it. You can configure it any number of ways to press in our out bearings under various scenarios. 

 

1615517066_options2.JPG.0f575055bda45be2a689c2af3fe659b2.JPG     options.JPG.2b3460dbb3931f2c3ec6b0fc82d6562c.JPG

 

I Amazon'd the slide hammer. It was a blast to use, and works great for the medium size and larger bearings. But for some reason I couldn't get the smaller bearings to pull out with the hammer. I eventually broke the smallest collet trying to get it tight enough to pull out. But the press was configurable enough that I was able to press out those small bearings without issue. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That press Kit is a score! In ordinary circumstances I would have already Impulse bought it.

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Anyone ever get a piston stuck I side a brake caliper?

Edit: solved! I could not hold the mobile piston in place by hand firmly to put enough force through the system to pop the other one loose. I placed my thin, flat wrench in the caliper and got creative with hex keys to wedge it there so it could not move at all, then squeezed the lever. That finally plopped it loose from its stuck position. 

20200325_181002.jpg

PSA: it helps to clean your pistons once in a while. check the video below.

Edited by mack_turtle
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4 hours ago, olddbrider said:

I've never heard of anyone cleaning and lubing their brake caliper pistons.  Is this something people do?

I do every time I change pads. I push one piston out, clean it up, and lube it with Phil's.  Then I do that 3 more times. 

 

I'm sure my neighbors wonder wtf I can be doing to spend all that time in the garage at a bike stand. But then, so does my wife.

Edited by Barry
to fix quote attribution that was somehow wrong.
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4 minutes ago, Barry said:

and lube it with Phil's

After looking at the video above and seeing the internal operation of the caliper (which I was never completely clear on), it seems I should be using mineral oil instead of Phil's on the pistons. Next time!

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46 minutes ago, Cafeend said:

what kind of normal maintenance do you regularly perform?

I'm actually a lot better than I used to be...I was notorious for letting bikes fall apart. There's a photo somewhere on the forum where @Seths Pool gave me shit about a rotor I let get paper thin...after I gave him the rotors (for non bike purposes, one assumes)! But that was a really old rotor, and that disregard has changed significantly over the last 12 or so years. 

 

 I take care of my bikes and my wife's bikes so she only has to worry about riding. Each MTB ride at a minimum sees a drivetrain wipe down and re-lube, and a quick frame inspection, (since I've broken so many) and a spoke check.

 

For less regular things, I try to keep on top of chain changes, but I'm changing them out about as regular as as I change tires, which keeps my rear cassette from wearing prematurely. I go through tires at a rate of  about 6-8 weeks/1000-1200 miles per pair, so I'm changing those out about every other month. Usually the tires go faster if I'm riding GB or GW more often. They last longer if I happen to be riding WC too much. I also use a tire change as a trigger to push grease into my lower linkage Zerk fitting. Like I said above, I clean up pistons when I change brake pads--so 2-3 times a year. And I seem to be either breaking or just plain wearing out rear derailers at a rate of about 3-4 a year. The wife and I both currently use 11 speed E13 cassettes on XD hubs, and those are noisy bastards if you don't keep on top of them. So about every 4-6 weeks I have to pull the cassettes off and thoroughly grease them. And I change housing and cables maybe twice a year.

 

For even less regular things I work on them when a need presents. I'm not going to do even a regular PM on most things unless they present as an issue of some sort. My bearing change over the weekend was because I had play in the suspension. And the bearing change didn't fully fix it, but I did find a worn axle. SC put in an order to send me a new one (free of charge and shipping!) when their warehouse guys go back to work.  

 

Where the old me creeps back up is forks and shocks. I don't enjoy that work and I don't look forward to it, so sometimes these things really get away from me.  Like currently my right fork stanchion is leaking a bit, and has been for a few weeks. I know eventually it'll stop leaking, so maybe I'm just waiting for that! No, I have the rebuild kit, I just have to do it. But for the shock, I'll probably send that off for rebuild. But first I'll try to score a low cost backup shock to use during the rebuild. 

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On 3/26/2020 at 2:27 PM, Barry said:

But for the shock, I'll probably send that off for rebuild. But first I'll try to score a low cost backup shock to use during the rebuild. 

Back in my bike shop days, my mechanic could do a seal change on FOX shocks in about 15 minutes.  They were shockingly easy.  Now, I don't know about the modern examples, but depending on level of maintenance needed, its possible you could do it easily yourself.

Later,
CJB

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3 minutes ago, CBaron said:

They were shockingly easy.

It has a fairly good instruction set on the website too. But it looked like it needed a lot of specialty tools. I've rebuild shocks before, I just don't like it. This particular shock has another issue as well, the rebound damping dial appears to be decorative. Luckily, it is pretty much exactly the damping I need, but fully up and fully down seem to have no effect.  Fox has a 2 year warranty, so I really need to send it back to them before next February. 

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1 hour ago, CBaron said:

Back in my bike shop days, my mechanic could do a seal change on FOX shocks in about 15 minutes.  They were shockingly easy.  Now, I don't know about the modern examples, but depending on level of maintenance needed, its possible you could do it easily yourself.

Later,
CJB

That's just for the air chamber though.  If the damper needs service, then you need the specialty tools.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Strava has a quite good means of tracking component life. I knew Strava had this ability, but I can't believe I waited this long to really start using it. So I went back and plugged most of my consumable parts into their install date.

Pretty good stuff, but it would work really great with a couple of changes from Strava. 

1. Sometimes components are removed and then later reinstalled. it would be great if you could "pause" a component, or simply "unretire" it. It seems once you retire it, it's done. 

2. There isn't a dummy field. I want to track my bearing life, but bearings are not an option, nor is there a "make your own" option. So I added a Stem component, but it's really bearings. 

3. Alarm settings would be helpful. My chain gets to 800 miles? Send me a notification. 

 

And related to # 3, Strava could actually monetize this with some relationships with Amazon or Jenson. And hell, the whole reason I don't pay for premium, is that I don't find any of the premium functionality useful. If there was an advanced functionality here, this is something I'd pay for.  

 

 

image.png

Edited by Barry
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30 minutes ago, Barry said:

Strava has a quite good means of tracking component life. I knew Strava had this ability, but I can't believe I waited this long to really start using it. So I went back and plugged most of my consumable parts into their install date.

Pretty good stuff, but it would work really great with a couple of changes from Strava. 

1. Sometimes components are removed and then later reinstalled. it would be great if you could "pause" a component, or simply "unretire" it. It seems once you retire it, it's done. 

2. There isn't a dummy field. I want to track my bearing life, but bearings are not an option, nor is their a "make your own" option. So I added a Stem component, but it's really bearings. 

3. Alarm settings woudl be helpful. My chain gets to 800 miles? Send me a notification. 

 

And related to # 3, Strava could actually monetize this with some relationships with Amazon or Jenson. And hell, the whole reason I don't pay for premium, is that I don't find any of the premium functionality useful. If there was an advanced functionality here, this is something I'd pay for.  

 

 

image.png

Is this on the paid version? This feature is something I asked TrainingPeaks to incorporate but they didn't want to.  As it is right now I just make a comment about putting in a new chain (driveline is all I'm interested in) and I go back and search.  The traininpeaks search is way more powerful than Strava's.

@CBaron maybe can work with Strava on monetizing this maybe?

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On 3/24/2020 at 5:44 PM, AntonioGG said:

I have a similar cheap slide hammer from harbor freight.  The bearings come out in pieces but they come out.  I've also used it to pull a frozen seatpost out.

Actually, right now I have it 😄

I need to get this back to you in order to make your post more accurate.

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5 minutes ago, Teamsloan said:

Actually, right now I have it 😄

I need to get this back to you in order to make your post more accurate.

I should do like the first technician I worked with on my first summer internship:  put a post-it with the name of the person that borrowed the tool.  I should do this with books too.   I've lost way too many books loaning them out b/c I can't remember who that was too.

On the slide hammer, no rush.  It just goes to show how often I used it.

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1 hour ago, AntonioGG said:

I should do like the first technician I worked with on my first summer internship:  put a post-it with the name of the person that borrowed the tool.  I should do this with books too.   I've lost way too many books loaning them out b/c I can't remember who that was too.

On the slide hammer, no rush.  It just goes to show how often I used it.

I have some friends that are notorious for borrowing things and then saying they don't have them when I hit them up later. I solved this by taking a picture of them on my phone with the item in their hand. From that point on, no issues.

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