Pulling off most of the components was fairly easy. Some unscrewed screws and bolts, a little WD40 here and there, some yanks with various wrenches and, in the case of the stuck stem, some bangs with a rubber mallet, and it all came off.
Except for the cranks. Which brought me down to this:
Normally there’s a bolt running through the center of the crankset that you can unscrew and this allows disassembly of all the pieces (called the bottom bracket). But not so on this one.
So I posted a question to bikeforums.net with photos and got some helpful info quickly. Turns out I’m dealing with what are called cottered cranks – a difficult and complicated system no longer used for obvious reasons. One guy who responded wrote, “Man, good luck! The only thing worse than removing cottereds is reinstalling them.”
I went to altruistic bike guru/genius Sheldon Brown’s webpage (sadly Sheldon passed away earlier this year but left behind a shockingly detailed and comprehensive online breakdown of all things bicycle) and found what I needed.
Here’s the pin I had to remove:
Sheldon’s always right – always – so I did what he said: support the crank arm, aim steadily at the pin, and hit that freaking thing with all your might with a claw hammer. Do it right the first time because if you pussyfoot around it’s just gonna bend and get tangled up worse and you might end up having to drill it out.
So I did. Lowered the workstand and supported the crank arm with a piece of 4x4, then hauled off and smacked the shit out of the pin.
Success!
(Though the other side required two strikes...)
I was gonna leave it at that for the night, but in spinning the forks I heard lots of grit in there. So I removed those, too. This made me commit to a more complicated rebuild, because this (and the bottom bracket) are the two places where important and easily-screwupable things like ball bearings and thick grease are. I was hoping not to mess with the fork and headset, but if you’re gonna go, go all the way, right?
So here’s where it stands now.
The more I think about it, I’m getting more worried about the size. It’s several inches smaller in both height and length than my road bike – which is itself a tad small for me. Even with a long seatpost and a long handlebar stem, it’ll feel cramped.
But even this demo was a great exercise. Even if I stop here with this frame, it’s worth it. Taking everything off really demystified the machine for me – a bike is not something way beyond me that I’ll always need a mechanic to work on. It’s complicated, but not impossible. I’m already feeling more comfortable with the mechanics of it.
Amy said one of her coworkers is willing to donate her husband’s old bike to the project. I can’t wait to get it. Maybe the frame will be a better fit – and at least I’ll have more parts in the pile to Frankenstein from.
I do like the front badge on this though:
More as we go.
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