Any question answered...

any ideas?

Flange de-bonded from the barrel, so it rocks back and forth as the load reverses once per revolution. I'm just guessing, but it wouldn't be at all surprising that a piece of carbon fibre glued to a piece of aluminium in the 1990s would do that, it's common enough on frames of that era which used a similar construction.

Nuke-Proof carbon-center hubs were noted for separation of aluminum flanges from the carbon fiber center

Dentist?

Thanks 🙏 much appreciated. It is a pretty ghetto wheel.

Is there much difference between the Shimano Tiagra BB (BB-RS500) and the £5 more expensive Ultegra (BB-R60) in terms of bearings/performance/sealing?
Shimano exploded view doesn't really show anything.

Do you think it’s safe to ride on?

The little grub screws on pad holders for calliper brakes. Any reason why I shouldn’t just chuck them?

Just to check, are you using threaded washers on your inner tube valves/valve extenders? Only other thing I can think of

Do you think it’s safe to ride on?

I think it will get too annoying to ride before it becomes too dangerous to ride, after allowing for your risk tolerance which let you ride a 20 year old plastic wheel with a dubiously designed boutique hub before you realised it was broken 🙂

If it really is a de-bonded flange, the terminal failure mode is the flanges getting closer together as the carbon barrel wears down by fretting. This makes the spokes go loose and maybe the bearing cartridges walk out of the flanges or along the axle, depending on how they are retained. As it wears, the compressive stress on the barrel actually goes down, so exploding into carbon fibre shrapnel is unlikely. If the bearings are fully constrained without the barrel existing at all (this is a possible design), then as the barrel fails the preload on the bearings rises, and eventually they break, wear out or just squeak so loudly that you realise you're not cursed by a constant imperceptible rising road but by massively increased bearing friction.

Any reason why I shouldn’t just chuck them?

They are there to stop the pads coming out of the back of the holders in case of reversed braking load. Although this is an infrequent occurrence, the sound of padless holders contacting your rims is not quickly forgotten.

Do I need to use thread lock (or something else) when inserting pins into my MTB flats?

can anyone help me calculate how much the seat tube , head tube and bottom bracket drop are going to change with a fork that is 1.5 cm longer?

This can

https://bikegeo.muha.cc/

afaik the only real difference is the weight. The tiagra one is larger and made of metal, the ultegra one is made of what I assume is a very rigid plastic. The ultegra one needs the (supplied) adapter ring to screw it on since it's smaller but it looks a lot nicer than the tiagra one imo.

thank you!

To paraphrase Tester; your hub is only going to get worse, but will probably not be the immediate cause of your death. Nuke-Proof are named somewhat optimistically.

Thanks @Colonel_of_Truth!

If you have it I'd say use it, as long as it's the blue stuff.

I've never bothered, although I've lost a few you normally get spares.

Putting pins into flat pedals is easily the best bit of bike maintenance out there. Just. So. Satisfying.

I've never bothered, although I've lost a few

ergo

what are the best practices for long term steel frame and fork storage?

Yeah I’m am. Thanks for your time!

I see your point about it’s age etc... 🤦‍♂️
Thank you so much for helping me out!

Sell it and buy a new bike when you need one.