Mechanics and Fixing Any Questions Answered

cheers, yeah the rust looks a bit gnarly

Thanks!

Get rid of that rust, smash fuck out of it, you wanted a few mm off the steerer length anyway.

Resist the urge to hammer the steerer even with a sacrificial top cap

I learnt this the hard way. I think it should be fine with a rubber mallet though (plus the oil and hot water you mentioned)

if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail 😌

What's a hammer?
Install top cap, rotate frame and smash steerer on floor.
ymmv.

Everything can be improved with a hammer.

this, I am in to more than I care to admit.

Install top cap, rotate frame and smash steerer on a wood block on the floor

FTFY

Meh. There's a White Industries hub shaped gash on bff's hardwood floor to remind him of me. 💖

Has the seat-tube been reamed? If not give it a try. Just a small lump inside the tube means when the seat post clamp is tightened that there isn’t clamping going on right around the circumference of the tube.

Had a similar problem on a bike, 5 mins reaming taking off excess paint and the post never slipped again.

floor is already wood 🤓

That steerer is crusty af. I’d be straight on that with some fairly coarse emery paper, fuck all this tickling it with lemon juice.

You should be able to give it a fair old doink with a hammer without misshaping the top of the steerer too and with the nick of it, it’ll need it. If you have some files to knock back any distortion then be a bit more gung-ho with the hammer, if not then a bit of wood will do a decent job of protecting it. Rubber mallet could work but you do need to give it a good old shock to get it moving.

my first mistake was to assume there was any metal involved beyond the steerer. plastic headset cover with a plastic cone ring.

the cap ended up riding over the cone ring, doesn't seem to have sustained damage thanks to the slits in it. probably could have just taken out the soft plastic ring out with a pick and avoided all this nonsense 😅

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Well done!

GT85 AND hot water FTW! ;)

Same here... ended up having to saw off the topcap and bit of steerer which were pretty the distortred and wedged in.

Another way is to use a heat set crown race setter, couple of knocks frees it and inertia will do the rest.

Success! Curse those who don't apply a tiny dab of grease between surfaces when installing stuff

What rivnut should I use in an aluminium bike frame? ('94 cannondale M500)

Got a spinner on the downtube bottle cage mounts. I got the bolt out, I have a dremel, I have a friend with a rivnut setter that can do M5.

Just need to source the correct rivnut? anything else I'm missing?
Also I haven't got the bike apart right now, but I seem to remember the downtube junctions with BB housing and head tube only have small openings... any tricks to not have a rattly bike?

Is it not worth trying the rivnut setter on the existing one, see if you can tighten it up any?

ah yes, of course, step 1

How does this go together then…….? Ta

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Hammer

Does anyone here use a disc pad spacer when setting up calipers? I've recently started using 2.3mm rotors, and installed new pistons and the pad clearance is so tight that all my usual tricks aren't working. Just wondered if I should get one of those slide-on pad spacers or cobble something from an old aluminium drinks can

Thank you sir 🙏