Poor bike. Well at least I got to it before the garbage truck. First thing's first, time to take it completely apart. I'll start with the cranks:
These have cotter pins, so I'll use my c-clamp and socket method:
The clamp is supposed to press the cotter pin into the socket, and allow me to remove the crank. This one was on stupid tight. After I tightened the clamp as much as I could, I hit the end of the clamp with a very heavy hammer. That did the trick (although the threads were deformed a bit on the cotter pin). Time to remove the bottom bracket lockring:
I couldn't find my special pin wrench that's made for this, but a hammer and punch also works. With the lockring removed I unscrewed the left side cup (which also needed a lot of persuasion):
Since this bike is from the 70's, the bearing grease had dried out a long time ago. Here's what was left:
I didn't even bother fighting with the right side bearing cup. Fortunately I have skinny fingers, so I can just clean the bearing cup inside the frame. Next I disassembled the wheel bearings with a cone wrench and an open end wrench:
Looks like old white lithium grease (that stuff dries out so fast, I think it only lasts a few years). With the wheel bearings apart, it's headset time:
The handlebar stem decided to put up a fight (what a surprise), so I had to use the hammer yet again.
It finally twisted out with some liquid wrench and patience. Next I took apart the headset:
Then the fork slid out:
I forgot that old British bikes don't use bearing retainers anywhere, so I spent a bit of time searching for all the little ball bearings that spilled all over my basement floor.
Here are the ball bearings after soaking them in mineral spirits (I did have to replace a few that were chipped):
Time to repack the bottom bracket:
I just use automotive wheel bearing grease. It's water resistant and probably way overkill for the loads that a bicycle is subjected to. Also, a pound of this stuff costs less than a few ounces of bike specific grease.
This part was fun:
Spindle reinstalled:
After adjusting the bearings and tightening the lockring, I moved on to the headset:
That took a while (seriously, why couldn't they use ball retainers like everyone else). Fork reinstalled now:
Wheel bearings adjusted, and new tires installed:
It's starting to look like a bike again. Time to put those cottered cranks back on (wet aluminum foil cleaned up the chrome very nicely):
I noticed that the chain wouldn't rotate properly (or at all, for that matter). At first I thought it was seized up, but it turns out the pulley cage on the rear derailleur was bent. This was probably why the bike was thrown away in the first place. Oh well, time to fix more stuff:
After taking the cage apart, I bent the plates back into a straight line:
That's better. After that I trued the wobbly wheels and adjusted the brakes and shifters. This bike needed quite a lot of work, but it was a fun project. I like having to solve problems sometimes (and hitting things with a hammer). Here's the end result:
