Sun, 29 Nov 2009
The end of an era // at 14:00
After a little more than a decade, the time has come to finally part with Mr Damage — for the last four years, maybe even five, I've done little more each year than just pay the registration and then get it running for a couple of days in the last weeks each January.
The bike owes me nothing, the costs in time and money of cleaning it up and advertising to sell it probably wouldn't be worth anything like what the recompense would be. Instead I offered it up on the mailing list of http://www.teamRC17.net — swap for a case of beer! One of the semi-local members jumped at the chance and all that remained was to find a mutally agreeable time to come and pick it up.
In all these years I've never had to put the bike on a trailer so it was a little amusing to finally learn how (backwards) one and a half fit and healthy gents can hoik a CBX into a trailer — my left shoulder still refuses to have anything to do with lifting heavy weights:
Of course Melbourne's weather chose to make life a trifle more interesting by raining lightly on us the entire time, but we refused to either drop the bike or slip over. Paul tied it all down to his satisfaction and after more thanks on both sides, headed off for the long drive back home. I'm really glad the bike is going to someone who'll use it, rather than have it sitting and gradually falling apart in our driveway — Farewell Mr Damage.
Finally, the all-important beer:
Shifter woes part #2 // at 13:00
Continued from part #1.
After a little searching online I decided to have another look at the internals of my rear shifter — albeit a 1996 Shimano XT unit, so I've had a decent thirteen year's use out of it! Undid the three chassis screws, disconnected it from the cable, and brought it inside where I can safely drop tiny pieces on the kitchen table and not lose them in the shed or the garden.
First major annoyance, the tiny little phillips head dust-cover screw that yesterday I removed then replaced, neither time with any problems, has mysteriously jammed and is almost stripped. Needed to be almost butchered out since the cross-slot has nearly gone.
Surprisingly clean considering the thirteen years of use so far — a wipe with a clean cloth and a toothpick to remove some of the dirt, then the discovery that the main ratchet is broken. I doubt if these are sold as servicable parts by Shimano, and if they are, how many other small parts are worn out or nearly so? Cleaned up and regreased lightly it all seemed to be miraculously operational again — I doubt it'll last another thirteen years, but I may get a few more out of it!
Second, or third, major annoyance came during the reassembly — the 7mm nut that holds the thumb levers on managed to twist around inside my socket-spanner and refuse to go on the bolt, jamming up so badly that I couldn't extract it without hooking a piece of wire into it. Then I found that it had stripped the thread of the bolt, so both the bolt and the nut seem unusable, a new nut may exist somewhere in my toolboxes, but a special custom-made Shimano bolt — no way. Looks as though new shifters are on the shopping list.
Nine-speed Shimano Deore XT brake/shifter levers seem to be $299 a pair — now can I use the nine-speed levers with the eight-speed cassette? Some people seem to say yes, some to say no...
Either way, a working repair seems better left to my LBS — providing I can find an LBS I'm happy with. I bit the bullet and rode up to Carnegie and dropped it off at Fitzroy Cycles, apparently the nine-speed shifters cannot be used with the eight-speed cassette so they'll have to order in an eight-speed shifter, but it should all be fixed and running and frighteningly clean and adjusted by Thursday.
... part #3.
