Embarrassing Build Mistakes of the Mechanical Kind

So I love my bikes and build a few every so often, but only really tend to do the easy bits myself. So for my salvaged rockhopper I thought I would have a go at doing everything so to keep the cost down, learn some tricks, and make the project something more than just a cheap bike that my missus won’t use very often.

Although most of you can build a bike from bits in a few hours, I have never indexed a bike in my life, so quite a learning curve.

I have made the following mistakes in the last week:

1 – measured a new chain with the chain around “big big” plus 2 links. Fitted powerlink. Ace. Then realised it had the old small cassette on. Fitted new cassette with dish-plate sized 9th gear, had to use another 2 powerlinks to lengthen the chain. Very stupid of me.

2 – had no tension in front mech. Couldn’t see why. Took me over an hour to realise the cable was through the shifter but not through the guidehole, and therefore every click of the shifter had no effect on cable. Then rethreaded it through.

Anyone else made equally stupid mistakes on their first few builds or worse to make me feel better?

Please

Nope just you.
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only joking. When I was about 15 I wanted to replace my biopace chainrings with something a little more roundy, so I got the LBS to take my RH crankarm off as I didn't have a crank removal tool. After Replacing the chainrings and refitting the crank I felt pretty please with myself. Until I sat on the bike and found both pedals at the bottom of the stroke. I had to scoot a long way to the bike shop to get my crank removed again and refitted in the correct orinetation.

I've made plenty but I'm dobbing in two mates on this post.

1. No name but shall be say he is fat. He fitted a lovely Syncros stem to a built. Of cause you would use the integrated cable stop for the front canti brake, would seem rude not too. But only when you don’t have suspension forks fitted. Doh! At least the bike didn't leave the stand, let alone the house. Not like my next mate.

2. He is Catalonian. Say no more. We got to a group ride nice and early having heaps of time for chat. He was most proud to show off to us his upgraded Klein Adroit with new M950 drive train components that he added the night before. The ride starts & 5 pedal stokes in crunch! gaunch! "Wait! Something is wrong'o" in Spanish accent (Catalonian accents are the same as Spanish accents). "It won’t shift'o properly'o". As the rest of the group cycles off I had to stop to help him out as no one else did. The front mech just would not shift. It had stuck between the granny & middle ring on the front. I just stared in disbelief. He had fitted a top pull mech to a bottom pull cable routing. Not only had he bought the wrong thing, (has been done myself in the pursuit of NOS components) he had fitted it. Not even have spun the cranks to test the gears, leaving it to the actual point of riding away from the car park on an all-day group ride to try the first shift. This is after assembling the bike out of the car as the wheels came off to get into the car. I took out an allen key, set the cable so that it was in the middle ring. Stood up. Shouted at him not to f@*£ with his bike again & not to use his front shifter. This was not his first offence. He continues to f@*£ with his bikes much to my disgust.

My ex brother-in-law called me to say the front wheel would not fit on the kids bike he bought on line , forks facing the wrong way :roll:

Recently i used a crank removal too, but had not removed the bolt on the crank first :facepalm:

Screwed the tool in (ooer ) and grunted for a good few seconds (ooer ) until i realised the bolt was still in, lucky i didnt chew up the thread

A while back I did about 200 miles thinking "this rear mech is making a lot of noise". Only realised when I stripped it down the chain went round the mech wrong and was wearing out the cage.

...recently serviced some wheel hubs...re-assembled went on a good 15 mile ride, but dissapointed with the rough feel of the rear wheel...only to find 1 ball bearing still in the yoghurt pot when I returned to the shed! That and recently removed some cages from pedals to respray the cages and service the bearings in the body. Re-assembled, put the toe clips back on, put them back on the cranks only to realise I had put the cages on backwards and that I couldn't thread the toe clip strap through the body!

Rick Draper":3qo4gi9v said:

A while back I did about 200 miles thinking "this rear mech is making a lot of noise". Only realised when I stripped it down the chain went round the mech wrong and was wearing out the cage.

Click to expand...

Done that one too!

Only last week I fitted some new wheels on my bike, put on tyres, tubes, pumped them up, all ok....

...took the bike for a test ride and had gone about 20feet when "Pfffffttt!!!!" 2 flat tyres :roll:

Discovered I'd neglected to check if rim tape was fitted, it wasn't :facepalm: cue a red face and a trip to the shop for 2 new innertubes...

I can only think I did a bad job of repacking a rear hub that was on it's last legs... As I rode along the cones worked their way loose, built up pressure on the QR skewer which sheared at the nut with such pressure that I never found the nut again. It shot off like a bullet.