get yer roadie on!

[Mr Panda]

Re:

Me too - me dad's big old Stanley joiner's claw hammer

Poor BSA.

 

[epicyclo]

Re: Re:

Same here, spent too many of my Saturdays fixing my bike, built out of any bits I'd scrounged, what sticks in my memory is battering the feck oot of the cotter pins trying to get cranks off to grease BB. So cottered cranks can feck right aff.

The method I was taught was loosen off the nut a few turns (not many), then a spare nut would be threaded on to the exposed thread to protect it.

A piece of stout pipe was used to support the crank at the cotter, then any impact was transmitted directly to the solid ground and not through the bearings. In extremis, you can support the crank on the edge of a kerb and use a rock.

A light whack with a heavy hammer would usually shift the pin when it was supported like that. Whacking the pin unsupported means most of the effort goes into buggering the bearings instead of shifting the pin.

If one good whack didn't work then riding it round the block before giving it a second whack usually did.

The cranks were usually off in just over a minute.

There was also a big tool in the shop for the job, but the hammer method was preferred.

Bush repair - this is what happens when you lend your gentleman's thoroughbred to an ex bike mechanic.

 

[old_coyote_pedaller]

Re:

Oh, I learnt the sacrificial nut method pretty quick but often the problem was that all our bikes, my brother and our pals, were just bits of old shite, the cotter pins would often have ridges worn in to them by BB axle and crank. They would be difficult to move. Very.
My new linguistic skill of effing and ceeing fairly sharpened up around about that time. :facepalm: