At class, it is really sitting in good company. Usually I buy dinner and eat there, by myself, though it is not lonely.
The new chain and sprockets came in so I started by removing the rear wheel. It was so simple, but I couldn’t imagine it until I had seen it: loosen the right and left alignment, there are notches that show the “setting” on each side, that is important to restore. The rear axle has a bolt with a cotter pin that I removed. Then I removed the brake link, and the caliper itself, then turned up the alignment adjusters and pushed the wheel forward and removed the chain and pulled the wheel out. The large zip ties were really helpful to hang out the brake link and caliper.
Before starting I didn’t know to find the master link in the chain and remove it first, I will do that next time instead.
The front sprocket encasement is full of centimeters of filth, that will take a while to clean it out. A non-abrasive plastic “drill bit” would nice to pull that stuff out, of course it would have to be disposable.
Tonight I did use an impact wrench for the first time, brilliant. The small one got the front sprocket bolt out and the big one got the rear sprocket bolts off, the latter were on there super-tight and the impact wrench just took them right off.
Speaking of cleaning, the front sprocket had an empty cocoon on it, and I cleaned up the rear wheel as best I could without compromising the lubrication with cleaner. Before wrenching on the bolts I tried to clean them up first to keep the tools clean.
Pat said that the rear wheel plastic pads internal to the wheel look fine, so I won’t replace them.
Today did go pretty well especially after I found out that class will continue next semester, so it is not a race to finish the bike. That said, it would be fine to make some progress, also. The headlight awaits, brake pads maybe, continued cleanup, and maybe upgraded suspension.
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