700C Giant Iguana

 

Hi

This week I started helping my friend Simon out - he is clearing his yard before building work starts - and he supplied me with a Giant Iguana mountain bike frame and wheels plus a Shogun hybrid bike. I'll fix these bikes for our bike shed, Wecycle Melbourne.   

Unfortunately, the wheels he supplied were the wrong size for the frame with the main problem being the V-brake boss positions - a few cm too low for standard V-brakes and 700c wheels with 26" being the correct size. I didn't know this till I was a fair way into the build with the chain on and gears working.

Rather than just stop and cut my losses, I've put a front calliper brake on (not connected) and ridden it on my flat, quiet street. Goes ok, but I think the stem is a bit too long for me. Also, with bigger wheels, the bottom bracket is quite high. However the bike is quite viable, and the tyre clearances are really good (about 5mm) for the 700 x 35c tyres on the bike. The brake bosses could be repurposed as light or reflector mounts or as rack mounts.

Tommorrow I aim to take the bike to the shed and fit 26" wheels. The work on the bike is mostly cabling, all that will be saved. 

regards Steve Nurse 

Update August 17

I took the bike frame to Wecycle on Saturday, with the wheels removed, and the rear derailleur detached from the frame but still attached via the chain and shift cable. I put the frame in the back of my recumbent and got it to Wecycle no problems. Then during the work day at Wecycle I mainly finished off the bike as a 26" mountain bike with wheels, tyres, reflectors, bell, and a new set of V-brakes. It was a good day at Wecycle although I did start a "repair" on a bike for Tom that I never should have touched (that bike was in really bad condition with too much to fix and will probably stay at the shed as a donation). Simon was there and gave the bike a tick of approval late in the day, and Heidi from the council was running the monthly Darebin bike fix program.

With the 26" wheels on, the wheel clearance was about 25mm to the frame, so having 700 x 35C tyres fitted raised the bike by about 20mm - not a deal breaker, and 25mm tyres could bring the height difference down to 15mm.

Regards

 

 

 

 

New Bike: Front Frame and on the road

 

Source material: 28mm steerer fork for top of front frame, stripped down bike frame with only bottom bracket and down tube. I stripped down 3 frames before I was happy with the down tube diameter. 

 

Hi

For a while I have been working on a new leaning trike, and I'm proud to say that is is on the road and going well. I still have some painting and finishing off to do and want to make a new design of tailbox for it. This post shows making the front frame of the bike, I already had a spare seat / tailbox which I am using temporarily. A comical "guy / bikeart piece" emerged halfway through the build process: this was completely by accident but having made one, I can make more now!

It's basically the same as the leaning trike I completed in this post and have been riding this year. However I've changed the front frame configuration, eliminating 2 joins in the "downtube" section and making a small, unobtrusive support frame. This small frame can be easily swapped out if I decide to use another fork. I have also eliminated a join in the steerer section of the front frame.

There was a small amount of drama getting the bike on the road. It was finished except for control cables when I received a Friday night dinner invitation. I got back home about 10, worked on the bike in the lounge room till 11, fitting the V-brakes and derailleur cable. The first trial of the bike was the next morning heading off to Wecycle. It all worked fine with only a few allen key tightenings required. I want to paint it red and yesterday bought some red 3d printer filament to make matching 3d printed parts.

Obtaining a length from the old bike for transfer to the new. This shows one of the joins which was eliminated.

Tubemitre plot used to hacksaw ....

the fishmouth join in the front frame steerer section.

Steel bar used as a brazing jig to ensure bottom bracket is parallel

Comparing old and new.

Larger part of the front frame. Another piece was brazed to the top later.

Housing for small frame on fork made from a bikes stand plate

The plate attached

Trike setup before the small front frame was made

Trialling a "small frame" configuration.

Small frame was set up on the trike before brazing: the whole front part of the trike was a jig

And this guy....

emerged from the

... manufacturing process!

Finished small frame, gear and brake cables in place.

After 1st ride at Wecycle

Later in the day - nothing special here, it looks just like my other trike and most of my friends at the shed are used to my trikes.

Small front frame on the front part of the trike and just before brazing

Some towing

 

Hi

The bike shed I volunteer at was due to have a cleanup and I managed to get in early with an improvement to one corner of the room. There is a corner where the brake and gear cables are kept, and often stuff would just be chucked up on top of the boxes and it would be a real mess. I'd been working on furniture at home and had some spare timber so I knocked together a cabinet for the shed. To bring it to the shed I dug out and repaired (fixed flat tyre and made new hitch) the bike trailer I have. This got me reacquainted with the trailer - eventually I will put a better hitch on the load carrying version of my new bike.   

The load carrying itself went well but I celebrated too early! At the intersection near the shed I undid my helmet strap where the shed key was secured, and was then mystified when I got to the shed that I didn't have the key. A bit of a think, a backtrack and a wander into the middle of the intersection / bike path at the right cycle of the lights and (whew!) I had the key again. The keyring was a  bit crushed  but the key was ok (also whew).

Anyway, I got the cabinet fitted ok, and the next weekend (actual cleanup day) I removed all the crap hanging from the windows. So the after picture is even more improved.

Regards Steve Nurse 

The cabinet

Before

After

 

New Bike: The Rear Frame

Measuring up the frame - this is getting the size for the front part.

Marking the frame centreline for drilling the headtube holes

Cutting the front part square

 

Drilling the head tube bearing holes

And filing them.......

 

and done - well one side at least.

Rounding the front part of the frame. I did it manually for the most part but used an angle grinder at the end.

3D printed frame separators and M8 Tee Nuts

Transferring positions from the back part of the frame to the front for drilling small holes.

The cool tool! The front bolt keeping the frames together is a low-profile M8 allen bolt because clothing gets caught in it if it is a higher bolt. I put the tool to undo it into the other bolt which is underneath the bike.

Rear bottom bracket assenbly consists of YST bottom bracket, 2 custom castings, 2 spacer bars and 2 spacer bar retaining studs.

 

Ta Da.....

The.......

Finished Frame

 As mentioned in my last post, I have been building a bike for a few days now. I'm trying to document it in some detail but I do have bits and pieces of old bike around which lets me skip forward a few steps. For this 2-part rear frame, I had most of the back part built and only needed to saw an end off, drill a few small holes and fit parts. But I made the front part from scratch, and this involved marking positions for, hole sawing and filing holes for the head tube bearings.

This work was fun and not too hard, about 10 hours work in getting this made. 

Update July 26

Over the last few days I have worked on attaching the back wheels to the rear frame as well as making the front frame. Here is the process of adapting shafts and making spacers for the rear wheels. The wheels were too narrow for the shaft, and simply shortening the shaft is no good as that would make the outer bearing sit on a recessed bit of of the shaft. Who designed the shaft? What were they thinking? (Oh that's right its me!) Anyway, I made appropriate spacers with a pipe cutter, marked up the shafts for shortening, shortened the shafts on a lathe, retapped the shaft thread, and finally fitted it all up. Pretty good now! Wheels are from MR Recumbent trikes and an 89mm aluminium square taper unicycle crank set is from the Australian branch of Unicycle.com

 

Marking the shaft protrusion before trimming shaft to length

Spacer cutting. This leaves a big burr on the inside - I filed it quite roughly to get the right inside diameter to suit the shaft.

After retapping the shaft is done

Turning down the shaft length

Done!

and done, the turned down shaft matches the bearing face

Assembly with YST bottom bracket, unicycle cranks, frame and bottom bracket holder.

Full assembly, for more details see here .