Well I completed what I intended today plus a little more. Also hit a slight snag, but I am past it now. I repacked the front hub bearings and the headset bearings. The headset was pretty dry as shown in the photo:

I didn't have to fool with the bottom bracket as it is a sealed cartridge model, so the bearings are not serviceable. Its not perfect, but it should be good for a couple of more years. Unfortunately, the drive side crank arm is going to be a bear to remove for any unfortunate person who chooses to do so in the future. I also did a quick polish of the frame and fork. I'll hit it again in the sunlight to make sure I didn't miss any spots. I also polished the stem and reinstalled it with a new wedge bolt because the old one was rusted. The second photo shows the status of the bike after tonight's progress.

The snag I hit was that the cantilever brakes had plastic spring covers that had all cracked. I didn't have any replacements that matched, so I removed the pads and tossed the arms in the recycle bin. Geer is getting some 80s Exage cantilevers which are much better than the Altus that were the original equipment. The Exage arms have a molded aluminum flange that holds the spring in place so that they are not dependant on the plastic covers to prevent the springs from deforming and popping out of the holes on the cantilever studs.

I plan to wrap everything up on Saturday. I hope so anyway.

So I have my daughter's bike on hold because I am rebuilding a 24 inch Trek 240 for my good friend Diana's son Geer. Geer is a cool kid who needs a bigger bike, and my friend found this Trek for $6.88 at a thrift store. This Trek needs a lot of love as it obviously spent many nights outside in the cold and rain. I should have taken a before picture, but I have a habit of immediately removing the crap parts off of second hand bikes as soon as they enter my basement. I did shoot a picture this evening with most of the heavy steel bits removed (see above). It's too bad that even the "good" brands put heavy steel parts on kids bikes. I guess it helps keep the costs down, but this bike was heavy. It is getting a new seatpost, handlebar, and rear derailleur all in aluminum.

So as I said before, this bike was abused. The chain was so rusted that it was a solid piece of metal that was impossible to get out of the rear derailleur. I didn't shoot a pic of that, but I do have a photo of the cassette. The one on the right is the rusted original, and the one on the left is an almost totally clean replacement from a donor bike. Yikes. I was worried that it wasn't going to come off.

So I wrapped up tonight with rehabbing the rear hub with Phil grease (only the best for Geer) and reinstalling the replacement cassette. I have a lot of work to do with a deadline of March 7. Tomorrow I plan to grease the front hub, bottom bracket, and stem.

Hi and welcome to my site. I am just getting started, but the first project I will be working on will be a 24 inch kids mtb to road bike conversion. I plan to put on a set of 24 inch Panaracer Pasellas, drop bar (scrounged from the basement), bar cons (still need a source), and Nitto dirt drop stem on an 80s Diamond Back Sorrento for my daughter. It will be getting pink bar tape of course.