Re-engineering?

[AndreZA]

On the back of my other topic "Who cuts their own tread?", I was wondering if anyone here re-engineers their equipment.

 

For instance do you replace the seals in your forks with aftermarket or drill the oil- flow holes,  or whatever they are called, in your forks so that it changes the damping properties. Or even drill away parts of your frame or parts to get rid of unneccesary metal.

 

Juat wondering how far people go.

 

 

[I FLY]

One of my MTber friends is such a weight weenie he drill extra holes in his carbon bottle cages to remove more weight.

[porky]

I am of the firm belief that if the manufacturer made it that way, its for a good reason and I dont fiddle or change things.

 

I am also against the practice of some cycle shops of fitting generic parts or interchanging brands because they happen to fit, if one sticks to the basics and replace with the genuine product, its my impression it generally works first time every time.

[dirtrider]

Have to disagree with you there Porky . Take any external BB bearing you get these days . It will cost you R400 for a cheap set . I buy the same (if not better) bearing sets from Bearing Man , press the old bearing out of the cap and replace with "generic" bearing . Cost for both - R88.00 .

[The Crazy German]

I trimmed the rear derailler casing and changed the dropouts of my cyclo cross bike with a grinding disc. Design error made me take the quick release apart to remove the wheel, now it goes smootly.

 

 

[SARA]

agree with DR. Also just because it's on the shelves doesn't mean it's good or works best. That applies to everything though. If everyone just accepted that stuff works optimally how would we ever improve and invent? By playing with your toys you might find away to make it better, stronger, faster (or whatever you are going for) and THEN perhaps make your millions.

 

well you never know unless you try eh?

besides a good bodge is very satisfying.

[MintSauce]

Agreed Sa(except the part about a good bodge)

 

Sort of on the same subject, but really I'm just looking for another reason to diss Race Face after my cranks died.

 

I can totally see why they would fail the way they did. Either Race Face engineers are stupid for not having fixed the fault or they don't give a stuff cos it's going to cost to much cash to re-engineer the product since it would require a complete redesign.

 

Anyway, in this particular case it's simply beyond my engineering know-how and ability to fix/improve.

 

BTW....Race Face SUCKS!

[widget]

I am surprised there have been so few comments on this topic, I found it quite interesting to hear how folk corrected things or "perhaps" made them work better.

 

As I am technically useless, I personally dont change or mess around with anything, if something is not working I take it to the shop.

 

In a way I agree with both porky and dirt rider, I wouldnt like a shop to fit some generic bottom bracket bearings on my bike when I dont know the quality of the line, fitting a manufacturer approved part gives me a bit of confidence that at least the part will work.

 

I understand it comes at a premium, but I figure thats the price I pay for my lack of knowledge on the subject.

 

.............on the other hand, I guess very few bike manufacturers make bearings, and just re-brand from another bearing company, so if you understand the implications and know what you are doing and what to buy, I would be happy with that.  

widget2007-02-05 01:16:01

[SARA]

aha this is the pic I was looking for ...single speed conversion bodge: SARA2007-02-08 08:18:03

[MintSauce]

You sure that's not maybe a trail fix? MintSauce2007-02-08 09:04:53

[SARA]

well, it lasted for 2 weeks in Morzine.

[MintSauce]

What?....noone have rear der in stock?

Two weeks singlespeeding on a bike with that much travel must be frustrating

[Christie]

.... Take any external BB bearing you get these days . It will cost you R400 for a cheap set . I buy the same (if not better) bearing sets from Bearing Man ' date=' press the old bearing out of the cap and replace with "generic" bearing . Cost for both - R88.00 .[/quote']

 

sounds good - do you mind sharing the bearing number? A friend's asked coolheat, and said its a non standard bearing only available from shimano....

[Guest Big H]

I have manufactured various odds and ends to make our Tandems work better. I have a small EMCO Unimat 5 Metal Lathe with a milling attachment. Some of these were a new rear dropout, a bracket and pulley to change a top pull front arrangement to a bottom pull, a lever operated brake attenuator, a bracket to change my MTB framed tandem with 26"Vbrale bosses to a 700c wheel V brake bosses. Various other small items like speedo mounts etc were changed and modified to suit.

I will look for and post photos of some of my achievements. I use just plain commonsense and practical application. I am not trained to operate a lathe and learnt myself by trial an error. Aluminium is so easy to work eith and very forgiving.

 

Christie so typical of Coolheat to do a thing like that.

[Guest Big H]

I borowed this idea form the suspension fork of a MTB. It is an iverted U with the V Brake bosses placed higher up for a 700C wheel. I utikised the old screw in bosses for the 26"wheel and the old brake mounbting to mount the "U"

 

Front view