Back in May my bike was sorely in need or replacement frame bearings and the shop I would usually used was booked up late July for non-warranty work. A bike mechanic has opened a shop in the town so I thought I would have a chat and see how he sounded. He's a pleasant young lad who used to work in the Boardman flagship store and seemed fairly knowledgeable plus it turned out he's the son of one of the directors at work so I decided that as he could do the job to a schedule that suited me I'd give him the work. It actually took him 3 weeks to do it, rather than the one week we agreed on, partly because he didn't have all the right tools and partly because his work ethic appears to be slacker than the Grim Donut, but that's by the by.
Fast forward to Monday of this week; I had reason to be at my usual LBS and they immediately spotted that the suspension rocker is not fitted correctly and is offset and may be rubbing on the frame. Now it's been pointed out to me it's glaringly obvious and I can believe I didn't spot it sooner.
My question is this; is there any point approaching the mechanic after all this time? I don't know yet if there is any damage to frame or rocker and I'm reluctant to remove it to check before taking it to the guy that did the work.
Yes, take it back.
When I was a mechanic if there were any issues I'd want to know. Any mechanic who doesn't want to know would be going nowhere near my bikes.
Tough one that - depends if there's damage done and you want compensation for it. You could always point it out and just see what he says. He might say "Golly, I'm awfully sorry about that, what can I do do put it right?" or he might say "Wasn't like that when it left me mate.". Either way you will know if you should ever use him again based on his response and then you can decide what to do next. Is he a VAT registered business and therefore might have insurance against workmanship errors (just in case he's damaged the frame and it's gonna cost ££££??
If it were me I would definitely take it back and point it out then go from there...
Does he own a lawn?
Do you own some sausages?
You know what to do if the answer to both is yes.
I guess this is an STW thing so excuse my ignorance but what happens if you mix sausages and lawn?
You don't mix them you hammer them in.
Or
Lorne sausage
You don’t mix them you hammer them in.
It was missed out in the original post but they hammer in best when frozen.
I would contact the mechanic and raise your concerns as a first approach. It was only by one of my customers coming back to me that I found that I’d been supplied with sub standard ball bearings - I then contacted customers that I thought had them fitted and rectified the work and gave compensation. If it’s a young person that did the work then they may not have had training and may not have the appropriate insurance. As I was once told by a prospective customer “bikes are simple, anyone can mend them”. He came back to me later and was a regular! Also the lack of exploded drawings for some bikes and the fact that someone else may have been meddling first makes it even more difficult.
Be kind and give the lad/lass a chance!
Or
Lorne sausage
It's square FFS never Lorne.
If you're one of us hand your Scottish card in at the door on your way out..
I gave the guy the Trek exploded diagrams, so that's no excuse.
Oh, and for the amount he charges per hour he'd better be insured!
Go back to complain and point out his cock up and get compo, as for using him again, not a f##king chance, sounds useless and doesn't care about anything. If he doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't have the right tools and it takes him three weeks he shouldn't be offering his services from home let alone running a shop. Personally I'm meticulous and double if not triple check everything I do, especially with someone else's bike.
It actually took him 3 weeks to do it, rather than the one week we agreed on, partly because he didn’t have all the right tools and partly because his work ethic appears to be slacker than the Grim Donut
I would just cut my losses and not let him near my bike again.
I would just cut my losses and not let him near my bike again.
This, some lessons you only learn from doing, chalk this up to that!
There are four bike shops where I live and I have phases of using each one. My favourite error occured when I too needed some bearings changing as I didnt have blind puller, I had already managed to change the ones which didnt require this tool. when collecting the bike and looking I could see they'd changed the bearings I had already changed and not the ones that needed doing...
Go and show the lad and see what he says. A (partial?) refund might be in order, but I'd mainly want to watch him squirm a bit.
Lorne sausage
Go tell him.
3 weeks to change frame bearings? Thats hopeless at best, should be done inside a week and that would include ordering the bearings or kit.
I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole, unfortunately cytech and a box of tools is all you need to setup as a 'mechanic'. Cytech is bobbins IMO, it misses a lot of stuff out which is run of the mill stuff (how to change a bearing properly).
I know the STW forum way is to go in brandishing print outs of various consumer sales acts demanding compensation, and drag the whole thing out in to a pointless protracted stress. But my advice would be to let the usual trusted shop sort it out, never use the other mechanic again and move on with your life.
Unfortunately, the trusted shop are booked out until October for non-warranty work. They charge less per hour too, so I wish they weren't so busy.
The rocker arm / link that joins the shock to the seatstays on a Trek? I don't understand how it's possible to install those incorrectly (and I've installed loads of them). With that in mind, I wouldn't take the bike anywhere near that mechanic again.
Okay, if he's just set up shop then he could well be ordering the non basic tools as he needs them. Given how shit everything is they could have taken an age to arrive. Unless you know different I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and give him a chance to look at it. You won't lose anything by going back.
I went to see him after work today.
He couldn't have been more helpful and at no point did he try to deflect blame. He stopped what he was working on to take a look at my bike. I watched him strip it down and I paid close attention to the order the parts came off the bike and he'd done nothing wrong. One bearing was clearly seated deeper in the frame than the other, hence the offset rocker linkage. It would appear to be a manufacturing defect as the bearing seat is clearly deeper on one side so I'll be going back to the LBS to discuss where I go from here.
Did you have a look at the state of the bearing seat on the 'deeper' side? Was it still intact? Seems odd to think you could have owned a bike that long and not noticed potential frame rub like that.
With that in mind, I wouldn’t take the bike anywhere near that mechanic again.
That comment aged well.
Did you have a look at the state of the bearing seat on the ‘deeper’ side? Was it still intact? Seems odd to think you could have owned a bike that long and not noticed potential frame rub like that.
We only removed the bearing from the deeper side as the bearing was sub-flush. The seat is still intact. My current theory is that the bearing was intentionally seated flush during assembly to avoid scrapping the frame. The bearings were changed in May and fully seated, hence the off-set rocker.
It would also appear that the spacer, part number 24, is too short and allowed the bearing to be seated too deep.
[img] https://ibb.co/5sTKz1L [/img]
Well I'm still not convinced 😀
That spacer above doesn't impact where the bearing sits. That just allows the bearing to be preloaded slightly when the retaining bolts are tightened. The bore in the seat tube governs where the bearing sits. Same as hub bearings that use the same system (i.e. not having the 'sleeve' built into the axle). The spacer is also meant to be very slightly loose in between the bearings for the above reason.
Does the mechanic know that those bearings are extra wide? They are like this but I don't know which ones you need. They are often green.....
I could be wrong but something doesn't add up. I've worked on loads of Trek frames and owned two and never seen one with this claimed issue. No-one will know until both bearings have been removed and the mechanic only removed one. I'd just take the bike to a Trek dealer as without photos, no-one on here can be sure what's going on.
You don’t need to be convinced. I know what the spacer is for and if it allows the bearing to sit too far into the frame it’s clearly too short. As I said in a post yesterday, I’ll be taking the back to the LBS.
I'm with walleater here, the spacer tube doesn't determine the position of the bearings outer face, the bearing seat and specific bearing width does. The spacer allows the preload to be placed on the inner races.
If, like you say, the inner spacer determines depth, then how do you determine how the bearings are aligned equally either side? The only way of doing this would be to have "part 22" serve to align the bearings equally by pressing against the frame or other fixe part but it can't do this as that part rotates along with the inner race and spacer tube as it's all part of the preloaded system. If it's not being aligned by some fixed point then what would stop the 2 bearings and spacer sleeve creeping side to side in the frame?
Being that a 6800 bearing would measure the same OD and ID as 3800, and 6800 is a super common linkage bearing size, I'm going with your mechanic having installed a bearing that's 2mm Short. Also entirely possible that it was assembled that way as a factory error and he's replaced incorrect like with like
If the spacer tube is to preload the inner race and the bearing sits sub flush the spacer is either too short or the bearing is too narrow. The bearing looked to be 8mm thick, which I believe is the correct size. I will take it apart later to check. Hopefully the bearing number will be visible without removing the bearing as I don’t have a puller. However, the bearing seat looked to be significantly deeper than 8mm. The bearing on the other side sat flush, I am assuming that the same size bearing has been used on both sides, this I will also check.
Incidentally the bearing Walleater linked to is not the same part number as the exploded diagram. The part number on the exploded diagram is not listed on the Trek website. I have requested confirmation from a Trek CS rep in the US but I doubt I’ll get a response before Monday.
I’ve not changed bearings on a trek before - but surely the mechanic should have checked the flush side is fully pressed in - maybe they’re both meant to be slightly inset from the outer edges - then the washer things go on before the bolt / nut are done up. I’d assume the sleeve isn’t spacing anything but just keeping the whole setup semi sealed from any dirt (not sure if the linkage is cutaway or the whole tube is enclosed). Surely the bearing spacing is by the bearing seats built into the rocker.
Aaaanyway....
My appologies to walleater. I've just stripped it down myself and he has indeed fitted the wrong bloody bearings.
I'll be heading back there as soon as he opens to stick a rocket up him.
I didn't scrutinise him as he reassembled it and to get the rocker central he inserted the previously flush bearing deeper into the seat to compensate.
Knew it. I was waiting for the outcome, I figured wrong bearing width or a spacer error, proper amateur hour to not even do a simple old against new bearing check, you can usually find the bearing specs on the bikes website or download a pdf to take out any guess work.
So that's three weeks wait, paid too much, wrong bearings and not all bearings replaced.
Total cowboy, maybe we should be warned who to avoid.
Was this the cause of your death creak last week?
A further update. Spanner Monkey claims to have ordered the kit complete from Trek and the fitted the bearings as supplied. I have no idea if he's telling the truth or not and I'm past caring.
He has ordered the correct bearings, to be delivered directly to me as he's away next week, and has lent me his bearing pullers and bearing presses so I can fit the parts myself.
Was this the cause of your death creak last week?
I won't know for sure until I put it all back together, but I suspect it was the knackered headset (now replaced, by me) creaking. The ticking noise appears to have gone; the trusted LBS removed the motor, re-greased and re-torqued the mounting plate bolts and refitted it. Again, I won't know for sure if that's sorted it until I go on a proper ride.
Before anyone says anything, the TLBS only did the work required to clarify if the problem was warranty or not. Anything else would have to be booked in and put on a waiting list. They also expressed the opinion that the Spanner Monkey should be given to opportunity to rectify his error.
That comment aged well.
Like a fine wine 😀
Just a heads up that the bearing that I posted above isn't necessarily the right one. It was just the only wide bearing that I saw on Trek's website at a quick glance. Sounds like the bike might be a Trek Rail? If I remember, I'll check on Trek's B2B and post up the part number / bearing code, but hopefully this time around he's got it right.
This is (sort of...) interesting. Assuming it's a Rail, Trek say its part number W586543 which they also say is a 3803 bearing. 21x12x8mm. The bearing on the wall that we have linked to that p/n are the same dimensions, but the rubber seal says 3801.... To make things more confusing, bearing suppliers can't seem to agree on whether the depth of a 3801 bearing is 8mm, or 7mm 😀 . Whichever way you look at it, it's not a 3803 bearing ha ha... The bearing is physically 21x12x8 though as I measured it.
Maybe the mech ordered 3801 bearings from somewhere, but from a supplier that states that they are 7mm deep? God knows...
The bearings ordered are 3801 (21x12x8). I'll chuck the verniers at what arrives and check before I fit them.
it turned out he’s the son of one of the directors at work
Walk away, chalk it up to experience.
Would this be a shop in Evesham?
It would, yes.
Waves from Badsey 👍
Waves back, but with the right number of fingers... 😉
😄