silly maintenance mistakes.

I am sure that everyone has done the threading the chain on the wrong side of the chain guide between the jockey wheels on the derailleur early in our maintenance journeys, that is the classic silly mistake.

Today I have really outdone myself. my seatpost angle adjustment was stuck, it’s a bit of a crappy design where 2 chamfered inserts wedge into the post and just use friction (carbon on carbon) to clamp it in place. I had to knock them out of the post, clean up the contact points apply a little grease, then re-assemble.

I was a bit worried about knocking out the seized parts without damaging the carbon, but everything went well, finished the job. Bit of trouble getting everything set up properly afterwards due to the crappy design, but got there in the end, put the bike away and was tidying everything away when I realised the tube of grease I used was actually diclofenac painkilling cream for my arthritic knee, doh… So I had to do it all over again.

Sounds like a faff but hopefully the job will be a bit less painful next time?

I’m waiting for the inflammatory comments

haha.

I did the chain / metal tang thing last month.

Same maintenance session, needed to take a pedal off as it was getting stiff. Made sure to google the right direction to turn the hex key to get it off the crank, watched a quick youtube to remind myself, went downstairs to the bike and promptly turned it in the wrong direction. When it refused to budge, rather than realise the obvious mistake I decided it was seized and just needed more welly. Rounded off the end of the key which had to be chucked. This is what happens when you try to fix things at 8pm after a long tiring day.

Oh and this weekend gone, again tired at the end of the day, after a 60km off road ride where the bike creaked like *insert katie price joke here* so time for a BB greasing. So I got the plastic crank removal tool and stuck it in the hole and tried to turn it, without first loosening the crank bolts. Its stuck I thought, time for mole grips. After 5 minutes spent mangling the plastic tool it dawned on me I hadn’t loosened the bolts, after which it just took a light touch to release.

All obvious things we’ve all done before, so kinda annoying I’m doing it after a couple of decades + worth of bike maintenance

was tidying everything away when I realised the tube of grease I used was actually diclofenac painkilling cream for my arthritic knee, doh…

You’d used the carbon paste on your knee, yes?

I know of someone who got chammy cream and heat rub tubes muddled up in a dark tent early one morning pre race. That was entertaining. For us, not him.

Where’s that picture of (drac’s?) bike with wrongly fitted forks when you need it…?

I’ve done the classic front tyre and backwards on the rear wheel.

Where’s that picture of (Northwinds?) bike with wrongly fitted forks when you need it…?

ftfy

My personal nadir…

Cleaning up a brake caliper. Thought I’d spray IPA from below and look from above to make sure it was going where I wanted.

Sprayed it straight into my eyes. This wasn’t even a slip. I actually did it voluntarily.

🤦

Mind you. We had a catastrophising riding buddy. We went up to the Lakes. Parked up, bikes assembled. He hops on, pulls front brake – straight back to the bars, no bite.

“Oh ****ing hell, bloody brake, knew something would go wrong etc”.

He’d put the front wheel in the wrong way around.

A truly glorious moment.

Where’s that picture of (Northwinds?) bike with wrongly fitted forks when you need it…?

Saw the title and pictured Northwind banging his head against a desk

D’oh

Does anyone know what the point is of that stupid tab on rear mechs?

I was wondering why my slightly slipping seatpost, torqued correctly, still slipped when I smeared the area in carbon grip paste. Because it wasn’t carbon paste was it, it was bloody fork seal grease 🤦‍♂️

Does anyone know what the point is of that stupid tab on rear mechs?

To make sure you don’t know which side to put the chain of course.

I’m not going to own up to the stupid one I did last weekend because I’ll win and you’ll all wet yourself laughing.

Pro 4 rear hub on my Stage Evo was grating badly, so ordered a new set of Hope rear hub bearings and carefully studied the Hope video twice …. just to make sure I didn’t mess it up.

First ride out afterwards, smug as ☺️

Second ride out, a ‘crack’ everytime I put power down on the non-drive side … really irritating. Back home checked there was no play in the bb and the cranks span sweetly. Looked in my spares box to see if I had a couple of new unused Hope frame pivot bearings ready to fit … … oddly there was a 3rd unused new bearing staring straight at me 🙈

Doubt @oldfart could beat that?

matt_outandabout
Full Member

Where’s that picture of (drac’s?) bike with wrongly fitted forks when you need it…?

I AM FREE!

Just for a change, a nonbike ****up, I’m rebuilding an MX5 at the moment and slightly slowed the process down by filling the power steering system with dot 5 brake fluid. Came in the same shape bottle, is my excuse

Is it just me for which Phil_H’s silly maintenance mistake isn’t obvious?

Mine was trying to remove the a pair of bearings from the rear of my Canyon Nerve XC. Simple job I thought, push them both out in one go, but they weren’t shifting no matter what I tried, and I really did try! Eventually realized they were blind bearings with a lip between them. Didn’t damage the frame too badly, only that the replacement bearings almost just slipped in without a bearing press.

Is it just me for which Phil_H’s silly maintenance mistake isn’t obvious?

It took me a lot of staring too – the sag o ring is on the side that the sag indicator isn’t.

I’m assuming it’s the oring on the wrong stanchion for measuring sag following a lowers service

Had a friend ride Gisburn with no front brake – he’d forgotten to reinstall the top reservoir bolt following a top up bleed, so all the mineral oil was in his boot carpet instead of in his brake. Fastest he’s ever ridden, mind you 😂

My first try with a torque wrench, tightening up stem bolts. I didn’t realise how subtle the click was, carried on tightening, before hearing a snap. I thought that was the feedback from the tool of 5Nm being achieved but it was the stem cracking around the bolt. Fortunately not an expensive stem.

I learned that a torque wrench needs to be respected and ironically can be worse than simple hand tightening if you’re not paying attention.

First time I removed the front calliper on my HT I didn’t realise the bolts were different lengths. Happily screwing up the short one in the hole for the longer one when “crack”, threads stripped.

At the weekend, I repeatedly tried to install the crankset to the NDS. Have I got the wrong shims? Have I not installed the chainring correctly? Is the chainring the wrong offset? No, I’m just an idiot. Phew, thought it was going to be expensive.

Bleeding the brakes in a hurry, connecting a syringe to the front brake lever and one to the rear caliper and then popping a piston out

Took a Pro4 rear apart,spent ages getting the pawls and springs spotless. Popped them back in, nicely greased, wrestled with the freehub seal, finally got it seated, nice click, cassette back on, put bike together.
Wheeled forwards to test ride, pedals turned. Odd? Just a bit of friction from the seal selling in place. *Shrug*
Day on bike, put a pedal stroke in, clickclickckick.

Turns out that it’s dead easy to put the pawls in the wrong way round. I now had a bike with all the negatives of a fixie, and none of the positives of a bike that could be pedaled. Perfect for fakies, mind.

I put 2 sprockets back on in the wrong order years ago just before a weekend away. Took me all weekend to work out why my shifting wasn’t quite right and hearing felt odd.

Successfully shortened a hydro brake hose to fit to a 6 year olds brake without losing a drop of fluid – because I didn’t have a bottle of the right fluid in so couldn’t afford to lose any. Got a decent bleed with the fluid I’d saved in the syringe. Removed the bottom syringe… first. Watched all the fluid piss onto the floor.

Similar to @oceanskipper except I tore the mount clean off the fork, that was an expensive mistake…..

Bleeding a new caliper and lever set up with Muc Off was a new low for me.

… oddly there was a 3rd unused new bearing staring straight at me

Not the only one to make this mistake. Concorde engineers managed to miss out replacing a wheel spacer when servicing the landing gear. Found on the work bench by the crash investigators after the Paris disaster.

Measuring the chain around the largest chainring and largest sprocket, then cutting off two links, rather than adding two links.

Every time I do a bike build I think “this time I won’t make any mistakes”, but there’s always one event like that.

Bleeding the brakes in a hurry,

Like that’s ever going to end well!

Forgetting a spacer in the cassette is annoying.

Once did a big ride in horrible conditions. Drive train made such a horrible noise up a monster hill that I thought it was going to expire so walked for the steepest part. At the Cafe after the ride I was contemplating why it was so noisy when I’d removed and cleaned the chain the day before. Then I noticed it was on the wrong way around.

Sizing new chain. Take off old chain. Big ring to big ring, measure it up, add two links mark it, measure twice, yep, that’s right, break chain.

Managed to break chain at the join point, rather than the +2 point. It’s still just about fitting – the LBS didn’t complain when they serviced it – but come on, I measured it three times, how did I still get it wrong?

(The answer is: I did without my usual Really Dark Sharpie).

Surely you just put old chain next to new one and pop the extra links off

I once forgot to put my front brake pads back in again…. Pulled the lever (thankfully in the garage when the rotor was in) and was trying to work out why the lever came all the way back to the bar….

Another riding buddy put his brake pads back in upside down, so there was nothing actually holding them in.

He rode our local woodland stuff for about 20 minutes before the inevitable brown trousers moment – luckily on a flat-ish bit, so no harm done.

Sorry, late to the party….

@northwind are you sure you about that?….

https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6174/6192650687_2bba136088_z.jpg

I give up.

Just rest easy in the knowledge Northwind… I have it at my finger tips for when the forum stays still for long enough to actually work.