Sockets? Mmmmmmm … purdy!

OMG! I’m reading this while listening to my angelic 8 yo daughter practice her piano lessons.

I’m now terrified of the monster that’s going to be unleashed when she turns thirteen… should I just drive a stake thru her heart before its too late?

(ground up pill in food – I’m gonna remember that one though :D )

Offered to shower with a friend, but they didn’t believe my motive was energy efficiency…

Please don’t be offended about the Perth comment

Nah, no offence taken, just kidding ya!

it’s where the majority of their Navy is

Really! Well all I can say is they keep it damn well hidden then! (which is probably a good thing as far as defence capability in general goes :-) )

Know what you mean about New Zealand. If I thought I could get a job down there I’d happily live there…

Thought of Oz, but the prospect of being stuck out on a limb in Perth dosn’t appeal.

Consider me offended…

As above, you don’t need a socket set for a bike. Get a torque wrench, hex bits, torx bits, and the specific sockets you need for the forks (which are a 26mm and a deep 10mm for Fox 32s).

And, don’t buy them from Mitre 10 or Bunnings, much cheaper at one of the auto stores like Repco or Supercheap Auto.

I got more travel out of my F120s by reducing the amount of float fluid in the air chamber.

Yes, but thats the nub of the issue – there’s only 5cc of float fluid in the air chamber, which isn’t enough to have any impact on travel – it barely coats the sides of the tube.

So, if there’s enough fluid in the air chamber to affect travel its because the lowers oil is migrating past the air piston into the air chamber and adding to the float fluid. Easy to check – float fluid is dark blue, float fluid plus lowers oil is blue/green colour – turn teh bike upside down and press the schraeder valve – see what colour the stuff that comes out is?

Sure, removing the excess fluid will get your travel back, but – it’ll just happen again until you fix the root cause of the problem, by removing the foam seal and replacing it with another scraper seal. Meanwhile the bushings in your lowers are also wearing out through lack of oil!

Shimano and SRAM casettes both use the same lockring standard, so one tool will fit both (and certrelock rotor lockrings by the way). And yes, you’ll need a chainwhip too. The forces involved aren’t massive, so I’ve found the cheapo CRC homebrand ones (X-tools) adequate enough. One thing I would recommend, get one with a built-in handle rather than a seperatre one that needs a spanner – difficult to juggle chainwhip and keep spanner on the tool I found – cause of many bloody/oily knuckles!

Their website claims 1000-1500 kms.

Sorry, got that wrong – they actually claim 1500-2500 kms!

I’d quite like to see a solvent carrier graphite dry lube to go with it as a pre-application.

Excellent idea…

Also I couldn’t see info on how long they last for, anyone know?

Their website claims 1000-1500 kms.

Does it not just lube the part of the link it contacts though (rather than inside the rollers which is where you really want it)?

Again, their website claims it has ‘creeping’ abilities so will work its way into the rollers. But I think I’d be inclined to start with an application of teflon dry lube inside the rollers, and just rely on the graphite jockey wheel to keep things moving from thereon…

Be nice if someone had experience using them could verify their claims…

The solid lubricant is shaped like the jockey pulleys of the derailleur. All you need to do is replace the bottom jockey pulley in the rear derailleur.

The abrasion of the lubricant that occurs through contact with the chain while pedaling results in lubrication.

I really like the idea of that – has anyone tried one of these to see how they work in practice?

A mate just removed the foam ring and didn’t put the lip seal in and his has been fine ever since as well……don’t ask me why!

Because the cause of the problem was the foam ring holding oil next to the wiper seal. In theory this was a good idea as it lubricated the seal and made fork travel smoother. However, in practice every time the forks compressed a little bit of oil would stick to the walls and pass by the wiper seal into the air chamber – never to return. Over time all of the oil in the lowers could migrate into the air chamber this way.

The ‘quick’ fix was to just remove the offending foam ring so there was no oil being held there, but better to go the whole way and replace it with another scraper seal with the lip facing the other way so there’s no chance of oil getting past the piston again.

Here’s a pic of the air piston showing the upper scraper seal (black) and the foam ring (yellow).

I’ll bet it wasn’t because it was incorrectly filled at the beginning – the lowers oil migrated past the air spring seal into the air chamber. This is a common fault with that era of Fox floats, causing exactly the symptoms you describe – ie. not gettig full travel, not much oil left in lowers, and too much oil in air chamber.

Simple fix is to exchange a part in the air spring, but you need to order the new part from Mojo. If you don’t fix it, same will happen again over time.

See my post on page two of this thread if you want all the gory details and pics of the offending part.

Yep, it’s a dog eat dog world out there! :lol:

Seriously though, what do you expect to find in dog food, chunks of primeAngus beef? Dogs eat other dogs in the wild, so why not re-cycle’ Tiddles and Rover into pet food…

so i’ve never really understood why they need teeth. Woulnt a plastic roller work just as well?

At risk of showing my age, I remember when jockey wheels were just rollers without teeth.

I thought shimano had done away with floating jockeys in the shadow+ mechs?

This.

Hence…

You can put in Deore, SLX, XT or XTR – only real difference is the price, except for better bearings.

… is no longer true.

Agree, its mostly about what you’re familiar with, there’s pros & cons on both sides. Personally, I’ve used Shimano cup & cone all my life and am set up with the all cone spanners, and could pretty much adjust one in my sleep.

Centrelock is a recent conversion, but now I’ve tried it I’ve converted all my wheels and won’t go back.

But yeah, its what you know and love…

PS: to the OP, if you do go with the XT, I think they’re slightly cheaper here – http://www.bike-components.de/products/info/p33628_WH-M785-XT-Disc-Center-Lock-29er-Laufradsatz-Modell-2013-.html

I got exactly those XT wheels from Bike-Discount.

Pros – proper UST rather than ‘tubeless ready’ so are a cinch to use tubeless, no need for rim strips, no sticky goo, tyres go up first time with a hand pump and stay up, and no burping. They are tough – I’m 92kg and I don’t worry about them taking the abuse I give them over jumps & rocks. I actually like cup & cone, so will put that down as a plus – so there! And centrelock rotors are definitely a better system than six bolt, so can’t agree with MrBlobby on that one. Overall I think Shimano wheels are great value compared to others out there, and they’re hand built so run strong and true.

Cons – Not particularly light – so if that’s your main criteria then look elsewhere. Shimano’s XT freehubs are cr@p – mine is already starting to feel glitchy after only six months, so I’ve ordered a spare! Proprietry spokes are difficult to get hold of and expensive – I’ve been told the ones for this wheel aren’t available until April, and are about five quid each.

On balance, I’m very happy with them, and most important they match all the other XT stuff on my bike 8)

I run a 2×9 SLX and a 2×10 XT. I wouldn’t have bothered going for the 10sp except its what the new bike came with. In fact I was that close to ‘downgrading’ it to 2×9 as I had enough spare bits lying around and wanted to standardise across the two bikes.

But… contrary to others experiences above, I was really quite impressed with the 10sp stuff! Difficult to explain, but it just seems to work better compared to my 9sp.

Think the fact that Shimano have added all their latest tech to the 10sp has something to do with it. Stuff like the I-spec shifters, different pull ratio, directional chain, clutch mechs, multi-release shifter etc. Each on their own is just a small change, but when added together the whole drivetrain just works so perfectly its a pleasure to use.

I’m also noticing the 9sp stuff is starting to disappear already, and can be more expensive than the equivalent 10sp – at least at my favourite online discount stores it is.

Funny, if you look back in my posting history I was a die hard 9sp fan, and advising people not to bother upgrading to 10sp. But now I’ve tried it I’m looking for an excuse to upgrade my remaining 9sp bike :-)

I beg to differ. The cage of my front mech is about 2mm above the outer circumference of the bash ring, and I have no problems with bad shifting or chain rub.

If you have a look at the inside profile of a 3x FD you’ll see wider ‘bits’ where the chain runs on each of the three chainrings, so you can use the whole range of the rear cassette without chain rub. In between these are narrower ‘bits’ so that the chain is guided accurately and quickly between rings during a change.

So, if you then take the big ring off, and lower the mech, the remaining two rings are still in the same place but the FD has moved in relation to them, so the chain is now running in the narrower bits when on the rings, and you’re shifting on the wide bits.

Will it still shift – yes – its not rocket science as all the FD really does is yank the chain off one ring and send it in the general direction of another, but all that clever design work and intricately shaped ramps and bumps inside the FD cage that’s there to make your shifting experience as smooth as silk, is wasted. Try putting your FD back where it was, you may be surprised…

If you’re still not convinced, ask yourself this… If my FD shifted fine between the granny and middle when I was on a triple, why would I need to move anything when I simply don’t shift into the big ring anymore?

Shimano do.

Just move your front mech closer to the middle ring

No, don’t do this. There lies the path of bad shifting and chain rub.

Just wind in the limit screw so you don’t try and shift into non-existent big ring, and maybe shorten the chain a bit, as others have suggested.

Scardeypants- Since the closure of Subic Bay US Navy base there have been a lot of highly skilled workers unemployed bar girls from Angeles City seeking employment elsewhere.

There, fixed that for you.

And Bwaarp speeaks the truth when he says…

Consequently exporting skilled workers is one of their major industries and expat nurses end up sending a lot of their money back home.

We get highly skilled foreign workers who we haven’t had to spend a dime on training and they get to boost their GDP. Win win. It does mean their health care system is pushed to the limit though.

The Philippines economy is a basket case, and they rely heavily on their expatriate workers in our hospitals, sailing half the world’s merchant ships, and working as maids and .. ahem… ‘entertainers’ in Hong Kong/Singapore to keep the country just solvent.

:lol:

Just swiped that cartoon to add to my collection…

Ah, yes, the M665. Shimano’s first attempt at a double specific MTB crank IIRC. The chainline was the same as the M660 triple, and so the M665 FD was indeed a perfect solution for triples converted to doubles.

That was all in the dim and distant days of 9 speed tho’ and now Shimano don’t offer a double and bash in their lineup (much is the pity), and the 10sp SLX and XT double groupsets are so similar that the components are pretty much interchangeable.

So, back to the OP, I guess the conclusion is that your old 3x FD will work if you just leave it where it was, or if you want to go to a double specific FD and you’re 9sp there’s only one choice – the FD-M665, but if you’re ten speed either the FD-M675 or FD-M785 will do the job.

Phew! Glad we got that one sorted out…

Ok, I’ll come clean (oh! the ironing)- you’ve shamed me into it. As my riding buddies would tell you, I am anally retentive about my chain cleanliness – and proud of it!

I put turning up for a ride with a squeaky clean chain somewhere up there with it being spotlessly clean under my foreskin – or at least I would if I had one 8O

And, yes I know that by having the words anally, foreskin, lube, and bicycle chain all in the same post, I’ve opened up a whole world of inuendo :lol:

Ah, but then we get into one of the classic circular arguments so beloved of forums like these. It goes something like this…

By posting on a thread that you feel sorry for all the poor suckers who’ve nothing better to do than endlessly debate (insert topic of your choice here), rather than doing (insert activity of your choice here) which is much more worthwhile, and so positioning yourself as being above their sorry state; you have unwittingly shown yourself as equally sad and misguided as said deadbeats, to be spending your time on the very same thread lambasting them for their harmless myopia, rather than doing aforementioned much more worthwhile activity yourself.

You then riposte that by me spending my time typing this … etc etc … and on it goes. You get the idea :lol:

sometimes I think people worry too much or read too much into stuff.

Too true!

But it’s human nature, and we’ve given it a name – displacement activity.

I read the cancer thread just now and was so shocked that rather than booking a checkup with my doctor like I should have done, I wrote a half page epic on chain lube instead! :lol:

I’d suggest there’s reasons why chain lube manufacturers don’t make lube like the chain manufacturers, but there could well be vested interests on both sides relating to selling you more lube or more transmission parts.

It’s partly about application methods. Gleitmo is only available in industrial quantities, and has to be hot dipped to penetrate into the internals of the chain. SRAM do this in their factory, but there’s very few of us who would bother to do that at home, or can afford to throw away the remaining bucket full of very expensive chian lube after dipping our one chain. Much easier to give it a squirt from a little bottle while turning the cranks!

But I also agree with with your suggestion that after market chain lube is becoming a bit of a racket. Gone are the days when we carefully applied a single drop of the precious nectar to each chain link. With the new chain lubes we’re urged to to flush the dirt away with a stream of the stuff – at how much a bottle!?!

So, who’s peddling the marketing ‘hype’ here? The chain manufacturers who provide your chain ready lubed with a high quality and expensive industrial chain lubricant, and suggest that for long service life of their product you leave it on for as long as you can. Or the aftermarket chain lubes and the bike shops that sell them, who tell us its just a storage protectant, to wash it off as soon as possible, and flood the chain with their inferior lubricant at every opportunity possible?

Simple explanation of my previous post is that each mech is designed to work on a different size set of rings, the converted triple usually being around the 22/32t size, the double 28-38t.

The specs of the M675 SLX double FD are – max ring size: 38/40, capacity: 14T, Chainline: 48.8.

The specs of the M785 XT double are – max ring size: 38/44, capacity: 14T, chainline: 48.8

Neither are ‘designed’ to work with a converted triple which has a chainline of 50 and a ring size of 32. Maybe the SLX will work slightly better with a 32 ring as it’s designed for a max ring of 40, versus the XT’s 44 – is that what you’re suggesting?

Get the best of both worlds…

As a number of people have already mentioned above, wipe clean the outside surface of the chain with a solvent to remove the sticky surface that grit adheres to, but leave the factory lube inside the bearings to do its job.

By the way, Gleitmo isn’t SRAM marketing hype, its a German made high quality industrial lubricant – try Googling it and you’ll get this description, “Lifetime lubrication of machine elements at medium and high pressure (sliding bearings, slide rails etc.) where dry lubrication and good corrosion protection are required.”

However, my feeling is that its designed for industrial applications where the components aren’t exposed to dust and grit which will stick to it. So when used in a bicycle application its best to remove the exposed outer coating first.

Don’t overlook Bike-Components.de[/url] in the roundup of good German sites.

I’ve found they’ve got a wider selection than most of the others, and don’t mind tracking down obscure little parts that aren’t in their catalogue, and they’ll price match the others too!

I tend to think that the greater presence of cancer these days is just that we’re getting better at treating all the curable diseases that used to end our lives prematurely, so now we live long enough to succumb to the inevitable…

CRCs description of that SLX is wrong – apart from having the chainline incorrect, they’ve listed a “top-middle” capacity, which only 3x mechs have.

Not surprised, there’s a bewieldering array of Shimano FDs around at the moment that it can get confusing!

No, what you need is a German to get the description right – M675 FD

The only thing I can see is that the XT is for a 48.5 chain line whereas the SLX is for a 50

Not so. The chainline of the XT double cranks (M785) and the SLX double cranks (M675) are both 48.5.

So, Coatsey, please explain…

it’s also worth noting that there are two different types of double front mechs, the SLX you’ve pointed out is for a triple minus outer ring, the XT is for a double specific design, neither will work as well on the other system.

Genuinely want to know if I’m missing something here?

Oh, and another thought…

Don’t assume you have to do it locally. I moved to Australia (with my wife and daughter) to do my degree, so it was a real breath of fresh air (literally), and I’m now going thru the process of getting residency to stay and work here.

Mind, I didn’t qualify for ‘domestic student’ rates in the UK, so it was going to be the same cost no matter where I studied. But, it doesn’t always have to be more expensive to study abroad – there’s scholarships around, and easier to work your way thru in the US and Australia than it is in the UK, partly because the system is set up that way – lots of student jobs around in Uni towns – but also just cos the economy is better…

So, if you’re gonna make a lifestyle change, why not go the whole hog and study in a whole different country…

Do it!

I went back to ‘school’ as a well mature student at the ripe old age of 47. Just finished my PhD and getting back onto the treadmill :(

Plusses:-

– Its great to get away from the office politics and endless re-organisations, and be a carefree naiive student again who thinks they can change the world!

– As a mature student you get to hit on the other students and the staff :D

– Its a great way to blow away the cobwebs of adulthood, and just enjoy the simple pleasure of learning something new again.

– Uni is so much more flexible these days, with online learning, no exams 8O if you’re lucky, and you can pretty much design your own course from what’s on offer!

Minuses:-

– It doesn’t look good on the CV, employers don’t value it, and wonder what’s wrong with you – so don’t stay there too long before you get back into the workforce.

– Pay is cr@p!