Not too many folks seem to do their own wrenching, but perhaps that might change if people know how easy and cost effective it can be. I found a few of my friends passed on it b/c they thought the cost would be too prohibitive. In point of fact you can have all you need to do just about everthing for less than an LBS charges for a single bike build. My friend had her P2 serviced by the LBS last week in a pinch when I was traveling. Drilled her for $170 and replaced her chain which had about 2K miles on it so sayeth her computer, all new cables and housing. All she had was a shifting problem that needed a barrel adjustment. Arrrrgh it kills me to see that!
What are some of the wrench crowd’s tools and fixes that have worked well for ya?
My crown race setter is a piece of PVC that I matched by taking an old race into Lowe’s. Works so well it’s hilarious.An old $5 bearing splitter from an auto shop to pull crown races
Steerer tubes are cut with a $4 pipe cutter that works beautifully
When it was all said and done I helped my pal outfit his garage to do everything sans bearing press work: Total cost of $340 including a used Park Tool stand off CraigsList.
So if you have a neat tool, fix or mod please feel free to share the knowledge!
You should do some reading on bearing presses (at least as they relate to the older-style external headsets). A wooden block and a rubber mallet (with a soft touch) will serve you quite well in lieu of an expensive headset press. I’m not ham-handed. I just removed an old external headset with a large, flat-head screw driver and a wooden mallet. It takes a few minutes of careful-but-determined whacking. But once they start to move, they’ve given up the ghost. Putting the new ones in was a bit of a trick getting them started, but again, once they got fully inside the headset and started to move, it was a piece of cake. It was so simple it was ridiculous that I ever considered an expensive bearing press. Learned it from a buddy who prides himself on being an expert “ghetto” mechanic.
There’s very little I won’t tackle on my own. This stuff is so simple and, for the cost of one decent wheel these days, you can have a very well-equipped home shop.
Nobody cares about your equipment or your welfare as much as you do. Some of this stuff … I think people are out of their minds to entrust it to some kid down at the local shop who probably knows next-to-nothing about wrenching.
I saw a few ideas for that in Instructables.com, but quite honestly I can’t think why I would need a bearing press at this stage in the game. Great stuff though thanks!
My buddy nearly crapped when we added up his known LBS maintenance bills from the past couple of years. He is now totally self sufficient AND it’s done right!
I set my last Chris King HS and PF30 BB with a rubber mallet and a sixpack. Got a Torque wrench at Harbor freight for about $14 and all my allen keys there too.
Here’s a recycled post from a different thread, showing my ghetto headset press and crown race setter…
The top contraption is the cup press, which is just a foot or so of 1/2" threaded rod with a nut at each end (one locking, one plain) and some stacked washers of various diameters to step from the nuts to the cup diameter. Simply operate with a couple large crescent wrenches. The duct tape wraps form a couple arbors to keep the thing centered vertically in the HT, and prevent the threads from scraping the inside edges of the HT when sliding it in or out. Whole thing cost less than $10 easily.
The gold-colored tube in the middle is a proper shop crown race setter for 1" steerers that I got years ago, which still wasn’t all that expensive, but really it’s just a simple pipe with some knurling on one end for grip. When it came to getting one for 1-1/8", I just got a $2 section of 1-1/4" steel plumbing pipe from the hardware store. The only catch with that is I use an old 1-1/8" spacer between the race and the pipe so the lip of the pipe doesn’t mar the race (the only real advantage of the shop tool is it has a smoother finished lip) and the spacer is a bit thicker to make contact more squarely with the race (we all have some spare alum spacers floating around since we saved 0.2g by swapping for extra blingy carbon spacers, right?). The steel pipe has enough mass I can usually punch the race on just holding the fork in my other hand, but if it’s a little more stubborn I have a rubber shop mat to stand the fork on to brace against without slamming the tips directly onto the concrete floor. In that regard it’s actually superior to the shop tool which is some sort of lighter alloy.
Also, where’d you get the torque wrench from? That’s a hell of a deal!
I bought my torque wrenches from Harbour Freight. I think they were $25-$30 for both of them (high range and low range). I got the idea from the owner of Franco Bikes. He used to be an exec at HF and said they worked great. He was certainly right. I’ve had them for 3 years without any issues… And more importantly no cracked carbon parts!
Here’s a recycled post from a different thread, showing my ghetto headset press and crown race setter…
The top contraption is the cup press, which is just a foot or so of 1/2" threaded rod with a nut at each end (one locking, one plain) and some stacked washers of various diameters to step from the nuts to the cup diameter. Simply operate with a couple large crescent wrenches. The duct tape wraps form a couple arbors to keep the thing centered vertically in the HT, and prevent the threads from scraping the inside edges of the HT when sliding it in or out. Whole thing cost less than $10 easily.
The gold-colored tube in the middle is a proper shop crown race setter for 1" steerers that I got years ago, which still wasn’t all that expensive, but really it’s just a simple pipe with some knurling on one end for grip. When it came to getting one for 1-1/8", I just got a $2 section of 1-1/4" steel plumbing pipe from the hardware store. The only catch with that is I use an old 1-1/8" spacer between the race and the pipe so the lip of the pipe doesn’t mar the race (the only real advantage of the shop tool is it has a smoother finished lip) and the spacer is a bit thicker to make contact more squarely with the race (we all have some spare alum spacers floating around since we saved 0.2g by swapping for extra blingy carbon spacers, right?). The steel pipe has enough mass I can usually punch the race on just holding the fork in my other hand, but if it’s a little more stubborn I have a rubber shop mat to stand the fork on to brace against without slamming the tips directly onto the concrete floor. In that regard it’s actually superior to the shop tool which is some sort of lighter alloy.
Do you do that for carbon and steel? Once I figured out I could leave the fork in with an alloy I started doing it that way, but that 2 stem deal is nice too. Most of you do it yourselfers probably know this one, but to set a star fangled nut lower a used CO2 cartridge works great. Tap down to desired length, double check with stem in place. Once you are good on depth, pull the stem off and use a hand held pipe cutter…voila! All while still in the head tube:)
This isn’t quite as ghetto as some on this thread, but I’ve been really well served by a headset press, crown race setter, cup remover, etc. that I picked up on ebay. It looks like the guy still sells them. here’s a link.
MUCH cheaper than the Park or Pedro’s and well made. The CNC’d aluminum press drivers and crown race setter are the only really custom things here, but they’re effective in combination with the other standard hardware.
When I worked at bike shops in college I bought a few special and expensive tools (the Park TS-2 truing stand, dish gauge, rear derailleur hanger straightener), but 80% of the work I do is done with a few hex wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, side cutters, and good cable/housing cutters. For a few more bucks you can pick up a cassette removal tool, cheap chain whip (or make one), and chain tool and you’re set to save thousands of dollars in repair costs.
For those who don’t know what they’re doing, the Park Tool website has great instructions for almost anything you’ll have to do.
You can use the back side of vice grips to beat on stuck parts while swearing. I got a crown race remover off ebay that someone made from copper pipe, it works better than a large screwdriver.
One thing I have been using a lot is a double sided mallet with rubber and urethane heads.
That is gold thanks. Saved his ebay page as it looks like he is in the tool biz for the long haul. I think it’s been 10 years since I have even thought about needing a press, but never know. Thanks again that is sweet!
