Hey everyone,
A friend of mine gave me his bike to work on and it has some major corrosion issues. The bike is a felt B2 with an aluminum steerer tube. He must have the most toxic sweat in existence. All the stem spacers were corroded to the fork so bad that they had to be cut off. After I was finally able to get the fork out, the headset bearings literally just fell apart. The problem now is that the outer bearing races (both top and bottom) are now stuck in the frame. The problem I am having is that I cannot hit them from inside the headtube because the “cups” are integrated into the frame. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting the stuck races out?
can you soak them in penetrating oil then get a long drift pin down the tube to smash on them? Knock the balls out and grab the lip with Vice Grips? Long drift in a vice, set frame on top tap with a rubber mallet? Apply some heat?
you can use your long ignition screwdriver for a drift, it’s not like we are going to be out setting the dwell angle any time soon…
Just don’t tell Sears what you did…
I bought a small cutoff wheel that uses carbide discs for my Dremmel, it’s great for dealing with crap like this or cutting carbon steer tubes or forcing parts to fit the night before the race
What a coincidence, I’m in the process of doing the same with my B2. Like your friend, I’m a “prolific” sweater, exacerbated by the fact that I live in South Carolina. I couldn’t even disassemble the bayonet: the center steerer bolt and two bolts fixing the bayonet to the fork were frozen. I took the frame to Sunshine Cycle here in Greenville, fully expecting the fork (and therefore the whole frame) to be a loss. Much to my surprise, they were able to disassemble the whole thing. They said that the races were a problem, but they got them off. Not sure how, though.
As to comments about “treating your bike like this”, unless you sweat like some of us, and live in the humidity, you can’t possibly understand how hard it is on equipment. I’m constantly cleaning, greasing, etc. during the summer months, but I can’t help destroying equipment. I replace cables + housing and chains at least twice per year, and the finish on my brakes, levers, bolts, etc. is inevitably ruined. I finally decided that I need a separate training / racing bike, so I bought a 2012 DA1 that I’ll reserve for racing (and training in winter months) and I’m rebuilding the B2 for summer training and time indoors on the trainer (even with the garage at 50F, I sweat through two shirts per hour.)