Repco Bike – the finished rebuild

I have been distracted with other things and cycling tit bits to finish off the story of the Repco MTB rebuild.

Where I left off was having a problem with getting the freewheel off and working out how to get into the axle to re-grease the bearings on the drive side that had come out of their race holder.

New freewheel

I took the wheel into the LBS and took another wheel I had spare so either way I would come out of there with a solution.

Thankfully the easiest thing to do was to put the spare wheel in the bench vice, crush the remaining part of it’s freewheel and replace it with a brand new one – cost $29.95 – phew.

So that was all I pretty much needed to get it up and running. I had totally striped it down, regreased the bottom bracket, front wheel bearings, new cables and outers, new saddle, stand and now freewheel. Putting it all back together is not so bad apart from the cheap cantilever brakes  which are a bit fiddly to set and getting the bottom bracket tightened up just enough that when the lock ring is tightened it wont get any looser. Reading some advice on that I worked out every BB is different and it’s a lot of trial and error. I don’t know if it is as perfect as I would hope but you have to let go sometime.

Happy customers

I also did a nice job painting over the scratched paintwork with a little tub of enamel model paint. The forks were in really bad shape and just looking at them now at a reasonable distance they look bloody new!

So happy customer and happy child who got to ride on her new baby seat. She was so happy she fell asleep on the ride home! I guess that is a good sign.

and now for the next job – but which one?

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