I've decided to make a page about my Fuji. Perhaps other bikes in the garage will follow, perhaps not. I have two main reasons for this: 1) It's a hobby. 2) Perhaps others can benefit from my experiences.
How and why I came to own this bike.
Prior to this past summer ('09), I had not really ridden a bike regularly since before I could drive. Two realities convinced me that it might be a good thing to take it up again: First, it really hit me this summer that I am getting old, and am horribly out of shape. I want to fix the out-of-shape part of that. Secondly, my old (and perhaps genetically inferior) legs balked heavily at my first choice of exercise - running.
I really did want running to work for me. Back in my youth, I could run just like any other kid on the playground, but twenty years later, despite trying to gently ease myself into motion (walk-run-walk-run-walk-run), my shins protested.
'86 Fuji Palisade
Having failed at my first choice, I decided to try the cycling thing. In my garage, I had the choice of my old Huffy Stalker mountain bike (complete with a baby seat), or my wife's little Jamis Dakota mountain bike. Neither was a good choice for my tall self on paved roads, but at least I discovered that I could enjoy biking without complaints from my body.
Once I had proven that, I decided that perhaps an actual road bike would be in order. New models were hard to justify, starting near $500, so late in the summer I headed over to the local Christian charity thrift store. They had some Schwinns, a Panasonic, and this Fuji. The Fuji felt the lightest, and had brand new tires. Sold, for $65. I realize that I could have probably found a better deal, but hey, it's a charity and my time is worth something too.
Since buying this bike, I have learned a lot about bikes in general and the Fuji Palisade in specific. As best I can tell from old catalog scans and the serial number, mine is an '86. The SN indicates late 1985, but the 1985 catalog does not include a Palisade. The 1986 catalog does, and the pictures look right. Based on the same catalog, the Palisade of that era was one of Fuji's better entry-level bikes. It features a "single butted" frame of Valite tubing. Valite is apparently a vanadium steel alloy. I'm not sure exactly how that compares to chromoly tubing, but it seems to be a definite step up from high tension steel. The fork is just high tension steel however. All shifters and derailleurs are Suntour. Crank is Sugino. Stem and handlebar are Nitto. The rear hub is a Japanese Sansin, while the front is a French Maillard (pronounced "My yard", as best I can tell). The front rim is also French, a Rigida. The rear rim is Japanese. Looks like the front wheel was swapped in from a French bike at some point. The tires are Kenda, and still have the nubbies on them. Both wheels have quick-releases. The brake system is Dia-Compe.
I'd never ridden a road bike before. The two things that I really had to get used to were the narrow drop handlebars and shifters on the stem. The handlebars I have grown to appreciate. The stem shifters still freak me out just a bit. No other bike I've ridden has required me to remove my hand from the handlebar to shift. I am doing it, but I am not yet comfortable doing it. The shifters are friction (no indexing), which I am used to, but indexing would have been nice to help minimize time spent riding one-handed. Perhaps those are something worth looking at upgrading in the future.
Front hub rebuild
Having never owned a bike with quick-release wheels before, I decided to pull off the front wheel and see how that deal worked. Quick releases are great, but the bearings sounded a little crunchy as I turned the axle. The wheel spun well on the bike, but things are far more noticeable when turning an axle with your fingers.
I had greased the front hub on my old Huffy many years ago, so I just refreshed my memory with some online tutorials and went to work. Rather than spending money on a set of cone wrenches, I adapted some flat stamped steel wrenches that I already had. Everything came apart and cleaned up nicely. Unfortunately, one of the cones was somewhat pitted. The cups were fine, however.
Cleaned Maillard hub
It was at this point that I first noted that I was dealing with a French Maillard hub. It's a neat design, with a two-piece dust-shield system. Part of it is pressed into the hub (as is common), and part of it is pressed onto the cone (not so common), and the two interlock somewhat when assembled. Pretty slick. Turns out that it's also pretty hard to find parts for anymore. I tried three of the local bike shops. The third shop had two suggestions: Just run the bearing loose, or re-assemble the hub with some polishing compound on that side, ride a few miles, and see how things look then.
It hadn't crossed my mind that I could use the hub as it was, or that I could try to resurface the cone myself. After some pondering, I decided to stop driving around searching, and start grinding. I carefully chucked the axle (with cone firmly attached) into my 3/8" drill. I took some emery cloth and wrapped it around a screwdriver shaft to form an abrasive rod. Then I ran the drill with one hand, and carefully held the emery cloth to the cone with the other. I followed that up with a cloth and some polishing compound. I did not take off so much material that I actually got rid of all pitting, because I did not want to risk making the cone at all oblong, or misshapen. My goal was just to improve the surface somewhat. Then I went ahead and assembled the bearing with some of the same polishing compound on that side, and spun the assembly with the drill (using an old ball-point pen chucked into the drill, and poked into the hollow axle). I would have ridden the bike, but this was late fall, and there was snow on the roads. Once I took everything back apart, I was more-or-less satisfied with the finish. Pits remained visible, but diminished, and there was a nice polished wear pattern from the polishing compound. Good enough for what it is. Hopefully.
Maillard cones and axle (both
cones were black, but one turned
silver when resurfaced)
Since an abrasive compound had been used, I cleaned everything up again thoroughly. Once that was done, I reassembled everything using new ball bearings and water-proof marine wheel bearing grease. The old bearings looked fine, but I didn't trust them after running them through the polishing compound. The marine wheel bearing grease seems like an odd choice, but it is rumored to be remarkably similar to the real (and far more expensive) bike grease. I used Citgo grease, and found it very nice to work with. It's blue/green, tacky (holds bearings in place nicely while assembling), and not overly slimy or difficult to remove from skin. I whittled a chopstick down into a flat-ended tool for applying grease to the cups, and that worked well.
Since I had the wheel off anyway, I went ahead and wiped down the rim, and spent far too long polishing surface corrosion off of spokes. It did clean up pretty well.
Once assembled and clean, I put it back in the fork for adjustment. One thing that I was unaware of until recently is that a quick-release axle will actually compress slightly when installed. This affects the tightness of the bearings, and so adjustments must be made either with the wheel on the bike, or on a fixture to simulate being clamped in a bike. Everyone seems to have a method of their own, but generally it's as simple as making it so that there is a little bit of play in the axle while not under pressure, but such a small amount that it goes away when installed. And, of course, it should spin very freely. Considering the parts I had to work with, I think I got it pretty close. I will be sure to check it after I ride it a few miles, as I expect it to loosen up just a little bit.
Rear hub rebuild
Since the front hub was in somewhat poor condition, I figured it was probably a good time to check out the condition of the rear wheel assembly as well.
So, off came the wheel. That is a little more of a challenge than the front, because you have to deal with the chain and derailer, but not too bad with the quick release. Being an old bike, it has the old style freewheel, and not a modern cassette. Both look the same and do roughly the same job. A freewheel consists of both the ratchet mechanism and sprockets and screws directly onto the hub. A cassette is just the series of sprockets, and is held on to the ratcheting mechanism on the hub with a locking clip or something similar. This is only relevant to rebuilding the hub because of how much easier it would be if the freewheel was off. Unfortunately, that takes some special tools. Fortunately, it can be done with the freewheel intact. It just involves some serious reaching to clean out the bearing cup on that side, to fill it with grease, and to ever-so-carefully stick the bearings in place.
First things first though. With the wheel off, I had to create another cone wrench to fit this hub. Fortunately I had yet another old thin wrench that I could adapt. Then I pulled it apart. This hub looked to be slightly more worn overall than the front, but not at all pitted, thankfully. The whole assembly of the Sansin rear seems to be of slightly lower quality than the Maillard in the front. As best I could tell, the grease was 20+ years old. It had to be scraped away, even after soaking things with WD-40 for a day. Rags wrapped around a chopstick worked well for the hard-to-reach side.
While the wheel was off anyway, I took the time to straighten the stamped steel chain/wheel guard where it had been severely bent at some point in time. The freewheel was also feeling a bit gummed up and noisy. The approved method for lubing that bearing is to drip oil into it while spinning the wheel (or freewheel) to distribute the oil. When the oil gets inside as far as the ratchet pawl, you notice a change in the sound of the clicking. That's enough oil. Spin it a little more for good measure, and that's done. Oil seems like under-kill for a bearing like that, but from what I read, they aren't worth disassembling, which would be necessary for grease. If I was thinking, I might have used gear lube instead of motor oil. Maybe next time. Even with just the motor oil, the freewheel bearing is freed up and spins very well now, while the ratchet mechanism is a bit quieter.
As with the front wheel, I spent some time cleaning up the rim and spokes, though not as much time as I spent on the front.
Back to the hub itself, I gave it one final cleaning with some alcohol, applied grease, and assembled. The chopstick was vital for the rear, as was the really tacky grease. With the freewheel in place, I had to stick each ball bearing onto the end of the chopstick with a dab of grease, lower it in place, and stick it in the cup. I reused the old ball bearings after inspecting them closely.
I got the adjustment close, and then put the wheel on the bike. The adjustment should be done with the chain off, so that you can more easily gauge how freely the hub turns, without the added drag of the freewheel internals. Once I got that all set and tightened, the wheel came back off and was reinstalled with the chain in place. And, that's that. Once I get to ride a few miles, I will have to recheck the adjustment.
Bottom-bracket rebuild
The bottom-bracket bearing had some play in it since I bought it. That's never a good thing, so I rebuilt it. Coming from working on cheap bikes with one-piece cranks, the three-piece crank/bottom-bracket assembly concept was somewhat foreign to me. Once you know how it works though, it's simple enough.
First, the cranks had to come off. The dust-covers come off easily with a screwdriver to reveal a retaining nut or bolt, which also comes off easily. The cranks, however, do not come off easily without a special tool - the crank puller. A crank puller just screws into the internal threads of the crank (where that dust cover had been), and then an internal screw on the puller pushes against the axle the crank is stuck on. There is no non-destructive way to remove cranks without that tool, so I bought one and used it.
Home-made spanner
and locking ring
Once the cranks were off, that left the bottom-bracket itself. Disassembly requires one to loosen a locking ring on the non-drive side, and then unscrew the adjustable bearing cup (bottom-brackets are opposite of wheel hubs, in that the cups are on the outside, and cones inside). Unfortunately, again, removal of this locking ring without making a mess of it (not to mention tightening it with any measure of precision) requires a special spanner wrench. Fortunately, using a Dremel tool and a file, I was able to make one for free out of an old table-saw blade wrench. See photo.
The axle
Using the home-made spanner, I removed the locking ring and adjustable cup. With the locking ring no longer tight, the adjustable cup just spins out without much force. I think I used my fingers, and maybe an occasional tap with a screwdriver. Then I was able to pull out the axle. The axle has integrated "cones", where the ball bearings ride. Naturally, when all of this comes apart, the ball bearings fall out. Sometimes, these bearings are caged, but mine were loose (which is better, since you can fit in one more ball without a cage). In my case, the grease was crusty enough that they had to be pried or pushed out. This completed the disassembly, as the opposite (drive-side) cup can stay in the frame.
Cup and ring, inside
Cup and ring, outside
Next, I cleaned everything up using rags, WD-40, chopsticks, and the like. Everything cleaned up well, and nothing was too worn to re-use. I also took the opportunity to clean up the cranks and chain-rings, and the lower area of the frame, since it's much easier while everything is apart.
New bearings inside
the bottom-bracket
Reassembly was reverse of disassembly. I used new ball-bearings, because the old ones did show some wear, and because they are cheap. The final adjustment, much like the wheel hubs, is an attempt to get it to that perfect point where there is neither play, nor friction. Unlike the wheel hubs though, the locking ring pulls the adjustable cup away from the bearing, making it looser. You have to over-tighten the cup slightly, tighten the locking ring, and hope that the end result is perfection. With the old parts I was working with, perfection wasn't possible. I decided to err on the tight side, since then at least all of the ball-bearings are supporting the (slightly increased) load.
All finished then! I can now ride as much as I like, without feeling guilty about riding on a loose bottom-bracket.
Derailer-Bracket Straightening
The derailer on this bike (which I am intentionally spelling in the less common, less French, but perfectly acceptable way) has always been bent inward toward the rear wheel. It worked that way, more or less. It was noticeably less than smooth. The additional angles and twists that the chain had to negotiate made it very difficult to get the friction shifters in just the right spot for quiet operation. In some gears, it was actually impossible.
On one of my recent trips to a local bike shop, I asked what the charge might be to straighten a bent derailer-hanger. Unlike a cheap Wal*Mart bike, the hanger is an integral part of the frame. It can't just be replaced, it must be un-bent. The price to have that done would be about $25-30. The professional tool, if I wanted to buy it for myself, runs around $60. Neither of those seemed like great options for my relatively inexpensive bike and tight budget.
Some research on the internet yielded a few other options that have worked for other cheapskates. One was to use a fine-threaded 10mm bolt, threaded into the frame in place of the derailer, as a lever to push/pull things back into place. I don't have a 10mm fine-threaded bolt. The other method was to remove the derailer and use a simple adjustable wrench to crudely apply force in the general direction that it needs to bend. I have one of those, so I did just that.
The results are probably not perfect, but a definite and obvious improvement. The resulting, more correct, position of the derailer necessitated some serious adjustments to the end-of-travel screws. This tells me that it had been bent long enough before I bought it, that someone had actually made adjustments to compensate for it.
I am still quite amazed at how much nicer the bike shifts and how much smoother the drivetrain is. For the amount of time spent on it, this is probably the biggest single improvement I've made.
What's next
The bike is in pretty good shape now. Some possible future tweaks and improvements: The seat is rather hard. Maybe I have to ride more often and grow accustomed to it, or maybe it's really just too hard. Also, the wheels are not perfectly true, so there is some room for improvement there. Otherwise, it's time to ride and enjoy, I think.
To be Continued...