|   surgery: the tale of a DIY EBB conversion | Chequama Mama
Sep 12, 2002 8:58 PM | |
Karl and I gathered on Tuesday night to perform surgery.
Our unsuspecting victim: A Gary Fisher Marlin frame acquired in a trade
with our own loonyone.
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Here's a "before" picture
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When I got to Karls, we made a very crude jig, not
even as nice as the method reccomended by crazymike. Then we proceded
to hacksaw the shell out of the way of the holesaw. Here's me doing
exactly that.
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After we got the frame hacksawed, it looked like this
(sorry about the lame pictures, I got this digital camera the same day and
I'm still learning how exactly it works, especially macro mode).
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Then we got everything set in the drillpress and cut
away.
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After cutting it looked a little somethin' like this
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And here we are ready to braze
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Here's a couple of shots part way through the
brazing
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Here's Karl with the frame
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And then I spent hours filing away excess brazing
material and it started to look like this.
I'm leaving for Italy and running out of time, so final cleanup on the rest
of the brazing will happen when I get back.
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And here it is built back up again
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The results.
Overall the frame works fine and I love the bottom bracket. It's very
sweet how it works. The chain tension couldn't be easier. Very
cool. When we checked the alignment of the frame overall, the rear
dropouts were out of alignment by less than 5mm, who knows where they were
before. The frame passes the "riding no hands standing up" test, so
we didn't mess anything up royally. The alignment of the BB is off
somewhat, but I don't notice it riding.
What would we change if we did it again?
First off, a better jig. This would solve the alignment of the BB issue
and speed the process up somewhat We have a bunch of ideas about how
to do that.
Second, cutting the BB out with the hacksaw was somewhat problematic. For
the most part it was ok, but the chainstays didn't cut well at all with the
holesaw and we ended up just shaping them with the grinder. Before
we gave up with the holesaw we took a nice chunk out of one of them, which
we had to patch during brazing. We would also look for a finer toothed
holesaw, if they're available. We think that would probably help with
the chainstays.
Karl admits that he's not a master brazer, so that would probably go smoother
next time
The price that Wade (Vulture) charges is very sweet given the level of precision
he brings to the operation (not that this was ever in question).
Would I do it again? Yes, but never to the 'Cuda which is my favorite
bike. I would do it to another townie, or second frame that's just
sitting around, not something that you love dearly or has any sentimental
value. (Wade, you may be getting a call from me next spring about the 'Cuda)
If anyone has any questions, feel free to email me @either the address on
my name or chequama_mama@hotmail.com. As I mentioned I'm leaving for
Italy (as of Saturday I won't have a computer), and won't have any email
for about a week, so I might not get back to you real promptly, but I will
eventually. Oh and if anyone here who knows more about this than I
do (and there are probably lots of you) thinks I said something flat out
wrong say so, I don't want to tell people totally incorrect stuff. I
definitely won't be offended, I"m just learning, but its cool stuff. (anyone
need an intern/apprentice next summer?)
Paul
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