Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Update on the bike

Well yesterday while my wife was out with some friends I spent the afternoon finishing up my wheel truing stand. I pulled the front wheel off and placed it in the truing stand and started truing it in. I got it pretty true, but was still having some issues. So when I looked more closely, I noticed the hub was wiggling.

I dug into my bicyle magazine illustrated guide that I picked up from the library, and I took apart the hub(without cone wrenches I might add). Wow! The grease was pitch black, the balls and races were still ok, without a ton of wear, but there was petrified grease on the cone that wouldn't come off with just a rag, so I had to scrape it off with the edge of a plastic knife! I ended up getting it all out and sparkling clean inside and outside. The rim looks really good right now.

Since my original plan didn't include tearing down the hub, yesterday at performance I only purchased dry chain lube and their house brand spoke wrenches(works great by the way 14.99 for a set of three vs. 6.99 ea for the park brand which looks identical).

Today when they open I will be going back for grease and cone wrenches. Hopefully once I get it back together and adjusted it will spin like the well oiled/greased machine it should be.

Next weekend I'll probably pick up the tools to tear apart the rear wheel.

Do I sense the pride of accomplishment? Well done!

Feels good to get something accomplished and make improvements!!

My sense of accomplishment was very short lived! After coming home and reassembling the front wheel, I tore into the rear wheel. The threads on the axle under where the freehub sits are completely flattened! :( I'm not sure what caused this or why, but I'm definitely going to replace the axle, bearings (their trashed) and maybe the freehub as well. Still not 100% sure on that. Gonna ask a couple questions in the mechanics forum.

So if anyone is keeping tabs I've purchased the following from performance:

cone wrench set 29.99
cassette lockring tool 4.99
chainwhip 11.99
polylube 100 4.99
spokewrench set 11.99

So that's about $64 I've got in tools, and the only remaining tools I see myself buying are a 10 mm allen wrench (my biggest is 8MM), chainbreaker and the associated bottom bearing tools. Throw in another $15.00 if you want to include the wheel truing stand, but I didn't need to buy that, I could have used the bike, it was just a luxury.

I looked at buying one of those race team sets of tools, but I couldn't justify it as it had a lot of stuff you just don't need for working on these bikes. All in all I'll probably come out close to the $110 that the shop was going to charge me for labor, but I'll own the tools, and could probably make some money back working on my friends bike if I wasn't a softy and didn't charge people for working on anything.

My next big splurge will probably be a work stand, just for the coolness and simplicity. again it's not needed. A couple cup hooks and some rope would work fine.

The axle needs to be fixed if I understand your post. The good thing is they aren't holding your bike for ransom.