dsprehe89

So this past weekend I bought a Raleigh Capri off of craigslist for $30. It appeared to be in great shape, rode and shifted great. The owner said that he had bought it new back in the day and had only road it for probably 30-45 miles then put it up in storage (and it looked just like that)

Well, the over the past weekend I put close to 40 miles on the bike and besides the rear wheel (which is getting replaced) not being able to handle my weight and bending a little (can easily be trued) the bike performed flawlessly. Until, I went to take off in my lowest gears 1-1 and the chain jumped off of the front derailleur and caused me to flip the bike right in the middle of a 4 way stop intersection.

I believe that the problem is that when I am in my lowest gears that the chain is at an extreme angle with the cogs and when I put to much force on it it jumps off (will attache a photo after I get back to my apartment and can take one). The problem with this for me is that there are quite a few hugh hills in the town where I live and I really need my lowest gears to climb them and any time you are climbing you are putting quite a bit of force on the crank and so it jump off at pretty much every hill I go up.

Have any of you ever had an issue like this before? And besides replacing the BB with a shorter length one is there anything else any of you think I can do to fix this issue?

Terror_in_pink

That extreme angle is called cross chaining. You should adjust your FD. Also, you don't really want to cross chain, it stresses your chain rings, chain and cogs. Why not get a bigger cassette and long cage RD?

Terror_in_pink

Also, if you have trim, you might be able to adjust your FD manually in the mean time, so you don't drop your chain again.

FrenchFit 

Yikes, there are severals things in your message that just don't make sense. Anyway, if you are cross chaining, i.e. using the big front chainring when you ought to be in the smaller one or the reverse, then you are asking for problems. Otherwise, a worn chain can cause slipping, poorly adjusted limit screws on the FD can cause the chain to jump off right or left. Otherwise, what you are talking about is "chain suck", and there are a bunch of threads on this forum about how to diagnose and fix the problem. I could be as simple as replacing your chain.

dsprehe89

I am planning on putting a new rear rim on the bike later this week when it comes in, but the issue with putting a bigger freewheel on it is that I would have to put a wider axle in the rear rim and when I put it on it would slightly bend my rear swingarm (or whatever its called). I believe that the gap I have on my rear is 120mm and to put a bigger 6-7 speed freewheel on it would require a 125-130mm axle. Would that damage the frame at all to put a slightly larger axle in the rear and just force it? It is a steel frame by the way and not aluminum.

Also, I have adjusted my FD lower limit just about as much as I can without it rubbing the chain while I am in first.

dsprehe89

I am running the smallest front chainring (first gear) in front and the largest (first gear) in rear, so it is a gear combo that is supposed to be made to go together. I might just try a new chain and see what that does for it.

Homebrew01

Is anything bent ? Pedal backwards by hand and make sure the front chainrings are not wobbling side to side.

dsprehe89

Yes, after looking at it closely the front chainrings are bent...

I'm gonna try to add an image, never done this before so I don't know if its gonna work.

It's not that great of an image, but you can kind of see how the chain is at an angle.

I am already planning on replacing my rear wheel and freewheel, I guess I will just have to look into replacing my crank and possibly my BB. For now I'll just ride in higher gears.

Thanks for all the help