Bike Forums - New Old Bike Day!

Here she be, a 97ish Mongoose Maneuver. Altus/SIS with Shimano EZ-fire shifters, 18.5in full cro-mo steel frame and ridged fork. She had been sitting outside leaned up against a shed for the last three years of her life, prior to that she occupied the basement for 4 years. So give or take it had been 7 years of neglect with 3 years of super neglect. She was all mine for the price of a computer repair. I took the computer home with me, spent 15 minutes restoring a .dll file from a recovery disk, then set about repairing the bicycle.

*Disclaimer, I am not a mechanic. I do not posses many bike tools but believe with a little ingenuity, elbow grease, and reckless desire to impose my will on whatever gets in my way I can do anything. Remember clydes, if the ladies don’t find you attractive they should at least find you handy :thumb:, follow these repair techniques at your own risk. Don’t PM me saying I broke your bike*

With three years in the rain, snow, and sun it is not a stretch of the imagination that some things were not right. For starters, flat tires, seized front brake, non functioning rear derailleur, rear brake cable that pulled once and promptly froze, three chain links so badly rusted together I couldn’t even budge them with a hammer or pliers, and out of true wheels along with some minor surface rust and sun spots.

The flat tires were promptly repaired by adding air, oh boy that was a head scratcher. Once inflated to 70psi I carefully went over them looking for any type of crack or indication of dry rot. Much to my surprise, none, the tubes and tires on an 11-year-old bike are still in good shape.

The front brake was repaired by removing the bolt that holds the cable in place, taking the cable completely off, removing the cable sheathing, and applying axel grease. No, that’s not the right way to do that but the grease was handy and it works so…:rolleyes:. I do believe someone attempted to repair the front brake before and failed miserably which quite possibly lead to this bike sitting in a basement. I believe this because the anchoring nut required an American allen wrench and the rear required a metric wrench. Thanks to fellow clyde forum poster vXhanz I was able to acquire an American allen key set. In addition to this when removing the cable I found that it is attached to a large mallet looking thingy (<<be wary of technical jargon :lol:) that sits in a yoke inside the brake lever assembly. This yoke has a clearly defined inlet and cable routing recess which the previous repairman clearly could not comprehend. Once the cable was rerouted, lubed, pulled tight, then had the screws tightened that control the brake boss return snap, they were alive and well again.

The rear brake was repaired the exact same way except I didn’t have to take the mallet out of yoke.

The rear derailleur was fixed with a generous dose of WD-40 (GASP, Oh no he Dit-int) and a good whap or two with a rubber mallet. Once it was broken free I lubed the heck out of it’s pulleys, spring, and anything else that moved on it.

Now to the chain. I tried playing nice with various lubes and penetrating oil, I tried using force with a hammer, pliers, and even channel locks, alas my efforts were in vain. I even tried Ether as I found an old bottle of starting fluid in my garage. Nothing. I’m not sure if the ether did anything but it did make me feel a little buzzed. Next time I better have a little better ventilation. Eventually I was forced to push a pin out, remove the chain, and soak it in a mixture of motor oil, penetrating oil, and ether because…well why not. It sat for three days and still the chain links would not budge. Ok, fine, I’ll just push those darn links out and axel grease em. I did just that and only managed to completely push out one link. Now I’m not one to admit defeat and run out and buy a new chain after all that effort. With a progressive drill bit to make the hole in one side a wee bit bigger, a vice grip and a channel lock I managed to force that pin back in while the chain was threaded on the bike. That was an accomplishment for me. Oh, if you ever have to use a braking tool make sure you don’t push that pin out. There is no way you will get it back in on the road side. Once the chain was back together I was able to rotate the cranks and make the necessary barrel adjustments to get the upper and lower limit back in line. One might be inclined to believe the adjustments were necessary due to a recent incident with a rubber mallet but I don’t know what your talking about.

I trued up the wheels as best I could, it really wasn’t that hard and if you read up on some of Mr. Beanz posts he tells you exactly how to do it. Loosen the spoke on the other side, tighten on the offending side 1/8 of a turn at a time. Easy enough just time consuming.

So here she is in all her glory, Evil Red in the background does not seem to be all that impressed:

*see attachment 1*

In this pose the Goose is attempting to be sexy. Notice the huge riser on those bars, a little bit pointy if you ask me, try not to fall on it.

*see attachment 2*

And some markings showing numbers, sun spots, and spilled lubricant likely from the rear brake job.

*see attachment 3*

I’ve done a couple trips around the block and she rides smooth as butter. Those big ole tires and steel frame soak up a bunch of road buzz. With no suspension I find that she climbs quite well too.