Robin Hood

Is this a standard arrangement and is there a standard 3-pronged tool to go with it?





I'm no mechanic but I really don't think there should be that gap between the black disc and the chrome ring in the middle pic!

smallwheeler

cpg

Robin Hood. Ignore smallwheeler's attempt at not very welcoming response to a new forum member, I don't think its meant to be offensive but it is a peculiar way of expressing thoughts that are perhaps best kept to himself.
First thing, lift the front of the bike off the floor and holding the handlebar stem or forks somewhere close to the headset, give a wiggle. If there is side to side slack or play then the headset needs tightening. Is the steering too stiff? If the bearings feel fine then I wouldn't worry about the gap you mentioned. If it does need adjustment then looking at the photos, there is what could be a threaded lock ring (the thing with 3 notches around the outside). It looks to me like you need a special tool to slacken or tighten the lockring. The downside is I suspect that its an arrangement that only the manufacturer of the bike uses, might be worth looking on ebay for the tool. You could try a hammer and drift in the notches but be prepared to make a mess of the lock ring and not get very far.
Good luck.

fietsbob

More standard regular threaded headset , & stering post is fixed with a quill , bolt head inside the hinge,

As Said Above determine If the headset preload is actually loose .. If IABDF..
this gap, itself, is not something you should lose sleep over ..

Sure its Taiwan ROC? where the majority of nicer bikes come out of these days?

not PRC the mainland .. Taiwan is a multi party Government..


BTW if loose The fall back shop tool is a drift punch and a hammer , to bang obsolete lockrings around.

IDK what tools your local bike shop may have..

Robin Hood

No offence taken, and anyway I can give as good as I get. So, I'd like to thank smallwheeler for quoting the OP as I would otherwise have no idea whose post he was referring to
Yes, your assumptions are correct and I have succeeded in tightening it previously using a spanner taken from a small angle grinder, but I can no longer tighten it that way. I also tried a hammer and an old thin chisel, but couldn't drive it round that way either; that's why I was seeking the correct tool.
I wasn't expecting advice from so close to home on this global site!

mconlonx

Doesn't help at all that's it's recessed, eh? I would definitely take the whole deal to a bike shop that's been around for a while and see if they have the correct tool or something which might be close.

smallwheeler

that's refreshing! and obviously no offense was intended. it's a joke.

as far as that headset goes, mconlonx, as usual, has the right answer.

Robin Hood

I have to disagree as that would be throwing good money after bad

Do you actually ride that thing in your avatar?

smallwheeler

off you go then. the charming and helpful staff are waiting to greet you.



yes i do ride that "thing" with great pleasure. coincidentally, made in UK...

Robin Hood

Well, we do make the best folders in the World, don't we?

BTW that's cpg's tip - we have our own in Mansfield. I could just about ride it there(with a bit of luck), but how would I get back?

fietsbob

You capable of making your own tool ? A pipe of steel and a bench vise and a bunch of time on a file may do
file down the edge leaving 3 pins sticking up. drill a hole thru the pipe and make a cross bar handle ..

you could also do a lot of work with a grinder on the edge of a big enough socket .. then use a ratchet wrench ..


Bodging special tools, out of other common parts is an International practice..


but your first question was just what it looked like, not saying if it was loose ,

if it works? ignore whjat it looks like. go have a drink instead

cpg

Thanks for link Smallwheeler but myself and Robin Hood are both in Nottinghamshire County so that link is no use to either of us as its for Nottingham City. Yes, I think the photo is of my local tip. Any way enough taking rubbish.
I agree with fietsbob, don't throw it away Robin, make the tool yourself. Consider using an old 1/2 inch drive socket of the correct size and grind it away to form teeth that will engage in the slots.

smallwheeler

thanks for technically correcting that bit of friendly humor, cpg.

btw, whatever happened to that bickerton? was my photoshop work, designed to inspire you, to no avail?

cpg

I finished the Bickerton the other week, I was waiting for a plumber friend to come up with the goods, a valve handle. In the end i had to go with somthing a thinner than your suggestion because after trying somthing similar, the crank kept catching on it. I will post a photo on the Bickerton thread.

smallwheeler

very cool. i look forward to seeing that!

Robin Hood

The cross section of that pipe would need to be of a precise diameter, and the steel thick enough for the resulting tabs to be robust enough. I've had a good look through all my old tools and the biggest socket I have is 30mm, but even that is too small. It wasn't a futile exercise though because I rediscovered an old flat spanner, unused this century. It's wide and of 4mm thick steel and I hit on the idea of drilling three holes into it at the requisite distances. I should then be able to push thin bolts through, each secured by a nut on the other side. If it works, I'll proudly post a pic of the contraption here (when I've discovered how to make the pics a decent size)

cpg

That sounds like a good plan, good luck with that. Looking forward to the photos, I had a magnifying glass somewhere, I shall go find it

mconlonx

I'm not talking about throwing any money at it, good or bad. Just suggesting that an established shop that's been a while may have the tool you're looking for or something which would work. We have a whole drawer full of obsolete tools which comes in handy... when people bring in something vintage like your folder. I've never charged anyone for merely checking to see if we have a tool which could deal with a vintage part, and if it's not too busy, have no objection to a customer using one of our stands to make a relatively simple adjustment. YMMV...

If the hammer and drift thing isn't working, is it possible that nut and lockring assembly is bottoming out where the threads end on the fork...?

Robin Hood

Can I find out simply by turning the lock ring anti-clockwise and removing it? All I know about this part of a bike is that there must be a cup of ball bearings down there somewhere!
Not quite sure what you mean by 'bottoming out'. I assume you're North American; is it what we call 'stripping' of the thread?

cpg

Oh, did I say that out loud.

smallwheeler

busted.

fietsbob

not if you mean the thread is destroyed ..

Bottoming out is like when you drilled a blind hole part way into something so its a hole with a bottom to it

threading it takes a non tapered Bottoming Tap


if its a 6mm deep hole and you put a 10mm long bolt into it it will stop when it hits the bottom.

mconlonx

No, more like: has the bottom most nut has reached the end of the threaded portion of the fork steerer and is running into the unthreaded portion without having cinched up that space?

jur

That looks very much like the early Dahons. I had one with a wobbly stem. Couldn't budge that bloody nut. Gave up and sold it.

wilfried

For the record, by all accounts, Sturmey Archer hubs now produced in Taiwan are far higher quality than the ones produced in Nottingham after the '60s. They had to junk the machinery they bought and shipped from Nottingham because it was too decrepit and out of date. Sturmey Archer ran itself into the ground, and the Taiwanese saved the product and the brand, so who produces junk? The idea that Taiwan is where you go for cheap labor and cheap goods is more than a generation out of date. It's a thoroughly modern, developed, democratic, high tech sort of place with a skilled workforce producing lots of high quality goods. So let's watch how we cast aspersions, shall we?