Everything's running smoothly on the tandem frame I just picked up, but when I turned it over, some runny, dirty oil came out of the frame-- and as that might indicate WD-40 or some other weirdness, I want to disassemble the frame and give it a good cleaning and frame-saver it...

I'm experienced with square taper BB's and have the basic tools for their overhaul -- what else will I need on hand to remove, clean, replace and adjust an eccentric of this make?



2002 or '03 Rhumba.

Thanks.

You want to remove the Eccentric , does it mive when you unscrew the setscrews? might be a corrosion bond issue.

maybe the attemt to loosen that bond, was less than succesful so they sold the thing instead.

.. Or do you just want to replace the Ft BB..

i was only a Short term Burly hire in 90.

ATP made the frames back then rear BB is a snap ring and Loctite holding in oversize cartridge bearings .

I got some Burly frame parts, then, to build my Touring Single..

the rear BB, not the front..

Recommend hitting the Rodbikes site as they make a high tech replacement for most other earlier ECC's and seem to have a good bit of info on earlier variations of them. Since they do a good number of burley upgrades to their new product they may have specific insight that could help you sort it out.

Overall yours looks like a nice frame.... if it gets to be too much of a hassle, PM me as I might want to add one to my collection as I don't have a Burley at this time. The size looks about right. /K

Thanks Ksisler. Everything is spinning fine, I just wanted to look into cleaning and treating the frame-- saw some rust on the canti studs and figured the whole frame would be happy with a clean up and frame saver application.

I haven't tried to do anything with it yet-- was just asking the more experienced mechanics whether they knew offhand of any special tools I would need. Guess I should poke around on youtube for how to videos and such and do my other homework, too.

I was mainly just concerned that someone might have sprayed a bunch of WD40 into the frame and that might have gotten into the works of the BB and might eventually dry it out.

IIRC the Burley used set screws working against the eccentric to hold it in place. (Sometimes the outer surface of the eccentric gets embedded by the screws and won't allow fine adjustments, filing down the contact area of the eccentric held fix this.) The usual problem is that the BB is frozen into the eccentric, not the eccentric being frozen in the shell. Is either of these going on? My Duet was the first generation and had cartridge bearings front and rear. In 15 years of use I only replaced them once, and not because they needed it. In hind sight I should have left them as was. The removal and reinstall went OK but was a pain. Lots of care to measure the axle extensions beyond the bearings outer edges to insure the same chainline after installation. LockTite to hold all in place. Done in steps so the axle didn't shift along the axle. (One bearing Locktited to the axle, the other into the shell as the first step.) Not sure how this second generation of Burley tandems were done. If you have the large cartridge bearing and they spin well/smoothly the most i would do is to pull the outer seals and flush then re grease the insides/bearings. The insides of the frame can be drained/dried out and not remove the rear bearings. If needed extra vent holes could be drilled in the stays. If the eccentric is stuck in the shell then you need to free it up. Removing the set screws and dripping in some ATF (watch the paint!) will help free it up. But in the end brute force is the usual method. Take care to isolate the bearings and the eccentric's outer edge from impact damage.

Maybe someone with more current experience will chime in. Andy.

I wouldn't worry about WD-40 being in the frame. The bearing's seal is stationary at it's outer seat. So there would have to be 3/8" of standing fluid to get to the seal seat against the rotating axle. In fact I hope some one did spray something inside the frame. More likely what you saw is the slurry of rust/grime and water that gets in a frame no matter what you do. The eccentric is usually held during the timing chain adjustment with a classic pin spanner, although I've used any number of things stuck in the side holes and a lever against the pin "tool" and the axle to rotate the eccentric. The eccentric should be removed and cleaned off then lubed before reinstalling. BTW don't go and tension up the timing chain too much. It will have tight and loose points as you spin the timing cranks. Pick the tight point and have the chain a touch loose then. Just like a coaster brake or fixed gear set up. Andy (who just did this all to his CoMotion).

Thanks, Andy.

That water issue was also my concern, so I wanted to give the frame an internal once over to keep it happy and structurally sound over its next few decades. Sounds like the pin spanner is all I'd need, and I do have one. And thanks for the tip on a jerry-rigged pin tool. I'm sure to use that one.

I've worked with chainrings to try and make adjustments to fight that out-of-round tightness and looseness in a SS CX setup, but will keep in mind the importance of not getting the timing chain too tight.

I have the frame saver on hand, and it looks like most of the tools, so I think it's worth doing. But if things are frozen up, I might just clean, dry, and treat everything, leaving the BB in place and just enjoy the bike as is without banging things around too much. Then I can fix it when it's broke...

Don't forget to mark the position of the eccentric insert, that might same some headaches at reassembly time.

Any pics of the unit is installed?

i think once the big setscrews come out, you can press the eccentric out ,

I'd remove the BB, from the eccentric first while you can stil get leverage on the whole thing.

No, that's just the seller's photo, BG. I'll put some more detailed ones up in this thread tomorrow. The snowstorm knocked out school for the entire week, so I have no classes to teach until the 25th! Time to work on bikes!!!

Good call on the leverage.