So, I figured today was a great day to just put a new shift cable for the front derailleur on my old Bushpilot commuter. I ended up realigning the front derailleur, greasing the barrel adjuster, lubing the shifter mechanism, cleaning the gear display and generally tweaking it to as much perfection as Alivio will give you. Sweet. Wait a minute, that front brake is dragging a bit…
And so it started. While contemplating simply aligning the caliper, I finally got tired of also looking at my cruddy and generally poor working Suntour fork. So, off comes the caliper, the fork lowers and fender are stripped in a complete unit. Pulled the seals and cleaned things up to see what I’ve got. Total mess of I’m not sure what in the lowers. Water, grease, rust, aluminum something-or-other and road debris. OK, rinse that out and clean the bushings. Not as much wear as I was expecting. Cool. Cleaned the seals up nicely and they are fine. Which is good. I wasn’t going to replace them. Now, the stanchions are another story altogether.
The part that contacts the bushings while riding 99% of the time was pretty rough and pitted, specially on one side. Poop. Well, got some rougher emery cloth, knocked it down a bit and got rid of the rust. Then proceeded to work my way down to finer and finer sandpaper. I filled the roughness with clear nailpolish, and when it dried, took it down to 800 grit wet/dry paper and polished it up right nice like. Smoooooth, baby.
Greased the seals a bit, slid them on the stanchions, greased the stanchions and the lower bushings, slid the lowers on, tightened them up, seated the seals and gave it a squish by hand while it was hanging in the stand. Buttery! Perfect.
With the caliper hanging, I removed the pads, deglazed them, cleaned the caliper and crosshatched the rotor. Greased all the hardware, set the brakes up, and away we go.
So, a few minutes job turned into a bunch of Christmas carols in the basement. But, it rides so nice now, I might not ditch the fork for a rigid until the spring. Maybe…
Anyone spand a long time with a “simple”, initially, repair?