datenwalze.de

Since my Hubs are still missing, I have some blocking points at my BD Project. Hopefully they will arrive before the weekend.

So there were only a few things to do.

One part was inserting the star nut of the headset into the steerer tube. Since I have no professional tool for beating the nut into the tube I did that on my other bikes with a Long M6 (one that fits the star nut) Screw and some hex nuts, but this was anything but precise.

The BD Frame is delivered with a frame protector insert sitting in the front tube for the wideloaders. One of the alumnium parts of this inlet can do a really good job for beating the star nut into the steering tube. Just take a M6×60 bolt and screw it in from the bottom of the nut. Unfortunately, the alumnium insert has a bigger thread, but this shoud be no big deal. Put some electrical tape over the thread that pokes out of the top of the nut – to protect the threads a bit. Put the Insert over the electrical-tape-shielded thread ( with the smaller side headed to the star nut ) and hammer it into the tube. Of course, without force. If it’s in, congrats. You now won’t get the bolt out of the nut until you have a 15 inch lenght Allen Key to reach the bolt from the bottom of the fork (Did i forgot some tools you need at the beginning? ). I used an extension for hexagon bits there. Don’t forget to remove the electrical tape.

This method is is still not as precise as it would with a professional tool, but at least there is a good chance not to destroy the nut. Use at your own risk. You’ll think you have it: Don’t do that on a fork where the steering tube is not accessible from the bottom.

I had another idea to get the the star nut into the steering tube: Takes an M6×200 (!) Bolt and a big shin (placed at the bottom of the steering tube) to pull the bolt from the top to the bottom into the tube. I see two con’s here: Your dealer will laugh at you if you ask him for a M6×200 bolt, and it might be possible that the thread of the nut will be destroyed doing so. Perhaps there are threaded bars in that length…

Back to the BD: Installed the Handlebar without cutting the fork. That needs about 7,5cm ( 3 inches) of spacers between threadset and bearing cup (using a common stem). It’s a good idea not to shorten the steering tube before having ridden the bike for a while. Simply put some of the spacers top of the stem to lower the handlebar. I put the stem at the top trying to achieve a comfortable sitting position.

My Dealer that sold the Frame to me temporarily attached a silver stem with a 5-pointed star logo on it (to fix the fork to the frame for transportation) . Dunno what type it was but weight was about one third of my 60mm Bontrager stem. Nevertheless, I gave it back to him today

Let’s see what the next days ( and especially DHL ) will bring….

Tags: Bike // Add Comment »