Re: Dawes Ranger - Respray & new build
Finally getting near to finishing this build after a couple of years! Only really been concentrating on it over the past 3 or 4 months. And what problems I've had with it.
1. Ordered some lovely Nitto Bulmoose handlebars from Planet X, but for some reason they would only slide a third of the way into fork riser before stopping. Eventually had to resort to slowly filing the stem fitting to narrow it and then chopping six inches off it in order to get bars low enough. The headtube appears to be slightly narrower in the middle, there were no blockages.
2. The goddamn brake braze-ons seem to have been placed about 2 or 3mm too high, tried 3 different sets of cantilever brakes, and they all (at the lowest possible position) had the brake blocks set a smidgen too high on the 26" rims and rubbing against the tyres. Finally found some black Shimano Deore ones that (just about) missed the tyres and seem to work but the clearance is very, very tight on fully inflated 2" tyres.
3. The rear hub was about 2mm to wide to comfortably fit into the drop outs without some serious leverage. Spent a couple of weeks slowly trying to cold set the drop outs, but they wouldn't budge, just snapped back to the same width whatever method I used (and I googled all the methods). Eventually bit the bullet and disassembled the whole hub and by mixing out various washer sizes managed to lose a couple of mm on the axle width without it poking out of the dropouts.
4. Finally, all is done. Except every chain I have is too short - the rear chain stays are really, really flipping long, they go on for ever. Just have to buy a new chain. Then I'll stick some pictures up.
