Early 50s La Gazelle - Eau-de-Nil 🛠️ The Merlot Aftermath 🍷

Guinessisgoodforyou said:
A heavier post with a thicker wall will act as a mandral if you chamfer the end and grease it. Buy a gash modern post
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Heavier steel 26.2mm traditional "candle stick" style post was ordered earlier in the week and is on it's way to me.

🛠️ First step is to clean up the seat-tube internal diameter and get a torch down there. Had a rummage to see if I had a flappy sand paper disk or wire circular brush but nothing in the right size or with a long enough shaft. Just made my own cleaner out of various bits. Will do it with the bike upside down.

1665830846455.png

Second step is to see if the new post will be a good fit and I'm worrying too much about any roundness distortion at the top of the seat-tube; if it starts binding > 80mm down I will leave it be and just cut the bottom of the seat-post down. If it starts to bind < 80mm I will use the seat-post as a mandral like you suggest with some slide hammer type modification.

The outside seat-tube diameter is 28mm, internal 26.2mm which means a nominal wall thickness of 0.9mm - not a great lot of lard would be left if it was reamed out so I'm going to avoid this fix. If this doesn't work out, I will do the same as @M_Chavez - 26.2mm to 25.4mm alloy shim and move on.
 
Woz said:
Heavier steel 26.2mm traditional "candle stick" style post was ordered earlier in the week and is on it's way to me.

🛠️ First step is to clean up the seat-tube internal diameter and get a torch down there. Had a rummage to see if I had a flappy sand paper disk or wire circular brush but nothing in the right size or with a long enough shaft. Just made my own cleaner out of various bits. Will do it with the bike upside down.

View attachment 671177

Second step is to see if the new post will be a good fit and I'm worrying too much about any roundness distortion at the top of the seat-tube; if it starts binding > 80mm down I will leave it be and just cut the bottom of the seat-post down. If it starts to bind < 80mm I will use the seat-post as a mandral like you suggest with some slide hammer type modification.

The outside seat-tube diameter is 28mm, internal 26.2mm which means a nominal wall thickness of 0.9mm - not a great lot of lard would be left if it was reamed out so I'm going to avoid this fix. If this doesn't work out, I will do the same as @M_Chavez - 26.2mm to 25.4mm alloy shim and move on.
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Ingenuity to the fore again.
 
One homemade slide hammer. Using the old seat-post, 8mm threaded rod, 14mm diameter copper pipe off-cut ,a few washers, nuts and an eye nut and it seems to work - more weight at the top would be better though.

I can only trust one small section of the old seat-post for 26.2mm but it's helping to figure out the problem. There's definitely something a miss with the seat-lug which seems the narrowest part and having a good poke and feel it's ovalised and not totally smooth throughout.

So looks like it will be a combination of mandral and some gentle filing.

1665843405002.png
 
Woz said:
When 5 becomes 3 .....

Had a bit of time today to fiddle with the Simplex rear mech contraption. A French hub with a French Maillard 5 speed freewheel popped into the La Gazelle, the chain and contraption dripping in WD40 could have been so beautiful if it all worked. But it doesn't. I've said this before, never listen to @Mickeyspinn , and then when it goes tits up you have to listen to him. He sent me some reading material to study Simplex TdF which is great, and early on here suggested I rebuild it before trying it.

I get 3 decent shifts, and two half-arsed shifts at each end of the freewheel. It all looks wrong. The top jockey wheel as a lot of slop and the cage appears dangerously close to the spokes. Plus there isn't enough tension, the chain droops on the small chainring and smaller sprockets. The gap between the small sprocket and drop-out is big enough to get two London buses through it. Of course, I don't have that particular type of Maillard freewheel remover (24 spline) either to put a spacer behind it if needs be.

View attachment 669171 View attachment 669172


This is going to be involved, fiddly and time consuming - I'm convinced it is set-up for a 4 speed freewheel, but it should be able to do 5 speed. There is plenty of lever throw available. Wondering if it's Simplexy best Nurse Ratched gives me an electric lobotomy to get it all over and done with.
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Have you got this set up correctly, the jockey wheel at the end of the spring is the lower one, the other one should be above it, the opposite of what you think it should be if that makes sense...👍

Screenshot_20221016-064819~2.png
 
@vcballbat - Yep. It all looked wrong, and didn't work.

Going back to how I found the bike, I sent @Mickeyspinn a picture and he already picked up the chain was routed wrong and could have explained why there were no wheels and why it was unloved. Rebuilding it and following the instructions was the way to go as he suggested in the first place - it solved it all.

They are confusing as hell, you have to think twice with them. Instead of "top" or "bottom" pulley wheel, it's best to talk about the one connected to the plunger that actually does the chain derailing (compare with top pulley wheel on a modern Shimano), and the other that takes care of chain wrap (compare with B tension adjuster for top pully wheel on a modern Shimano). The main chain tension is done by the spring arm connected to the frame (compare with cage spring tension in the lower knuckle for the bottom pulley wheel on a modern Shimano).

Before:

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After:

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