Embarrassing Build Mistakes of the Mechanical Kind

[wookiee]

Completely rebuilding and regreasing my dads headset, only to find that the problem was the front quick release was loose :facepalm:

I've done the same but only to realise that the front canti bolts were not tight enough and it was the brakes moving not the headset!

 

[lumos2000]

Okay, you're going to laugh now ...

When I started to build my old Sbike 728, I started by putting the headset cups into the frame and then inserted the fork and stem. Then I put the wheels on so I could visualize the rolling chassis.
The front one went fine, but when I wanted to insert the rear one I noticed that the dropouts were above the chaintstay instead of below it. Turns out I had put the frame upside-down in my workstand. :facepalm:

So forks out, cups out, turn frame around and do it all again, properly this time

I recently spent a good half and hour trying to thread a BB into the drive side before realizing I was working on the frame upside-down and the drive side was on the other side :facepalm:

 

[dyna-ti]

A while back I did about 200 miles thinking "this rear mech is making a lot of noise". Only realised when I stripped it down the chain went round the mech wrong and was wearing out the cage.

Done that one too!

Me also
Plus i fitted a new slx shadow on a frame but forgot to put the mech tab behine the hanger so i couldnt remove the wheel without first half removing the mech bolt.
It took me a while to work that one out and Archimedes didnt come close to my eureka moment
In my defence i thought all these shadow mechs were supposed to sit like that.

 

[ishaw]

Only last week I fitted some new wheels on my bike, put on tyres, tubes, pumped them up, all ok....

...took the bike for a test ride and had gone about 20feet when "Pfffffttt!!!!" 2 flat tyres :roll:

Discovered I'd neglected to check if rim tape was fitted, it wasn't :facepalm: cue a red face and a trip to the shop for 2 new innertubes...

I did that and ended up with a rear puncture minutes in to a ride with friends. Luckily we had some tape and fixed this. I didn't bother to check the front. I went on to complete the London to Brighton off road ride and train hope and ride to the house. Next morning I went to clean the bike (I know, I waited) and had a front puncture. Went to fix it and discovered no rim tape on the front. Somehow it lasted all that rough terrain though - phew!

 

[T'boo Ted]

Way back when, when I started riding, me and my mate used to regularly strip and rebuild out bikes...well he did it like every week, me maybe once a month. Take it all apart degrease everything, re grease headset and BB bearings (he used to do hubs as well), lube all the cables...
now days I am luck if I can be bothered to lube the chain once a year...

But i have built up a few bikes over the last few years, only things I can't do is install headset, star nut (tried), hubs and disc brakes... my yeti, and zaskar all went together lickety split, but my xizang, did the most stupidest stuff (see thread);
-went to put the anti seize on the BB, cool, only need to whip out one side to remove the bb...why won't it come even with HUGE efort... well you need to take the non drive side crank off, how I did not destroy the frame baffles me
-just the other day, was setting up the front mech, couldn't get it to wrok properly... somehow I managed to thread the downtube cable OVER the dangling full length rear brake housing (that had yet to be changed) so the brake cable was between the downtube and the mech cable... huge big thing in the way, no idea how I missed it...

So its just been stupid little things of inattention and lack of practice...

 

[aguh2]

A few weeks ago, installed new v-brakes and didn't tighten the screws. After the first 'braking test' they were hanging from the brake cable.
Built a wheel with 4x spokes on one side and 3x on the other.

 

[petitpal]

Quite a few times I've forgotton to put the brake cable back in to the other cantilever after fitting a wheel (usually the rear for some reason). Makes for interesting stopping when you hit the lever for the first time.

 

[Houlio99]

What a great thread. I bet everyone on here has at least one confession, dare they admit it?!

When I first moved to London I took my old Kona AA down. It's handlebar was too wide for cutting through traffic, so I gesstimated I could loose 8cm and still have a usable width. Without thinking too carefully I whipped the grip off one side and hacked off 8cm, all well until I realised I had to loose another 8 from the other end to even it up.

Narrow bars might be cool on fixies in East London, but they don't work on an MTB!

Doh!

 

[Kona-853]

Built a wheel with 4x spokes on one side and 3x on the other.

Not so daft, Rocky Mountain used to do it on there rear wheels.

 

[azaro]

Once went on a ride on the South Downs with an ex.
3 punctures of her front wheel later, when I'd used both spare tubes and was breaking out the repair kit, I thought I might check the inside of the tyre.
Once I'd removed the bloody great thorn, we were on our way with no more problems!