Old bike pulls to the left

gandhi

My old bike pulls to the left nearly all the time. Does anyone have any suggestions of things that I should check?

Background - for people who care
I have a really nice old (I think no newer than 1968, but I'm not sure) Triumph Touriste 10 speed bike, which I got for £10 as something to leave outside the pub. I've had it for a while now, and I'd quite like to turn it into a fixed gear. I don't want to spend ages doing a conversion if there's something seriously wrong with the frame

jpembroke

I imagine your headset has gone. When the bearings get really worn, steering can get very, er, notchy. I had a headset that got so bad that I only had 3 steering position.

Either that or there's something very odd going on with the frame/fork alignment.

Be good for track racing though.

gandhi

Thanks.

If that's the case, how easy is it to fix? Could I just take it all out and give it a clean? Will I be able to get new bearings for the non-standard (Raleigh I think) headset?

bagpusscp

Must be an Old Labour Machine. :roll:

NervexProf

Remove stem and bars, flush headset with parrafin, set new, medium grade grease in lower and upper head race and fit new bearings - available here: http://tiny.cc/U4899

A 40 minute job...result should remedy leftward lean!

Cost: less than a fiver!

Go fix it!

NervexProf

Remove stem and bars, flush headset with parrafin, set new, medium grade grease in lower and upper head race and fit new bearings - available here: http://tiny.cc/U4899

A 40 minute job...result should remedy leftward lean!

Cost: less than a fiver!

Go fix it!

s.frisby

Would I be correct in assuming that the rear wheel is correctly fitted into the frame and that the frame is "square"

gandhi

I've had a look at the head set, and I don't think that it's worn. It looked nearly new, just a tiny bit of dirty grease. I cleaned and regreased it anyway, but there was no improvement.

I've tried the rear wheel at a few different angles, and there was no difference (I was pretty surprised about that one). I'm not sure that the frame is square, does anyone have any ideas how to check?

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Rinkydink

Loop a piece of string from one rear dropout, up around the headset and down to the other rear dropout. the gap from the string to the seattube should be the same side to side within a few mm.

I guess you could do something similar with the forks over the stem but neither will measure a twist in the frame, just a bend.

Your rear wheel may be out of dish too if that helps.

Failing that, are you balanced? You say you use this bike to go to the pub

Hope that helps,

Rinkydink

gandhi

The bike is bent by nearly 2 cm.

So what should I do with it now then? Is there a way to bend it back, or should I bin it / learn to deal with it?

Rinkydink

If you feel confident enough, you could put the BB in a vise and bend/push the rear end of the bike back to straight (it is more likely that the thinner, weaker rear triangle was bent over than the front triangle) most steel frames can be "cold worked" quite easily without compromising strength.

Alternatively, if you don't want to do it yourself, take it to a good framebuilder and they will do the same thing, but they will have lots more tools to check the final allignment. I took one of my bikes to Argos in Bristol after it had an argument with a 1 ton industrial compressor (and lost!) and it was the work of minutes to tweak it back to normal, cost, £25

If the bike cost you £10, I'd do it myself, if it goes wrong, you could split the bike for parts and hang the frame on the wall if it's pretty

Good luck,

Rinkydink