Bike maintenance

Hadgfeet

I have had my bike for a while now but its just been in the shed. I am soon starting to ride again, I was going start again not long ago but other things got in the way and I had to postphone. At the moment I have got to sort out the disk brakes as they are bust and get a new inner tube on the rear. My dad has give me some new tires so I don't need to worry about that but, what else would I need to do? I have Marzocchi bomber 03 forks but they seem a little 'loose' and go down a lot more than I think they should, when I pedal on it they move a lot. Do they need repair? Would there be any other things that would be good to do to get the bike in better shape? General maintenance is what I want to do.

Any help would be great!
Tom

P.S. A picture of my bike

cooldad

Useful site

YeehaaMcgee

Something doesn't look right with the front end, it looks like the forks have been bent at the crown - they're not parallell with the headtube.

father_jack

Could just be camera lens or because looking down on it?

Twelly

Yeah, look at the bricks on the wall, they are not straight either.

Lens has a slight fisheye effect

YeehaaMcgee

Hmm, it may be an optical illusion, but the lines in the brickwork look (to me) as if they're distorting in the opposite direction!

Twelly

Look at the top edge of the picture and the line of bricks underneath, they are arched like a rainbow shape whereas the bottom line on the floor arches up like a smile. Its like the cenbtre of the photo is magnified, pushing everything else out - making the fork look bent.

I don't think any of this is helping with the OP's maintenance problems....

YeehaaMcgee

TwellySmat wrote:

I don't think any of this is helping with the OP's maintenance problems....

Well, I incorrectly thoguht the forks were bent, which would have been an useful thing to point out with regards to maintenance - as in, you need to bin the forks.
Turns out it's just a really shonky camera

Twelly

You need to bin your camera!

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father_jack

If your saddle was angled any higher your bike would be in the adult section.

Hadgfeet

Its a wide angle lens, not the camera don't worry hahaha and the seat does need changing position. The brakes are going to be the worst part. I think I will need new ones but will I need new disks?

The Rookie

Only if the discs are damaged in some way, otherwise no.....

What is wrong with the brakes?

The Forks could probably do with a service (or at least topping up with damper oil), download the relevant tech manual from the Mazza webby!

Hadgfeet

Discs seem fine, could do with a clean but that's nothing, and the brakes are just old, the pads were old and dirty and this has made all the metal around it really dirty/rusty. My dad works an engineer in a bike shop so hes going to take them in the shop and have a look at them.

Ill take a look at manual. Do they go back as far as 2003?

The Rookie

2003 tech doc range
http://www.marzocchi.com/template/listM ... K&idC=1592

hucking_fell

I had that frame. It cost me £60 new. It came without decals though. Got it to replace a GT idrive that I snapped doing daft jumps at a local quarry. It's indestructible. It's also 14" and my feet kept rubbing the front tyre, even with 130mm dropoff forks. It's now my 11 year old son's bike, with different bits on it. Happy days

edit - there you go:

Hadgfeet

Hucking Fell wrote:

I had that frame. It cost me £60 new. It came without decals though. Got it to replace a GT idrive that I snapped doing daft jumps at a local quarry. It's indestructible. It's also 14" and my feet kept rubbing the front tyre, even with 130mm dropoff forks. It's now my 11 year old son's bike, with different bits on it. Happy days

edit - there you go:

How good is this bike for jumps? I want to be able to do big stuff on it but I need to learn that yet