Rebuild or upgrade or......?

robklancs

I have been given a giant OCR, it's maybe 10-12 years old and runs 7 speed sora. It will be used as a winter and turbo bike so I'm not too fussed about having any good components on it.

The first problem I have is that it is a triple, yet there are no spacers between the big and middle ring so it's impossible to get the chain into the middle ring as they are flush so no room for the chain to get on. How this happened, I don't know. Can these be bought?

Second problem.... And this is where I am stuck as to upgrade it or not,...it is a square taper bottom bracket, how likely is it I can change the bottom bracket type ( with the aim of upgrading everything to ten speed, I know this involves a near complete groupset change).

Third problem....., I'm sure I can see a screw on cassette behind all the muck and grease, what do I need to change to get a normal cassette on their?

Cheers for any help and advice.

Yossie

I have an OCR 4 that is 7/8 years old as the winter hack/turbo bike.

All modern components fit straight on (I'm actually taking off 2 year old 105 and refitting the Sora 7 speed as I type), its going back to square taper. All the 105 is going on the new lessshitty weather winter bike.

Octalink b/b go straight on and you can still get loads of cool stuff for Octalink, so if you want a new crank shop away at next to nothing prices. Otherwise shop around, you can still get cool square taper stuff if you look around (FSA used to do carbon square taper cranks) or go second hand for Dura Ace/Record if you're feeling flush.

Re spacers: just use some washers and space out until all works ok.

Re the cassette: you may need to throw a newer rear wheel on depending on what speed cassette you want but if staying 7 speed for the winter/turbo either track down an older Aksium (places like CRC have these kicking around in their clearance bits) or scum bay, but normal caveats apply.

Monty Dog

Post a piccie of your chainset / chainrings - sounds like a bodge - the outer and middle rings should be clamped either side of the crank spider and in the inner has it's own mounts. A decent LBS will stock a range of chainring spacers if needed - washers are too big.

Plenty of square taper BB's and cranks still out there in all sizes. A Stronglight triple chainset and BB can be had for less than £100 and is 10 speed compatible - just fitted one to a friend's bike.

It will almost certainly be a cassette / freehub, not freewheel - again a photo will confirm.

keef66

It's possible the middle chainring's been taken off and installed the wrong way round.

Should be fairly easy to tell if it's a screw-on freewheel or a cassette when you take out the wheel and clean it up a bit. 7 speed so it could be either.

What's the rear spacing on the frame?

robklancs

So I solved part of the problem, I foundnew 7 speed square taper chainset in the shedI now just need to remove the non drive crank as I don't have the tool for that.

Hers are the pics if the supposed triple chainset
And the cassette

keef66

I think the crankset is academic; the 2 biggest chainrings are pretty badly worn.

Still hard to tell with all that crap on it but it looks like you might have a freewheel there. Clean it up and post a shiny pic.