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reversing worn chainrings
- jules21
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reversing worn chainrings
Postby jules21 » Sat Jul 21, 2012 5:53 pm
i'm building a bike up out of old spares which i intend to give to my brother for a xmas pressie and am looking at whether to buy a new crankset or whether i can get away with reversing the worn rings on an old crankset.
so far i've discovered that:
1. the mounting points and teeth are not in the same plane, so when you reverse a chainring, the spacing between the next one (this is a triple chainring) goes out of kilter. i'm thinking maybe i can pack it out with a thin washer?
2. there is a pin on the outer face of the outer chainring, which seems to stop the crank arm from fouling the chain ring (can't see that happening though?) when i reverse the chainring, the pin is then on the inside and would block gear shifts between middle and outer ring. solution - 30 secs. on bench grinder
3. the chainrings have 'profile shifting' ramps or whatever shimano calls them, presumably to smoothen shifts between chainrings. reversing them would mean losing the benefit of those - no big deal i'm thinking?
has anyone else tried this? spare chainrings are not that cheap and my brother isn't about to enter the Tour de France so i thought i'd save a buck.
- trailgumby
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby trailgumby » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:00 pm

I'm not sure I'd contemplate the idea. Maybe upgrade yours now and give him your hand-me-downs

On the other hand, if you really don't like your brother ... go for it

- jules21
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby jules21 » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:05 pm
trailgumby wrote: The pin on the outside of the big ring is to stop the chain jamming under the crank on an over-shift. I managed to overshift somehow this week, with a car up my clacker. I'm very glad the pin was in the right spot.![]()
so it is.. oh well, his problem

trailgumby wrote: I'm not sure I'd contemplate the idea. Maybe upgrade yours now and give him your hand-me-downs![]()
mine's pretty new Deore. this is my commuter bike so i don't really do upgrades, it's too expensive to put quality bits on it, as i wear them out pretty quickly. chainrings last ~ 1 year.
trailgumby wrote: On the other hand, if you really don't like your brother ... go for it
could be funny

i've still got a bit of time to play around before i hand it over.
- trailgumby
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby trailgumby » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:14 pm
- jules21
- Posts: 10331
- Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:14 pm
- Location: deep in the pain cave
Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby jules21 » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:16 pm
trailgumby wrote:Maybe just stick a matching worn chain on it?
i replace my chainsets when they will not transmit any decent torque anymore, with a worn chain. they're pretty useless by that stage - they just slip.
- foo on patrol
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby foo on patrol » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:17 pm

Foo
Goal 6000km

- il padrone
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby il padrone » Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:06 pm

"An unjustified and unethical imposition on a healthy activity."
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby Mark Kelly » Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:53 pm
I did this when I was fitting new 10 speed rings to an old C-Record crankset and didn't want to pay Record prices. The C-record cranks' arm position differs from the usual crankset so the pin ended up 36 degrees out of kilter.
- rkelsen
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby rkelsen » Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:39 am
When the current one on my 1x8 setup wears out, I'm going to replace it with a stainless steel one. These have a longer life, and are reversible on top of that.
- ozdavo
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby ozdavo » Sun Jul 22, 2012 8:14 pm
- jules21
- Posts: 10331
- Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:14 pm
- Location: deep in the pain cave
Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby jules21 » Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:37 am

the chain still slips
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Re: reversing worn chainrings
Postby ironhanglider » Sun Sep 30, 2012 12:52 pm
Keep your eye out though sometimes whole cranksets on sale are cheaper. I have been known to buy a crankset just for the rings before.
Cheers,
Cameron

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