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Taking a Bicycle Apart Building custom bicycles is a great hobby that can be learned by anyone with a desire to create. The skills needed to dismant...
Figure 1 shows the most commonly available and inexpensive mountain bike available today, the all-steel frame suspension mountain bike from the local...
Starting with the front of the bicycle, Figure 2 shows the parts that you should get to know by name. As per the letters, the components are: A) Han...
The most common components you will find at the rear of a bicycle are shown in Figure 3, and as per the letters, the components are: A) Suspension g...
The rear derailleur pulls the chain around the rear chainring as shown in Figure 4. Because the chain must keep tension no matter which chainring it ...
Remove the front wheel by loosening the two axle nuts so it can fall out for the fork dropouts. Of course, you must first release the front brake pad...
The rear wheel will come free from the rear dropouts once the rear axle nuts are loosened and the rear derailleur is pulled back as shown in Figure 6...
The chain can also be removed from the frame by taking out one of the links. A chain breaking tool (Figure 7) is highly recommended, as it is inexpen...
The rear derailleur is held to the frame either by the rear axle nut or by its own bolt threaded into a tab on the frame. Before it can be removed, t...
Remove the pedals by placing a box wrench on the pedal stud as shown in Figure 9. The pedal on the right side (chainring side) has a normal thread, s...
Do not forget about the left hand thread on the non-chainring side of the crank set, or you will be hammering on the wrench all night without any suc...
The crank arms on three-piece cranks set are fastened to an axle by a bolt through the centers. As shown in Figure 11, the small plastic cap must by ...
The crank axle will either have a nut or a bolt, but both threads are normal threads, so the wrench will turn counterclockwise to loosen the part. Fi...
The crank arm may be another stubborn part to remove, especially of some corrosion has built up between the axle and the crank arm. Use a long bolt, ...
Usually, handle grips can be removed by forcing them off from the inside edge. Of course, they may be glued on, or so stuck that you have to use the ...
The handlebars are held in place by the clamp at the end of the gooseneck, and can be removed by loosening the nut as shown in the upper half of Figu...
A common "newbie" mistake is to loosen the gooseneck bolt as shown in the last photo, then start cranking the handlebars left and right, while trying...
As you can see in Figure 17, the wedge shaped clamp will slide along the angled cut, creating a tremendous amount of friction in the fork stem, holdi...
Removal of the seat and seat post is nothing special – just loosen the nut that holds the clamp around the seat tube to release the seat post. It is ...
The front forks have a threaded stem and are held in place by a threaded bearing race, a lock washer, and a top nut. The top nut can be removed by tu...
The fork bearings will fall out of the head tube cups once the forks have been removed. As shown in Figure 20, the bearings have two sides, a ball si...
The fork hardware is shown in Figure 21. There will always be two bearings of equal size, a bearing race (larger ring), a lock washer (thin ring), an...
Often, you will need to remove the head tube cups to weld or cut a head tube. Simply bang them out from the inside of the head tube as shown in Figur...
The head tube cups shown in Figure 23 have two different heights. The larger cup is for the bottom of the head tube and the smaller one is for the to...
The rear suspension spring is held in place by the gussets on the frame and rear triangle by a pair of hollow bolts. Simply find the appropriate size...
If your frame has rear suspension, then the entire rear triangle will come free from the frame by removing the bolt that holds it onto the pivot tube...
Figure 26 shows the rear suspension pivot parts once they are removed. The small tube that is welded to the frame has a pair of plastic plugs that ac...
To remove the bottom bracket hardware, start by loosening the locking ring on the left side of the frame by turning it counter clockwise as shown in ...
Once the locking ring is removed, the bottom bracket bearing cup will also unscrew from the left side of the bottom bracket shell in the counter cloc...
Once you get bitten by the bicycle building bug, you will want to increase the size of your junk pile so you can spend more time building and less ti...
An angle grinder is a must for this hobby. This simple and inexpensive tool will be your most used weapon, and can reduce a frame into its individual...
If you plan to build your own custom frames, then you will need the basic building blocks. You could actually purchase new frame components, but I he...
With a pile of scrap bicycle parts at your disposal, and an angle grinder ready to slice and dice, all you need is the magical box shown in Figure 3...
In addition to that basic welder, you will need a box of rod or wire (depending on your choice of welder), a pair of decent work gloves, a chipping h...
Even if you have never taken a bicycle apart or handled an angle grinder, you can learn all of the skills needed in order to create your own recumben...
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