I have been needing to do a full service on my rear derailleur for the longest of times now.
My poor excuse for postponing the task, has been the lack of ownership of a pair of quicklink pliers to split the chain. Fiddling around trying to push the links together by hand or with regular pliers or bits of wire is such a faff.

So this weekend I bit the bullet, rummaged around in my box of cutoffs for suitable material to make a proper tool. An hour later, with the aid of a hacksaw, a file, a drill, a pop rivet and some rubber pipe, I had turned a length of 15mm box section into this magnificent weapon.


Chain off, I could then get on with the actual mission. Remove, dismantle, clean, re-grease everything in/on the derailleur.


Then reassemble and re-install the rear derailleur. Jobs a good'n.

I can appreciate a good homemade tool.

My shock was leaking air for months. I would just pump it up every ride because I didn't want to pay to have the entire thing disassembled to replace the leaking seal. Eventually took it in, bike shop considered it a guarantee on their prior servicing work and repaired it for free.




I've also been meaning to replace the 8 speed chain that's on my chain whip for YEARS now.

AgrAde wrote:My shock was leaking air for months. I would just pump it up every ride because I didn't want to pay to have the entire thing disassembled to replace the leaking seal.

Always worth trying letting the air out and checking the valve core is tight.

That's worth sending into GCN's Hack or Bodge!
A decent Hack. Missing one thing - some "branding".

Velocipedestrian wrote:

AgrAde wrote:My shock was leaking air for months. I would just pump it up every ride because I didn't want to pay to have the entire thing disassembled to replace the leaking seal.

Always worth trying letting the air out and checking the valve core is tight.

Indeed, it was.

Rik wrote:Fiddling around trying to push the links together by hand or with regular pliers or bits of wire is such a faff.

Saw this the other day (not this actual video, this video is painful and slow - but the concept is there) - would be a good trailside hack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlgTEd_WTFc