Isildur
The Real Pedant
Final Round, Fight!
A decent post coming up, given that I've documented it so much so far, you all deserve the full story if you can be bothered!
The TLDR; I have a workable fork.
Well, I'm glad to say that I'm now at the end of this little journey. Maybe not in the exact way I had hoped, but still not disastrous, and I have a workable fork. When you last heard from me, I was taking on board the many suggestions, tips and helpful hints, even having @pink poodle's backup plan on hand if it all went south and I needed to vent some anger.
Friday night started with a nice family dinner, and my lovely other half making sure she booked a movie night with our 6 year old, as she knew I was deep in this already. After dinner, I'm out to the shed, lining up what I can and going at it.
Staring off with @Oddjob's tips, I began carefully and slowly with my small Wera soft blow to fold the rest of the remaining lip, to see how the stepped bit would go, the idea to hopefully catch the folded edges and bring enough torque to spin the tool sleeve and assist it out.
Alas, while a great idea, the Chinesium was indeed too soft, and the folded bits just (slowly) ripped right off.
The good news here, I thought, was that I had better access into the sleeve, and a good clear line of sight to the 6mm hole in the bottom of the sleeve. Looking again at the blind puller set, I noticed that I it should be able to get enough in, and with a bit of careful wedging, I'd hopefully be able to tighten up the collet & expander.
Out comes the 8mm bit to slowly, carefully, widen the bolt hole, and in goes the blind puller... Wedged properly, using a bit of dowel to get the resistance to tighten it up, I then added a few drops of Tri-Flow, and went and did some other shit for an hour or so to let it penetrate as far as it could in the time I had pateince for.
When I came back into the shed, I was all full of high hopes, thinking this could be it, this could be such an easy removal, compared to the terrible drama that had occurred so far.
One pull, two pulls, and on the 3rd? You guessed it, the blind puller just pulled straight through the little bit of Chinesium it held. There goes that idea!
Tried again with a 10mm hole & puller, because why not, right? Same story, just not enough surface area and too much friction.
Ah well, I guess it's the long, slow and difficult way. Using the advice from @Mr Crudley and others, I slowly began to fold the lip in and break it off. Over and over again. Started like the below, and got about halfway through last night before calling it and going to bed.
After a day of domestic duties and early mother's day outings, I came back to it this afternoon. After more and more little bits, the I figured I'd give it one more crack with a 12mm bit into the lower hole in the sleeve, just to see what happens. It either works, or fucks it, or somewhere in between.
In between is where I ended up. The remaining 15mm or so of the tool sleeve would move downwards towards the compression plug, but when trying to pull it out, as it came up the steerer a bit it got stuck, and even Arthur would have remained a common citizen. But, it moving downwards was something! I loosened the expander plug (carefully, can't have a repeat of part one that started this whole fuckery) and moved it down the steerer tube while the fork was clamped sideways, then tightened it back up. The gently knocked the sleeve down toward that, giving me the room to reinstall the original compression plug and go back to the way it began.
Thankfully the steerer tube didn't incur any damage, from what I can feel and see. I've cleaned it out all very thoroughly, and felt for any scratching, burrs or other imperfections that would indicate weaknesses, but all seems to be OK. WIth that said, I'll still be checking the steerer every 500km or so for issues.
So, there you go. Part 4 was an epic, with a middle of the road ending.
Oh, and AliExpress was very quick to offer a full refund on the crappy tool, so that's another small win, even if I can't go about installing a second one ever in this fork!
Sorry @pink poodle, no Angry Hammer Time on this one!
A decent post coming up, given that I've documented it so much so far, you all deserve the full story if you can be bothered!
The TLDR; I have a workable fork.
Well, I'm glad to say that I'm now at the end of this little journey. Maybe not in the exact way I had hoped, but still not disastrous, and I have a workable fork. When you last heard from me, I was taking on board the many suggestions, tips and helpful hints, even having @pink poodle's backup plan on hand if it all went south and I needed to vent some anger.
Friday night started with a nice family dinner, and my lovely other half making sure she booked a movie night with our 6 year old, as she knew I was deep in this already. After dinner, I'm out to the shed, lining up what I can and going at it.
Staring off with @Oddjob's tips, I began carefully and slowly with my small Wera soft blow to fold the rest of the remaining lip, to see how the stepped bit would go, the idea to hopefully catch the folded edges and bring enough torque to spin the tool sleeve and assist it out.
Alas, while a great idea, the Chinesium was indeed too soft, and the folded bits just (slowly) ripped right off.
The good news here, I thought, was that I had better access into the sleeve, and a good clear line of sight to the 6mm hole in the bottom of the sleeve. Looking again at the blind puller set, I noticed that I it should be able to get enough in, and with a bit of careful wedging, I'd hopefully be able to tighten up the collet & expander.
Out comes the 8mm bit to slowly, carefully, widen the bolt hole, and in goes the blind puller... Wedged properly, using a bit of dowel to get the resistance to tighten it up, I then added a few drops of Tri-Flow, and went and did some other shit for an hour or so to let it penetrate as far as it could in the time I had pateince for.
When I came back into the shed, I was all full of high hopes, thinking this could be it, this could be such an easy removal, compared to the terrible drama that had occurred so far.
One pull, two pulls, and on the 3rd? You guessed it, the blind puller just pulled straight through the little bit of Chinesium it held. There goes that idea!
Tried again with a 10mm hole & puller, because why not, right? Same story, just not enough surface area and too much friction.
Ah well, I guess it's the long, slow and difficult way. Using the advice from @Mr Crudley and others, I slowly began to fold the lip in and break it off. Over and over again. Started like the below, and got about halfway through last night before calling it and going to bed.
After a day of domestic duties and early mother's day outings, I came back to it this afternoon. After more and more little bits, the I figured I'd give it one more crack with a 12mm bit into the lower hole in the sleeve, just to see what happens. It either works, or fucks it, or somewhere in between.
In between is where I ended up. The remaining 15mm or so of the tool sleeve would move downwards towards the compression plug, but when trying to pull it out, as it came up the steerer a bit it got stuck, and even Arthur would have remained a common citizen. But, it moving downwards was something! I loosened the expander plug (carefully, can't have a repeat of part one that started this whole fuckery) and moved it down the steerer tube while the fork was clamped sideways, then tightened it back up. The gently knocked the sleeve down toward that, giving me the room to reinstall the original compression plug and go back to the way it began.
Thankfully the steerer tube didn't incur any damage, from what I can feel and see. I've cleaned it out all very thoroughly, and felt for any scratching, burrs or other imperfections that would indicate weaknesses, but all seems to be OK. WIth that said, I'll still be checking the steerer every 500km or so for issues.
So, there you go. Part 4 was an epic, with a middle of the road ending.
Oh, and AliExpress was very quick to offer a full refund on the crappy tool, so that's another small win, even if I can't go about installing a second one ever in this fork!
Sorry @pink poodle, no Angry Hammer Time on this one!
