[oyvind]

What can I say!?!!?

After yesterdays ride I discovered massive play in the main pivot on my 5 Spot. Got hold of some new bushings and started working on it this evening.

After 10 minutes I was done. This is great! It's really good to see manufacturers making superb performing bikes that's as easy to work on as they are fun to ride.

Yeah!

 

[tscheezy]

I'm curious what vintage your Spot is? My 3rd-quarter-of-'03 'Spot arrived with a run of funky bushings from Igus, as did an aftermarket batch that I installed in my XCE in Sept of '03. On the XCE I noticed play within 1 month of the install, and my Spot had play afte 6 months of use. Now, 18 months after replacing the defective replacements in the XCE, and 12 months after replacing the defective original bushings in the Spot, things are still rock solid.

 

[mike67]

Bushing question

While we're on the subject - I was foolin with my rocker plates over the weekend, and noticed I could easily push the internals (metal axle type thing inside of bushings) out of the pivots. It happened while swapping plates, the axle thing popped right out the side. When it's all bolted together and properly torqued, there isn't any noticable slop. BTW this is on a brand new frame. Is this normal? This never happed on my other Turner....

 

[oyvind]

I'm curious what vintage your Spot is? My 3rd-quarter-of-'03 'Spot arrived with a run of funky bushings from Igus, as did an aftermarket batch that I installed in my XCE in Sept of '03. On the XCE I noticed play within 1 month of the install, and my Spot had play afte 6 months of use. Now, 18 months after replacing the defective replacements in the XCE, and 12 months after replacing the defective original bushings in the Spot, things are still rock solid.

It's an 03 model (got it in June I think). I've ridden it continously for 2 1/2 years now, done the regular maintainance like greasing the pivots and keeping everything clean.

I've had no problems at all what so ever. During the summer it's fairly dry here in Oslo, Norway, but in the spring and autumn the bike sees a lot of mud.

I'm impressed.

 

[tscheezy]

While we're on the subject - I was foolin with my rocker plates over the weekend, and noticed I could easily push the internals (metal axle type thing inside of bushings) out of the pivots. Is this normal?

I have noticed that some shafts are a b!tch to push out, and some will exit with moderate finger pressure. The pivot shell, the Igus bushing, and the pivot shaft all have acceptable +/- tolerance ranges around the target spec. If you had a combo where the shell was at the wide end, the bushing at the thin end, and the shaft at the skinny end, but ALL were still WITHIN the tolerance range, the shaft would slide out easily. Note that nothing is out of the allowable tolerance, but things are not pucker-tight. The opposite could happen where the shell is narrow, the bushing thick, and the shaft fat, but still within tolerances, but the shaft is in there snug. It's all "normal," I guess.

 

[Renegade]

to add to what tscheezy said; you have a few components that all have tolerance ranges, so you have a pivot system that now has a stack up that can easily amount to several thousanths of an inch. If when your rockers are all bolted together, and you feel no slop, IMO, I won't worry about it.

 

[mike67]

pivots

Thanks for the info tscheezy and Renegade!
I'm not too worried about it, all went back together fine.
Do you guys recommend using a thread lock on the pivot bolts? loc-tite, which one?
thanks!

 

[Renegade]

Thanks for the info tscheezy and Renegade!
I'm not too worried about it, all went back together fine.
Do you guys recommend using a thread lock on the pivot bolts? loc-tite, which one?
thanks!

check out tscheezy's signature; it's a link to a website that will tell you all you need to kno about torquing and loctite. use blue loctite [which is removable with tools. DO NOT use red loctite!

 

[Blue Shorts]

While we're on the subject - I was foolin with my rocker plates over the weekend, and noticed I could easily push the internals (metal axle type thing inside of bushings) out of the pivots. It happened while swapping plates, the axle thing popped right out the side. When it's all bolted together and properly torqued, there isn't any noticable slop. BTW this is on a brand new frame. Is this normal? This never happed on my other Turner....

I got my Spot in May of '03. I'm still using the original bushings and shafts. The shaft (axle) slides out with virtually no pressure at the seat tube rocker pivot. The seat stay rocker pivot axle is a bit tighter...and the main pivot feels like new....way tight. I don't notice any play when it's assembled. The frame is going on 2 years now....and it's still great.