I’m thinking of how to improve and expand my DIY home mechanic setup. I have a lot of tools such as basic tools, a small torque wrench (up to 16 Nm), a professional Shimano cable cutter (specifically made to cut inner and outer cables), a Shimano bleed kit, etc.
I have a hardtail with a Shimano drivetrain and Rotor 2InPower cranks, and an aero road bike with a SRAM Force D1 drivetrain.
I am not quite sure what to get next, but here are some ideas:
a workstand (I had to leave my old one in Japan when I moved continents)
a big torque wrench (needed for my SRAM crank)
a big ultrasonic cleaner to clean cassettes and such
a hot waxing setup
a SRAM bleed kit
How would you prioritize this list? Do you see anything obvious missing from it? Should I e. g. get a cheaper version of, say, a workstand, first and then invest in something better later down the road?
I hate cleaning cassettes by hand. An ultrasonic cleaner would make quick work of that. Hence, it should be big enough for a cassette or perhaps even a chainring.
This. Since switching to hot wax my ‘cleaning kit’ is a couple stiff nylon brushes for the drivetrain that I use every six months. The rest of the bike just gets wipedowns with a damp microfiber cloth whenever it needs it.
For OP: I’d prioritize a good torque wrench and an OK workstand. Hot wax setup can be a fancy silca unit or a $15 amazon crockpot (that’s what I use), the silca is nicer but I feel no urge to upgrade. I keep a cheap bleed kit on hand for night-before-a-race emergencies if my LBS is closed, but I prefer to let them do my brake stuff so i don’t have to worry about keeping fresh dot fluid stocked (I keep a little sealed bottle for said emergencies).
If you don’t have a workstand, that would absolutely be the next step for me. Personally, I have a strong preference for Feedback’s portable stands, or Remco if you don’t mind it being stationary.
I have enjoyed a waxed chain quite a bit, personally, so that would be my top pick.
For a torque wrench as a home mechanic… Harbor Freight. Even Dave gave them a bit of credit for their accuracy in Threaded #4:
OK, all of those significant issues aside, it’s impressively good in terms of accuracy. Set to the nearest Freedom-to-the-Eagle unit of 5 Nm, I measured the wrench with a mean average of 5.08 Nm across 10 cycles (4.71 and 5.41 Nm were the min/max). Meanwhile, set at 8 Nm, I got an impressive actual mean average of 7.96 Nm!
I have 3 different ones of which I paid all of $50 for, and they cover almost every need I have on my fleet of bikes. Good enough for home mechanic work, at least.
Would you be using the ultrasonic cleaner to clean a cassette previously used in an oil-lubed drivetrain in preparation for a wax-lubed drivetrain? Using just hot water, I don’t find my small ultrasonic cleaner all that effective in removing wax from the chain so I suspect using it on a cassette from a wax-lubed drivetrain will be similar.
I don’t have an ultrasonic cleaner, but I think you’d want some kind of solvent in there for removing oil-based lube from a cassette.
That said, how worn is the cassette? As with chains, when switching from oil-based lube to wax, at some point trying to get the cassette properly clean is a false economy, and you’d be better off just replacing it with a new one, that you use with a waxed chain from the start.
I’m using drip-on wax. But still, I regularly ride on a dusty gravel road. I have used wax in the past, I just purchased very cheap pots and that worked very well. However, a cleaner solution than using cheap pots would be better.
I bleed my MTB brakes, take off cranks to clean them (at least one of them), and I will replace my first set of inner and outer cables soon. I usually do most things that are not (press-fit) bearing related, nor do I service my suspension fork. The only reason I haven’t bled my road bike brakes is that they use dot fluid and a different bleed system, and I haven’t purchased one.
I typically have my bikes checked by a LBS once a year, and typically do the rest myself.
If you are not degreasing your drivetrain components, as you might be if you are still using oil-based lube, then I don’t think an ultrasonic cleaner is all that useful. If you want to clean the dirty wax off the cassette, just dunk it in a pot of hot water.
SRAM’s bleed method uses two syringes and in the past, I would either tape or use a velcro tie to keep the caliper-side syringe upright. I recently acquired a dual-syringe kit from Redside custom tools and I find it quite handy (they are just holders for the syringes so you will still need to get the actual bleed kit):
In the past I had used an ultrasonic cleaner to help me degrease chains and cassettes: I’d fill a ziplock bag with degreaser, put the chains or cogs in there and put that in an ultrasonic cleaner filled with water. That worked very well.
It’s clear to me that if I wanted to a setup to wax chains again, I’d have to include a cleaning step. Silca’s chain waxing solution seems a tad too small. I would like to treat at least two chains at a time (I have two bikes and would opt to rotate chains).
Thanks for the link to the bleed kit, that looks much more serious than e. g. Shimano’s non-pro bleed kit.
Hi Max, long time no see! Currently in Shikoku near to Shimanto. It’s a family holiday but perfect biking terrain that you (or we) should check out one day (when it’s not 40C every day).
I’ve been waxing with the silca setup and I really like it. The pot is only big enough for one chain, but because you can just turn it on and set a timer it’s actually quite time efficient. I found the strip chips were not very good because after you’ve used one it’s hard to get the wax to chip ratio right again with the existing wax. The single solution chain stripper seems to be very good though. The best thing about waxing is that the chain is always clean to the touch.
If you’re back in Japan any time soon then it’s worth buying tools here. I got a bunch of koken stuff for my workshop. I’ll probably pick up a new torque wrench on my current trip too. Even foreign brands like PB Swiss can be much cheaper, I think a combination of the weak yen and trying to compete with the local brands.
When I switched from oil based drip to hot wax I just gave my cassette and chainrings a good wipe down with dawn powerwash and a wet rag and it was fine. People overthink this stuff.
Just being a bit flippant about frying the chain in wax, but I do use a deep fryer. I heat the wax up to the recommended temps, and lower the chain or chains (holds 2 chains with room to spare) in the basket for the recommended time and then remove the basket from the fryer. The basket is great for letting the chain cool down a bit and then I hang the chain from a nail in my floor joist and straiten it out and let it finish cooling.
