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Removing a cassette freehub - the hard way

My bike's drivetrain was pretty trashed as of late with the chain skipping all the time, and completely flying off at other times resulting in painful injuries which I will not go into here. ;)

So I went out and bought the replacement parts (chain, chainring and freehub) and set to work this morning. It's usually a pretty simple procedure. Use a chainbreaker to break the old chain, throw it away and use the universal link to install the new chain when all is done. The chainring replacement involves removing the crank-arm on the drive side, removing the bolts holding the chainring in place, throw away old chainring and bolt on the new one. Easy!

Then came time to remove the freehub. Ugh! I've never had problems with this before. I removed the rear wheel, used a chain whip to hold the cassette in place and put the appropriate cassette removal tool in place. Using a ratchet with the correct sized socket over the chain tool, I cranked on it. And nothing budged. Tried a pry-bar. Nothing. Used a quick-release skewer to hold the tool in place, still no movement. Tried soaking it in WD-40, leaving it to soak in and banging it with a hammer to break the "bond". All attempts end in dismal failure. Covered in sweat and grease, I gave up.

I must mention that this bike is only ten months old - got it last year when somebody ripped off my old bike. So it's not an old bike covered in rust. We had a mild winter, this bike hasn't been through very much weather wise. I think somebody at Rocky Mountain got carried away and tightened this hub down to a ridiculous degree. I would like to kill him.

I decide to go to the bike shop to see if they could work some of their voodoo on this thing. Get to the bike shop, and find that they are closed on Sundays. When did this happen? They are always open on Sundays! Tried another bike shop. Not only are they closed, they are completely defunct, out of business. Argh! I give up. Try again tomorrow.

But of course, I didn't give up, cause I'm one of those assholes that just can't leave well enough alone. Searching through the internet, I don't find much help. I seem to have tried everything that people were suggesting as solutions. Until somebody wrote about using a torch! Of course! When all else fails try using a torch! I fired up my torch, heated the hub up and tried removing it. At first I thought I had busted my hub removal tool, because the damn thing started spinning. Then I realized it was spinning cause I had finally broke the goddamn thing free!

Awesome, now I just have to screw on my new cassette (not too tight!) and throw my new chain on and I'll be set. God, I hate working on my bike sometimes.

Blogging from my Bold

Just checking to see if I can make entries here using my Blackberry Bold.