Mountain Bike Update 2

I got the parts for the bike in on Monday but I was thinking I was going to get a full back tire ready to be put on.  A quick take off and put on type of deal.  In the box was the rim and in another box inside that box was the gears.  The handles were in the box just bouncing around.  Good thing they are just rubber.  There were to big black round discs off the side on each side of the rim to keep it straight up and to help it from getting damaged.  If something heavy got on that box, it would have bent it pretty easily.

So I researched online for how to move the tire over.  It looks fairly simple to do if you have the right tool for the job.  Which of course I don't.  The guy at Wal-Mart said he would fix it if I brought it back in with the parts.  I called to confirm it and made sure he would be there on a day I could come.

When I took it in, he had it all swapped out in like 15 minutes.  It looked straight and I couldn't see any wobble in the gears.  I could tell that there wasn't enough air in the tire just like last time. I didn't say anything but I knew when I got home I was going to need to check it all out again.

Sure enough, he only put like 5 lbs of air in the tire.  I just don't understand how hard it can be to read the tire PSI and put 50 in as required.  So I pump up the tire and test the brakes.  They are way too loose.  I had to fiddle with that and finally figured out the pad was up to high on one side to the point it was hitting the tire.  It should be even on both sides and hitting the rim to stop.  Once I got that adjusted I had to get the left side of the brake to move out as it was rubbing the rim the entire time.  After some more research online I figured out how to adjust it better and now its set up perfectly just missing the tire all the way around.

Now the moment of truth arrives for the gears.  Take it for a short spin down the street and the front gears shift smoothly.  The back gears switch very smoothly as well until I went to gear 7.  It wouldn't switch to gear 7 at all.  So more research and I'm getting close to getting it to switch properly.  I ran out of time though and I need to get some time tomorrow to finish fixing the gears to switch properly.

I did switch out the new grips on the handle bar.  The new ones inside hole were a lot smaller than the ones I took off.  It took some twisting to get them on and they are very snug now.  They didnt move in during my fear testing runs but will see how they do when I go for a longer ride.

I'll post one more up update once I finish with the gears and give a good ride.  YouTube is your biggest friend if you need to figure out how to do anything on a bike.  Some things you can do but others you need the pepper tools.  If you dont have those tools, you'll need to buy them or take the bike somewhere to have them fix and adjust everything.  I plan to buy the tools later on when I have to fix something on the bike.  For now though I am using the store and company to fix the bike for no extra cost.  Outside of gas and my time.