Well, it’s all done but the crying. I know now that Octalink cranks are cheap because the bottom brackets are stupid expensive, PLUS they don’t come with binder bolts, which were another FIFTEEN FRIGGING DOLLARS.

FOR CRANK BOLTS.

I almost had a fit when the guy told me, but hey, it’s done now and hopefully will last just slightly less than eternity, right?

WRONG. I got home, pulled up the adjustable cup, pulled up my Park BBT-2, made sure the splines lined up, got ready to put her in… NO GO, turns out that the _old_ version BBT-2 interferes with the bigger spindle of Octalink, even though the splines are the same. So I have to go get another BB tool to install it. I faked it (it’s kinda loose) just so I could get it all put together, and I’ll just snug it up later (my fancy $15 crank bolts are self extracting, so at least there’s that). I had to take some links out of the chain, and by the time I had finished that it was too late to test ride, so it’ll wait until after I get the new tool.

Friction shifting works, the oddball frame seems to have a minor interference problem when in the highest gear, 42-11, but I have doubts I’ll be in that gear very often. I also have to avoid any major cross-gearing, the derailleur can’t cope with the 42-32 combo, nor can it adequately tension the 22-11, but it’s good enough for now. Maybe later I’ll install that Deore LX long-cage with some new pulleys in it (the previous owner having ridden the other ones to tiny pieces). Then I’ll have a full deore drivetrain, as both the front changers I ended up with were deore LX bottom pulls, but from different eras. I chose the one with the silver clamp, for aesthetic reasons, and it seems to work fine.

Things left to do? I’m going to buy some rust converter and dab it onto the exposed rust areas, because beauty is not what this bike is gonna be about. I need to figure out if the seatpost is the wrong size or what, because the seat binder area is looking a little funktastic, replace the shoddy QR with an allen bolt. Buy a new rigid fork for it, as the suspension one is goofy long and not particularly good. New headset to go with the fork. Get some neat bars for it, I think I’m just gonna make the leap and do the Nitto Albatross. Eventually it’s going to need a basket and a rack that isn’t just gonna crumple (I have a leftover but it already proved itself incapable of lugging even a small load back and forth from work, hence it’s left-over-ness). I may just do a set of wire baskets back there, since the goal of this bike is going to do the shopping and whatnot. That’s in the future though, the credit card situation needs to get calmed the hell down again before I make some more purchases.