Prime bike-part scavenging season here

[spinningmagnets]

Its no secret that lots of people (kids and ALSO adults) get a new bike on Christmas. During the following week(s) the old bikes are often tossed out in the trash, or donated to a charity thrift store for a year-end tax deduction. Thrift store prices vary, but when they have a flood of bikes, the prices drop to move them out (Ive seen good bikes for $20, just old and dirty).

Everyone should have a couple of working bikes, especially if one is electric. Here's some things to consider snagging (hey they're just getting tossed into a landfill, right?). Craigslist will also get a flood of good deals...

26" rear suspension arm (add to an MTB hard-tail to make a full-suspension longtail), or, to flip it and use as a trailer hitch
2 BMX freewheels and a BB bearing cup for the "DISH" mod
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=13862&p=222310#p222310
a freehub to experiment with splined ENO's
rear disc brake hub for a left-side-drive non-hub motor set-up
wide seat
cargo rack
spare tubes/tires
spare brake pads
front/rear baskets
water bottle holders
extra chain to make a freewheel wrench
a big front chainring
two BMX 20" wheels for a cargo-trailer or a push-trailer (16"?)
rear suspension arm, quill-stem, and BMX front fork for the "chvidgov.bc.ca" push-trailer
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13995
3-speed Sturmey-Archer hub to experiment with as a jackshaft/motor-transmission (dont forget the shifter!)
aluminum/steel tubing cut from a frame for various projects....

I recommend carrying (so you don't have to drag home the whole bike on trash day):
WD-40 or similar rust penetrant
vice grips
metric wrenches
metric allen wrenches
12" adjustable wrench (Crescent)
pipe wrench
hacksaw
hammer
cordless drill with assorted drill bits, and a dremel abrasive cutting wheel

That probably covers most of it..anything I missed that may prove useful some day? (Amberwolf?...)

 

[Zoot Katz]

Oddly enough, I've found the best scores here during the occasional transit strikes.
Basement bikes dragged out to be put into service they've not seen for ~5 years or more.
People get a quote from the LBS for a "tune-up", when they really need a complete repack, new tires, chain and cables.
That's when they set the bike out in the trash and drive to *mart or the drug store to buy a new bike.

I gathered numerous bikes, repaired five, and left them at bus-stops. They were gone the next day.

I'm betting our next transit strike proliferates lots of aluminium "full-suspension" BSO. (Bicycle Shaped Object)

Spring cleaning and New Year's resolutions to lose weight usually produce a bloom too.

I once carried a bike without the wheels over my shoulder while ferrying another bike along side.
There was also another bike, lashed upside-down, being towed off the rear rack with its front wheel removed.
Five wheels on the ground and three on the rack. Double wide and extra long with single hand control.
That trip was made at ~4:30 AM on a mid-spring morning.

With the Xtracycle, I have to be very selective or I'll end up bringing home more of the kinda crap of which I have to rid myself sooner rather than later.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, around here the unemployed with trucks drive around all day picking up stuff nowadays, and selling some of it to scrap dealers and some to individuals, etc, depending on condition, so I no longer see much useful stuff just laying around. I used to, up to earlier this year, and sometimes I still do, if I look at the right time and place. I just don't have enough time to ride around looking for stuff, compared to them, since I'm working as many little jobs as I can to make ends at least see each other around the corners (since they sure dont meet).

Freecycle.org, however, is a GREAT place to look for stuff, since it's free, and you can also put a limited amount of want ads on there, as well as responding to as many offers as you care to. The hard part is seeing stuff you know you can use but not being the one picked to receive it. But sometimes, a winner you is: it's how I got my lathe!

And as usual, after Christmas, there are more postings there for stuff that has now been replaced by the new ones.

I have gotten lots of very useful stuff from Freecycle. Also from friends who are slowly learning that I really can use all that crap they'd be throwing away.


Now more on-topic, if I were to be able to scavenge, and didn't have my flatbed trailer, I'd take a hacksaw with me to cut all the bottom brackets off of any of the square-taper style frames I couldn't take with me, as well as the headstocks and rear dropouts. Plus all the stuff already listed by spinningmagnets.

The SqT BBs are very useful for jackshafts, and as I've seen in F&P's build they can also be used as suspension/steering pivots, which I am ashamed I never thought of. The headstocks are good for other kinds of pivots, too, including for trailers.

Of course, best is to take the whole thing, frame, wheels, and all. There are just way too many parts I find I need for one experiment or another, and you can never have too much bicycle tubing, especially if it's good quality cromoly like in many light OTS bikes.

Rear cassettes from old freewheel style bikes are useful for all the sprockets you can take off them, especially since you can reorder them pretty much anyway you want. One way to make a stronger rear power receiver for a motor chain is to use single-speed chain and take two of the same size sprockets off two same-make OTS cassettes, from before they started shaping the tips for easy shifting. Put them next to each other on the leftmost "slot" without spacers on the cassette, then use the spacer for them plus the next one between them and the remaining three sprockets that you can still use for shifting between. Might require a little filing of the teeth on the pair, to fit easily inside the single-speed chain, but it would be stronger than a single sprocket with the thinner multi-speed chain. Less side-side flexing, too. Probably this method would be stronger than the palls in the freewheel.


Lots and lots of extra chain never hurts to have around. When you decide to build that recumbent, you'll need more than usual to get it from the pedals all the way back to the rear.

Even the front chainrings from one-piece-crank bikes are useful, though I have not yet found a use for the cranks themselves. The pedal reflectors are useful as side markers on the bike lighting front, though. I have one on each side of my CFL headlight, so they are reflective and they also are internally backlit from the CFL's sidewash. Same thing can be done with the red reflectors from seatposts and whatnot.


Save all the cables, brake and shifter. And their housings.

Brake assemblies are good for assorted parts, regardless of type. You might find you need a wierd mounting bracket to hold something in a particular way....some curved brake arms from OTS may fit the bill perfectly. Perhaps you need a chain tensioner for your motor chain--cut off the stud and brake arm from any of the pivoting spring-loaded side-pull brakes, and weld or braze it on so the pivot spring will push the brake arm down where your chain needs to stay. Then bolt a small wheel or sprocket in place of the cable retainer. On many of those brake arms, that bolt is the same threading and size as the accessory bolts on dropouts and water bottles, and on the brake studs themselves. That means you can use those often very long bolts to mount the wheel/sprocket to them!

So I'm afraid I would just have to say, save everything and then you'll think of a use for it eventually. If you don't, someone else will. And if not, well, you can give it away on Freecycle.org to some other poor soul that needs lots of bike parts but can't just go out and get them. Heck, it might even be *me*, if you're in this area. :lol:



while you're out picking up stuff, don't forget to grab all the skateboards, rollerblades/skates, and little kick scooters that you find, too. Lots of bearings, plus the plastic wheels, all usable for jackshafts, tensioners, etc. You can even make them into steering tie rods.

 

[dogman dan]

Around here it's also hard to beat the junk sharks to the stuff. At garage sales, I keep seeing the same truck leaving with all the bikes on it as I arrive. At the flea, I see lots of good bikes but they are already sold, waiting for the buyer to return with a truck or car.

Now I know the local used bike shop guy is the one who bought em all at the flea. Even he can't beat the garage sale guy, so he ends up buying all the quality stuff from the garage sale shark at the flea. Oh well, it just stimulates the economy if I just buy from the bike shop guy. Yesterday I bought a bunch of parts from him, to upgrade my commuter some more. I've bought so much from him now that he gives me a good discount, and anything I don't need I just give to him. If I need something small, he'll just give it to me.

 

[chet]

That is the only fair way to bargain, dog. Give and you shall receive.

 

[dogman dan]

Karmic circle. When the lucky wheel turns my way, I catch the late guy coming in the gate of the flea at 10:00 am. Then I get to buy his good bike right off the truck while he is paying his booth fee. Sometimes I get a good deal from the bike guy at the flea by showing up real late on Sunday. At a certain point, he starts to go, these four bikes for $100. Then I trade for stuff I actually want from the bike shop guy, who can get more for them. He takes anything with a good name frame, and makes em into fixies to sell to students. Gotta say specialized or Giant or something, no roadbastards. Funny how he can take a $30 bike and by removing the shifters, sell it for $100.

 

[AussieJester]

That probably covers most of it..

Not quite...reciprocating saw
with metal cutting blade, speed is essential in a good scavenge these days, hit it hard and fast and then move onto next pile

KiM

 

[spinningmagnets]

HA! I should have said "thats all I can think of"...great suggestions everyone, thanks!

Hadn't thought of the cordless reciprocating saw, AJ, great idea! I've never used a cordless RS or a cordless circular saw (popular with drywall installers?) but I've used a cheap 120VAC angle grinder with an abrasive cutting wheel a lot. I've thought that a cordless circular saw with an abrasive wheel would be pretty sweet. I don't think I've ever regretted buying a tool, they've allowed me to make some great stuff with junk...

 

[AussieJester]

I use angle grinder for all my fabrication work at home, the recipricating saw is better for hacking up things thoogh you can get into places an angle grinder simply wont reach...

Both are excellent tools though, i think alot of people would be very surprised what one can make with
a bevel square, rule, angle grinder, drill and a MIG welder, tiz pretty much all i use for all of my work you see on this site.

KiM

 

[amberwolf]

Don't forget most small power tools use wound-field AC motors, so they'll run on DC, too. If your pack voltage is high enough, and can handle the current, they'll do something close to the job they would on AC power.

If you're in a truck anyway, you can haul 10 12V batteries of whatever Ah rating you happen to have around wired in series and hooked up to an AC style outlet to run the tools from. An ICE generator would probably be lighter, but noisier.

 

[AussieJester]

Don't forget most small power tools use wound-field AC motors, so they'll run on DC, too. If your pack voltage is high enough, and can handle the current, they'll do something close to the job they would on AC power.

If you're in a truck anyway, you can haul 10 12V batteries of whatever Ah rating you happen to have around wired in series and hooked up to an AC style outlet to run the tools from. An ICE generator would probably be lighter, but noisier.

Oooor you could just buy a cordless tool to begn with :-S

KiM

 

[amberwolf]

Buy? :lol:

Where is the challenge in THAT?

 

[Zoot Katz]

Buy? :lol:

Where is the challenge in THAT?

Counterfeiting is more challenging than credit-card fraud.

 

[amberwolf]

Buy? :lol:

Where is the challenge in THAT?

Counterfeiting is more challenging than credit-card fraud.

Er...I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean relative to what I said? :?

 

[Zoot Katz]

Buy? :lol:

Where is the challenge in THAT?

Counterfeiting is more challenging than credit-card fraud.

Er...I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean relative to what I said? :?

Getting the right paper is challenging, and the chips OY! . . . easier for the kid upstairs to steal your credit card information on line.

Sorry if I've offended your ethical boundaries for methods of getting free stuff.

I like to think of it as being smiled upon by the fairies.
There's a bit of Zen and the Tao involved. I just call it luck.
Beggars can't be choosers but scavengers do better when they're picky.
Happy hunting

 

[amberwolf]

Ah... Well, I scavenge, but having had things stolen from me, I would never do it to anyone else, knowing exactly what it would mean to them.

It's not so much an "ethical" thing, as an empathic one, I suppose you could say. Given my usual issues of figuring out what everyone around me is actually thinking, feeling, etc, due to Asperger's, I figure anything I can actually feel myself like this that is this strong is probably close enough to what most people feel about the same thing that I ought to listen to that feeling. If that makes any sense.

As to the actual *challenge* of counterfeiting or similar actions, that is close enough to being an art that I admire the skill it takes to do such a thing, even if I do not agree with the act itself.

As for offending me, that's pretty hard to do. Not impossible, but difficult, in normal situations.

Personally I'd rather work for and earn everything I get, but as you say beggars can't be choosers and for quite a while now my economic situation has deteriorated, partly thru my own bad choices and partly thru events outside my control, so I take opportunities where I can find them, although I still find it very hard to ask for handouts, as I know I can earn my keep, if I am given the chance, in most situations.

My only real problem is getting extremely stressed out much easier than most people, for a bunch of reasons that aren't really important to anyone else but me. When that happens, I can and have forgotten things I should be doing, sometimes to my great detriment and sadness, often making my stresses worse.

 

[gilnet]

Doesn't the Big Indian hang out in your desert?

 

[ekline309]

true that. karmic powers are in work.... came home to the local bike shop over break, and an old rear wheelset sold that i had completely forgot about... new chain, pedals, grips, and shirt. ballin...