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| *Vultures Knob>>>Mountain Bike |
My mountain bike rear wheels rubs against the frame. Stripped QR skewer the cause? |
I had a question on this already but need to repost to clarify. I have an alum mt bike hart tail. When I climb uphill sometimes my rear tire rubs against the left side of my rear frame. The odd thing is if i flip the bike upside down and shake the wheel, there is no play in it left to right at all so it's not the bearing cones or the bottom bracket as someone suggested earlier. The one thing I did notice is that the quick release skewer looked stripped where the skewer clamps down on the frame. The frame also looked stripped.. there were no teeth where the QR should clamp down on the frame. I am thinking that the fact the skewer isn't biting down firmly on the frame is causing the movement when i'm straining on the uphills? Will getting a new skewer fix this? I'm wondering that if the frame itself is stripped in terms of where the skewer bites down then is there something I need to do to fix the frame as well? It's just flat and getting thin where the skewer clamps down. You need to fix this before you ride again. You do not want to let a bad cheap part (skewer) ruin the single most expensive part of your bike (the frame.) If you allow the tire to keep rubbing the frame, it is going to ruin your tire and wear a hole in the frame. Anyhow, it is a good thing there is no play in the wheel. I wouldn't worry that the frame is flat where the skewer clamps. When the skewer is properly adjusted, it should hold nicely via pressure regardless of whether there is any knurling on the frame. If the nut on the opposite side of the skewer clamp or the thead on the skewer is stripped you need to replace it. Don't mess around, just get a new one. Skewers, unless you go for a titanium, are quite inexpensive as far as parts go and all bike stores will have them in stock. In the future you need to be sure your skewers are properly adjusted. With the quick release lever halfway open, you should tighten the nut until it makes contact with the fork. Then close the quick release lever. The lever should require firm, but not great, pressure to fully close. If it closes easily, release it, tighten the nut a bit more and try again. If it requires a lot of pressure to close, open the lever, loosen the nut a bit and try again. You may want to review the Park Tool website for more information on adjusting your skewers and nearly all other types of repairs. http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto... Hope this helps. When you spin the wheel, does the rim wobble side to side a little? Don't look at the tire, because they'll often wobble even if the rim is true. If you see any movement from the rim, then you may just need to true it and things will be normal again. Also, with the axle mounted firm in both dropouts (not crooked) look at the tire clearance on each side of the wheel at the chainstay/seattube area. Does it look symmetrical? If not, your wheel may need to be dished correctly (part of the truing process). A good shop can true and dish a wheel for you pretty quickly for a few bucks. Since you're sure the hub bearings are tight (the first thing to check), then if the wheel is correct, what you might be experiencing is lateral flex in the wheel when it's under load. Adding tension to the spokes in the wheel sometimes helps....sometimes you either need to try new wheels or smaller tires in the frame that you have. Replace that skewer, but it's not likely the cause of your rubbing. If your skewer and/or axle are bent, then it could cause alignment problems but that's usually something you can feel or hear when you spin the wheel. Also, the frame doesn't usually have knurls for the skewer faces to sit in.....those actually come from the skewer itself when you tighten it down and ride it! :o) One last thought is that if you've been jumping the bike or it got knocked around at some point when the wheel wasn't in the frame, you could have alignment issues with bent stays. Not likely, but you could have a frame shop look at it if you want to. Do look into things, though......the post above about wearing a hole in your frame is true! Even soft rubber can wear into aluminum pretty quickly sometimes. It may not actually rub a hole, but it'll remove paint and metal. Then, you have issues of oxidization and weakening of the metal, so it's easier for it to crack in the future. |
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