Thread: My Small Chainring is F'ed up

Not sure exactly why two of the screws were missing. I couldn't imagine them coming out on their own; my guess would be that it was the previous owner. This is the guy who snapped a tube valve stem off while trying to package the bike up for shipping when I originally purchased it. Why the tube was apart for shipping is beyond me. Anyway, the thing is super mangled up, it ripped the one screw completely out! I think I'd have a tough time doing the same thing with a hammer. Anyone have this happen to them? Keeping in mind that there were no impacts on the ring.

I happen to have a complete second set of chainrings but don't have the bottom bracket tool thingy. Is there any way to swap the small chainring without removing the cranks? And/or get the cranks off w/o the tool?

Thanks

You need a set of hex wrenches and a crank puller to do this repair (no BB tool needed)

You dont need to remove the crank, just remove the outer ring and chainguard.

All you need is the appropriate size allen wrench, and either a flat head screw driver or the little dedicated tool that holds the other side of the chainring bolt in place while you turn it. Sometimes its in their so long that you wont need this, but if you try to unscrew with just an allen, and instead of unscrewing it spins, you'll see what I mean. The little tool looks like this: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/images/TL6123.jpg but a screwdriver sometimes work, as does a small flathead scraper, etc.

Go buy a new set of chainring bolts, they cost about 10-15 dollars.

I just realized that this is a triple crankset, so yes, you do need to remove the crank with the puller described above.

Thanks. How do I know whether I need a splined or cotterless?

Take the crank bolt out and look at whats behind it. The crank arm will either be pressed onto a cylindrical splinded spindle, or a squared shaped spindle. Square taper = 'cotterless'

Also, the park tools website has information on how to do most of the basic stuff, and it explains which tools to use. Really good resource.

Its an easy job once you know how to do it. The park tools website is full of good info.

From looking at your first photo, you may have another problem in addition to the lack of bolts. It looks like one of the bolts, when it was pulled out, may have stripped out the threads of the hole into which it needs to be screwed. To deal with this you might want to get a slightly longer bolt for the stripped hole(s), so that it grabs whatever threads are left. Otherwise, this whole mess could happen all over again. Just a thought. Good luck.