An occasional cracking noise revealed itself catastrophically on Thursday as I juggled a set of gas safety inspections, delivery of a bed, an unexpected failure of the gas fitter to bring a part (bike dash to Tool Station where ONE was in stock), and a closely timed annual Christmas lunch for ex BR ScR CM&EE staff, plus a few young whipper-snappers from LNER, Scotrail & Hitachi (letting them all in now).
Naturally right at the critical T plus 1 minute (late) completion of gas fitter visit, and need to cover a mile across Glasgow in minus 4 minutes..... The pedals stopped going forwards abruptly.
Oddly and luckily they did still go backwards and the brake worked, but what little was visible did not look good,either something had caught & dragged round between chain and rear cog, as does happen when the spokes break, or.... Very large balls were visible..
Luckily these seemed to be the carrier bearing for the cog carrier, one of the 2 moving parts in the hub with the 2-start ACME screw thread that drives the ACME nut with the cone clutches to drive or brake positions. The wheel bearings still ran smoothly.
So now I'm sadly looking at a Perry hub (made in Brum around 50 years ago) calling for some urgent TLC, as the combination of chrome plates steel rim (stamped Raliegh Made in England) & steel shell 28 hole hub has proved less of a spoke-eater than my 36 hole Sachs Torpedo hubs in alloy rims....
A visit to Big Al & Wheelcraft may be called for