Kuroko needs a little more work before she’s ready for the crankset and bottom bracket replacement, so today I prepared the new crankset with a chainring swap. The default chainring was 46 teeth, and I wanted to change this to 44 teeth to reduce the gap between the two chainrings.

The Sugino crankset was available with the 44T chainring, but at double the price. By buying the standard 46T crankset and a separate 44T chainring, I saved myself half the difference.

The bolts took a T30 and were surprisingly hard to break loose. Upon reflection, they’re probably held in with Loctite (and not coated with grease, as would be my first inclination).

I need a special tool, which will arrive tomorrow, to fully tighten the bolts. I’ll probably need to remove the inner chainring to do that, as well. (It would be a great Catch-22 if I then needed to remove the larger chainring to fully tighten the smaller one … )

I’m expecting other bits and bobs tomorrow to finish the removal of Kuroko’s existing crankset and bottom bracket. But I won’t know until I’ve tried if I can get the job done in time for the weekend.