Bent hanger

[Colonel Cupcake]

Hello all.

The hanger on my bike is bent and I need to take the gears off.

I am guessing that the bolt is beneath the black cover and that I need to either slide the cover back or pop it upwards with a screwdriver.

Before I blunder in though, can anyone else say yay or nay and point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance

[gazza285]

That hanger is part of the derailleur, you can either bend it back, or buy another complete derailleur.

It might double the value of the bike though.

[Some Gump]

You can deliverately snap the back cover off, then it's an e-ring type circlip.

Personally, looking at that image, i'd just take the hanger off the bike (wheel off then a crosshead) then use gas pliers on the black part and molegrips sideways on the mech (by the black plastic bit) and just brute force it back into "close enough"..

From the picture, i'm assuming this is a 90's era not too expensive bike, probably on 7 speed? If so the good news is that you can usually get a replacement via freecycle by simply taking an old crap halfords spec bike, taking the bits off then driving the rest to the local tip

[VEX]

For reference a friend of mine runs a GearMechHanger replacement company specialising in just them.

Wonder what he would calls it?

[dontlookdown]

As others have said, just bend it back as close to straight - up and down, and fore and aft - as you can by eye. The good news is that old 7/8 speed set ups are much less fussy about precise alignment so you may be able to get it working well enough that way.

It doesn't look like the kind of bike that is worth spending any money on;)

[RogerDodgerSuperTodger]

Yup, just bend it back and adjust the shifting (a little bit!) if needed.

[Paul Drawmer]

This company have a range of new replacements. Their service is excellent, but some of the cheap stuff is .....

If you have a 6 speed freewheel this is probably OK - cheap as chips.

https://bankruptbikeparts.co.uk/collections/derail...

[Colonel Cupcake]

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, the bikes worth is into 4 figures, if you include the pennies but it is the best bike I have ever had. Picked it up second-hand about 20 years ago. Easyish to work on, very light for its size and the laws of friction don't seem to apply, as it seems to freewheel for miles.

The bent hangar is causing no issues. It just grates on me whenever I see it. I don't even remember doing anything that would cause something like that.

As a result, I will probably just leave it as it is.