Fuji overhaul

Last week was pretty bad. I was on vacation at Maine (Acadia Park), then I got really sick and had to drive back 10 hours. So I pretty much spent my whole vacation sneezing and coughing... But I did get to *almost* finish overhauling my Fuji bike. It was very interesting working on the bike. I really took it slow. Here's the list of things that were done:
- Replaced Shifter and Brake cables
- Took apart cleaned and greased bearings in both wheels and crank
- Replaced pedals
- Raised handlebar
- Changed Tires and tubes

Cables

I was really surprised to find a decent $4 shifter/brake cables set at my local Walmart. Instructions where not very clear, but it was actually an easy job. They recommended measuring and cutting cables to right length, but I found it's much simpler just to thread cables all the way and then cut extra. Cable housing had to be measured and cut in advance of course. Old cables were horribly rusty. I couldn't even slide them out of the cable housing! That might explain why shifting didn't work.
I should also mention the tool, as it's very important. I wanted to get a standard Park Cable Cutter, but local bike shop didn't have any. They told me they've been using generic cable cutters without any issues, so I got a $11 tool at Home Depot. It works great, cuts both inner cable and cable housing (although housing is a bit too thick for it). One tool that's still on my wish list is a cable puller or 3rd hand tool. But it's possible to do job without it.
Because of the bike condition (rust) metal brackets that held break cables to the top tube, had to be sawed off by the Dremel tool, I just couldn't unscrew them. I replaced them by simple plastic cable ties :)

Bearings

I started with a front wheel. Taking hub apart was simple with regular wrenches. I soaked nuts and bearing balls in the Orange degreaser for a few minutes and then wiped everything clean with old rugs. Then I applied ALOT of white lithium grease to the bearings and put everything back. By the time I go to the bottom bracket I bought real (red) bearings grease. Inside bottom bracket I found pile of rust! Bearings were completely dry too... I wasn't able to get left part of the bottom bracket off (didn't have right tool) so I just reached from the right side and cleaned everything from there. Again I greased bearing balls and cones and put everything back. Except for old rusty metal pedals.
Rear Wheel. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get freewheel off. It got rusted in pretty good. So I did the best I could, greased bearing balls inside the rear wheel hub without thoroughly cleaning bearing cones.

Pedals

Obviously this was super easy part. I installed cheap plastic pedals from Walmart.

Handlebars

Unscrew top nut, hammer it down a bit and remove handle bar from the tube. Cleaned everything, lubricated with white grease and adjusted height. Very simple job.

Tires and Tubes

I did front wheel earlier, second tube seem to be holding without blowing up. I only pumped it to 60 PSI just in case. Rear wheel was a bit tricky. Rim tape was damaged so I had to buy new one. Only one I found was Pedro yellow sticky rim tape at local EMS store. It was a bit too short and too wide, but I managed to put it on. I had a little trouble with getting schrader valve thru the hole in the rim tape. While I was pushing it thru I think I might have weakened the tube. That's probably why it BLEW UP on me few minutes after I was done with the wheel. Yes another one blew up :( So wheel is still off the bike until tonight. I already got new tube from LBS in the city.

And big update, I got (yet another) road bike :)