DiamondBack Sorrento: Clean-up and new tubes

After getting the shifters working, I was very excited to give the bike a good test ride to see how things felt.  I went over to Lucky Bike and picked up some new tubes as well as some rim straps to get the wheels fixed up, and figured I could spend the evening cleaning up the bike and installing the new tubes.  I got home and removed the wheels from the bike to haul it over for a washing.  Using some dish liquid to remove some of the greasy mess that was all over the bike, I set to work with a couple of good sponges and a toothbrush.  My youngest helped me out, and I think we got an okay first pass done on the bike.  

Time for a wash!

It'll need a another pass for cleaning for sure, and I found some more surface rust on a few places. The chain  cleaned up pretty well, and we seemed to get the majority of the gunk out of the chainrings and deraileur.  One thing of concern that I found was some damage to a cog in the rear deraileur.  I'm pretty sure there isn't anything I can do to fix it, so the question will become if it's something that will require a new part or not.  Only a few good test rides will determine that in the short term.

Something seems to be missing...

I let the bike start to dry off, and turned my attention to the wheels.  I hadn't really taken much time to review the tubes that were in the bike, as I had thought there was one missing, and the condition of the bike would mean more than likely the other one would have a hole or two.  To my surprise both tubes seemed to be holding a small amount of air, but since I bought new tubes I didn't spend a lot of time evaluating the tubes the bike already had.  The rims themselves definitely needed a cleaning.  They had a few cobwebs in them, and the cassette definitely needed to be cleaned.  Again I found some surface rust, but overall things looked to be in okay shape.  

Just add air (and maybe tubes + tire?)

For a test ride I decided that some good old fashioned duct tape would suffice on the seat, at least until I could source a decent replacement.  My youngest had a blast helping me cover the seat up and inflating the tires.  At this point things were definitely looking good for a quick test ride.

it's not pretty, but at least it's waterproof.

We took a few turns riding the bike up and down the block to see how it worked, but in general as well as being a good fit for my daughters.  The seat adjustment was easy to work with, and the bike seemed to shift into all of the gears without any major issues.  As one of my daughters was taking her turn, she mentioned that she was hearing a strange squealing noise while she was riding.  I took another turn and I also heard it.  Upon investigation it looks like we may have at worst a bad bearing on the rear wheel.  I'll need to spend more time with the rear wheel to be sure of the cost to repair these wheels (either by myself or by a professional) versus some new inexpensive wheels.

Purchase of the bike:	$20
New saddle:	$25
New Tubes:	$12
New rim tape:	$  4
Shifters:	$  1.80
Grand Total:	$62.80

So far my expected costs are looking pretty good.  We're still well under the $100 total for the bike, and it's now to the point where we can make decisions based on upgrades instead of repairs.  I'll have to evaluate the rear axle and see if it truly is a bent axle or if it's something as simple as some grease so it turns freely.