how hard can re-packing your santa cruz nomad link bearings be? not very, right? there is even a grease nipple! well … someone in south east asia obviously did not really pay attention when they machined the threads in the frame and the swing arm (or forgot to change a tool as per the schedule). and then later someone in sunny california apparently had a bad day at work and did not stop to think twice when they must have felt that the axles did not really want to go in as usual. instead they decided brute force was the answer and this was the result.
the solution: a thread cutter (a.k.a. tap) to re-cut the threads. today the tool arrived and i was hoping that it was going to be a very quick and painless affair.
it was of course not simple (it never is). the treads were very tight and the tap only managed to just get started. and since nothing was supporting the tap on the other side i had all my fingers crossed that i was not going to cross-thread the swingarm & the frame with a high speed steel tool where the axles failed to do so (being made from soft aluminium). and while the tap did not actually remove a lot of material it was really tight all the way through and i held my breath all the time.
i stopped once or twice to check that the threads looked ok and ran the axle in & out. just as a precaution. it was really nerve-wrecking, driving a tap through a frame that, well, is definitely not one of the cheapest on the market. all is good now and the axles run in and out as they should.
everything is back together now and moves really well. the links are back with the lower one pumped full of waterproof grease as designed. and since now the links can actually be re-tightened properly as required i should not have this problem ever again.
finally a note to santa cruz: very poor quality control! first at your subcontractor – whoever builds the frames – for using what was very clearly a worn tool to cut the threads – and then for your colleague in santa cruz who, probably at the end of a long shift, decided that he (or she) would rather force the axles in when he (or maybe she) should have known that there was something wrong.
not cool for a bike in that price range.