Classic & Vintage - Restoring a pair of 70s Peugeot Randonneurs, chrome and paint help!

Hello all, I just bought a pair of Peugeot randonneur bikes, one is a men's PA 60 or PX 60 (unsure how to tell the difference, and the other is a matching women's mixte frame. They each have the chrome tipped fork end and rear triangle, and while the chrome is in overall pretty good condition there are a few rust patches here and there and a few spots where it looks like the chrome has worn off.

Is it feasible to get the ends stripped and re-chromed? I know little to nothing of the process.

Also, the paint is also in pretty good shape but there are a few spots here and there that are nicked, how do I go about getting those touched up? Is there a directory of paint codes? Should it be something I get done professionally?

I just moved out to France to study for a year so these beautiful vintage French bikes are everywhere and I am buying them up like crazy and shipping them home to have a nice little collection. :thumb:

Try gently scrubbing with some brass wool or with a bit of Windex and a piece of aluminum foil. You'd be amazed at how much you can clean up the chrome in most cases. A lot of it may only be surface oxidation and with a little elbow grease it can usually be cleaned right off.

We need pix, btw!

I just moved out to France to study for a year so these beautiful vintage French bikes are everywhere and I am buying them up like crazy and shipping them home to have a nice little collection. :thumb:

Be careful with that statement! Next thing you know you'll have a slew of private messages coming your way begging you for facilitation of certain sizes/styles of French gems!

I want to see the mixte with chrome at both ends!
Sounds like a 50's one or earlier.
The Pa60 has 700 size wheels and the PX60 has 650B size.

Sorry I was typing too fast to think about what I said, my girlfriends mixte only has chrome on the fork, not at the rear. The two bikes look exactly the same otherwise, I'll post up pics pretty soon!

Peugeot done a beautiful mixte with chrome forks front and rear and i was hoping that is what you had found.
Here it is a PLX55.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2069/2044299497_df5b52fa26_z.jpg

Be careful with that statement! Next thing you know you'll have a slew of private messages coming your way begging you for facilitation of certain sizes/styles of French gems!

Ain't that the truth - I've seen some great looking bikes on the French equivalent to Craigslist over the past year and a facilitator would have been fantastic.

Chromed front and rear fork might be PA60 or PX60. They can easily be distinguished, just look at peugeotshow.com, the 70's catalogs. While the PX60 is basically a PX10 built with Reynolds 531 throughout, the PA60 is a PA10 with mudguards etc. and built with Peugeot tubes (Cadre Allege). Both very nice and quite rare.

And both have 700c wheels.

I'm not so sure about chrome on the PA60 stays. The PA10 doesn't have it.

Is it feasible to get the ends stripped and re-chromed? I know little to nothing of the process.

Feasibly, yes....practicle, no. To rechrome, the entire part needs to be stripped, imperfections filled with braze and finished smooth, chromed then painted. I had a 1/2 chromefork done, the complete cost for restoration was about $275.

"I just moved out to France to study for a year so these beautiful vintage French bikes are everywhere and I am buying them up like crazy and shipping them home to have a nice little collection."

Can you ship me back a couple of Singers, or C.N.C.'s while you're at it ?........:roflmao2:

Seriously though, have a great time and grab some cool bikes while you're there !

Joe

And both have 700c wheels.

I'm not so sure about chrome on the PA60 stays. The PA10 doesn't have it.

You're right, PA10 have only the half chromed fork. The PA60 as the more luxurious version has also half chromed stays and thus at first glance looks much like the PX60. If no identification marks like badgrs are left, they can also relative easily distinguished by the fork crown.

Found some nicely matching pictures where you can see the differences.

This is the PA60 (Cadre Allege, basically a PA10):
http://www.radklassiker.org/wp-content/gallery/0309-qds-peugeot/kdm3-09-quaeldichsehr-peugeot-1.jpg

and this the PX60 (Reynolds 531, basically a PX10):
http://home.wanadoo.nl/peugeotshow/images/1975px60.jpg

Feasibly, yes....practicle, no. To rechrome, the entire part needs to be stripped, imperfections filled with braze and finished smooth, chromed then painted. I had a 1/2 chromefork done, the complete cost for restoration was about $275.

+1 I priced having the chrome and paint properly redone restoured on my old Jeunet recently and found by even lowball places that mainly did cars it would cost about $400. There is just huge amount of work that needs to be done.

Found some nicely matching pictures where you can see the differences.

This is the PA60 (Cadre Allege, basically a PA10):
http://www.radklassiker.org/wp-content/gallery/0309-qds-peugeot/kdm3-09-quaeldichsehr-peugeot-1.jpg

and this the PX60 (Reynolds 531, basically a PX10):
http://home.wanadoo.nl/peugeotshow/images/1975px60.jpg

The 60-series Peugeot randonneurs are different bikes from 10-series road bikes. Their geometry is different: angles are steeper, especially seat tube angle, and chainstays are longer. I own both PA60 and PX60 bikes as well a PS10.

The randonneurs follow a similar scale in models and tubing (PA, PR, PX, even PY) but they all have chromed stays. For some reason my 1974 PA60 has a british-threaded BB.

The 650B model is PX50 and I think all of those are made of gas-pipe Peugeot tubing.

Ah, cheers! I wasn't sure if there was a difference in the geo. Thanks for confirming! :)

The threading might have been changed afterwards, or it might be original. - With Peugeot you never know. Also happened that they took parts they had apparently just rediscovered on their shelves after some years. At the beginning of the 80's, also a large quanitity of Peugeots was produced with swiss bb threadings, which is quite a challenge if you have to look for spares.

Still working on the pics (I lost the cable to connect my camera to my computer...), but in the mean time I have an update and another question.

First, AZORCH, that tip with the aluminum foil was amazing! It looks like I have a brand new fork, I can't believe it!

Second, I have 2 problems with the frame. The first is that there are nicks in the paint and I need to find the paint code to get some touch-up paint. Anyone know where to find these?

The second problem is that there are little rings of rust on top of the paint that have formed under the cable housing clips on the top tube. Same for under the spot the front derailleur clamps on. I don't think it's gone through the paint really, just residue from being under the metal piece. What's the best way to get rid of this without hurting my paint?

Don't worry... :)

With the paint, I doubt you'll find a paint code easily. Easiest way probebly is you take the bike and go to a small business specialised in painting cars. They should have a lot of cards with examples of colours, so you can just pick the one that is matching best, ask them to mix you a bit in a small container.

The rust under the cable housing clips may well be just on the paint's surface. Just remove the housing clips (they don't loose their round shape if, after unscrewing it, you place a small strip of paper between frame and clamp, and then just move it away without bending it more than necessary). If the paint is still ok and the rust just on the surface, you can use car polish and some oil like Ballistol. After cleaning the clamps, just put them on again.

It sounds like the chrome is in need of a real good cleaning and rust removal.

now that the bike is in good hands
you

if you take the rust off and keept the bike inside and the chrome lightly oiled you wil be just fine.

if the paint is shot, and the chrome is actually worn through and you really have to have it fixed....

chrome you should not sand or blast off-its a waste of time and it will not work.

the plater can take it off the same way he will put it on- with reversing the electrodes

after it is de-chromed- someone can polish,braze, and perfect the metal before the plater puts it back on.

the english are in my opinion the best platers out there.

I always marveled at the shine and quality of the Jaguar chrome trim from the mid 80's
(can say much for the cars!)


pick up an english car restoration magazine and there will be several companies listed.

they specialize in small one item jobs and their works is excellent.

If the paint has discolored over time then paint codes may not be a great deal of help. If your paint color seems to be consistent from one end of the bike to the other then you have a couple of options. First, some automotive paint companies can scan your frame and mix a batch of paint to match. that might be overkill for scratches though, so I tend to haunt the automotive supply stores for touch up tubes and cans of paint. With a little trial and error I can usually come up with a fairly close match. Metallic finishes are kind of tough but there's sometimes a solution that people don't always think about. I have been very successful matching fingernail polish to metallic finishes on some frames. People at the pharmacy are amused to see me bring a frame into the cosmetics counter for color comparisons! It's tough, though, and works very well.