rsterman

After getting the Le Jeune back from the bike mechanic at the shop I have learned many interesting things: 1. The bike is a 1973 after finding 73 inside the diamond on the rigida rim....neat...many other interesting things from the bike shop guy.....I will try to chronicle his venom and then post pix for my team of experts to respond to, for you all certainly are, because I know nothing of these topics!

i talked again today with my friend who gave me this bike. He again reiterated this bike was bought new and has not been ridden more than 100 miles.....I can't fathom why he wouldn't be forthwith about this?

The bike mechanic's assessment was that the bike has been ridden 15 to 20,000 miles.,,quite a difference huh? Here are the specifics of his assessment: 1. Both pulleys on rear derailleur are destroyed (the only thing I concur with since it is obvious one of the cogs is missing from one of the pulleys. I believe I could replace those two pulleys and the "clicking noise from the rear derailleur would go away. I took it for a 10 mile ride this afternoon, and it rode beautifully, shifted flawlessly, with only the clicking which comes from the missing cog on one of the simplex pulleys) 2. Chain is stretched and has several kinks 3.front chain rings are pointed and very worn 4. Free wheel has lots of wear 5. Last comment: "...entire drivetrain needs to be replaced.....this fellow has given me conflicting info before. I chose just to pay him the $68 tuning, brakes/derailleur cable & housing replacement and move on.....

I'm hoping to,post some/all the pix I took this afternoon to let people who know what they are talking about to chime in.......

thanks for for any comments

big chainring 

This is my point of view.
From the look of the bike I seriously doubt it has that many mikes on it. 40 year old parts are foreign to most modern day mechanics. Just looked at my many steel chainringed bikes. I would describe my chainrings as pointed and the chains worn.

Pulleys on derailleur, look for replacements. Very common for these to deteriorate after 40 years. Or just a whole replacement derailleur. These can be had cheap. Heck I can send you pulleys if need be.

Steel chainring and freewheel cogs last a long time. Even with a lot of wear they perform just fine. Most of my bikes have the same drive train as yours. They operate just fine. No need to dump money into it to have a nice running bike.

Sticky chain links? Work the links back and forth laterally side to side. Drench it in WD-40. Wipe off the excess and test it out.

This bike is not a high performance racing bike. It's a dependable sport touring bike that should last you for years with minimal maintainence.

rsterman

I need to learn how to select several pix @ one time to post rather than one @ a time! Help!!!

big chainring 

I see the pics from a few posts back. Everything looks good to me. Replace that one pulley and you're good to go.

rsterman

Is replaxing a derailleur pulley a big deal, or is it something I can do myself with little angst? Do you have any idea as how to find the correct pulley for this very basic simplex rear derailleur?

oddjob2

Unless BC is sitting on a stock pile of those jockey wheels, they are unobtanium. They wear out pretty quickly too.

exxongraftek

Agreed. I wrenched in several shops back in the day and this bike has low miles as your friend told you - too nice an appearance.
Furthermore, the chainring teeth show no "hooking" as I'd expect on a bike with thousands of miles on it.
If that is (as I suspect) a Sedis chain, they were/are prone to "sticky links" and can be fixed as detailed above.

exxongraftek

Likely can score an old changer on the Bay or local bike shop with pulleys. I even still have a spare...

FastJake

Bike shop is full of BS or just doesn't know what they're talking about. If your friend rode the bike 15,000 - 20,000 miles they would know... Chainring teeth and front derailer (only things with clear pictures) look nearly new and certainly not worn out.

BTW, the cost of paying a bike shop to "replace the entire drivetrain" on a bike like that would likely cost hundreds of dollars. Whether it's digging up old French parts or modernizing it with new stuff.

rekmeyata

I think I recall something weird about Simplex, Suntour pulleys will work! NIB or NOS Suntour pulleys should be easy to locate. Just in case my memory is wrong double check what I just said, but 99% sure when I replaced my pulleys on my Simplex the bike shop used Suntour. Problem is even after the pulleys were replaced it still shifted like crap which was the nature of Simplex derailleurs. When I say crap, I mean crap compared to Suntour shifted like back in the day, or even Shimano and Campy.

I find it odd the owner says it only has 100 or so miles on it yet the bike shop says a lot more due to worn out pulleys...not sure what to think of that.

You could find a cheap modern new Shimano derailleur but then it wouldn't be era correct nor vintage correct and then you have that nasty hanger to contend with. Depends on what you want the bike to be like.

big chainring 

Yes Suntour pulleys will work fine.

Unscrew bolt, and replace. Very simple.

And the Simplex derailleurs work very well. Most of the bikes I ride have Simplex derailleurs. In fact the bikes I ride are just like the OP's. Jeunet, Mercier, Gitane. Great french bikes with classic french parts.

rsterman

I'm appreciating all your advice.....I have a couple of issues I need good advice about. I really didn't have that much trouble getting the old cotters out. Now I find that in one of them the threads are stripped. Anticipating that need, I purchased 4 - 9mm cotters from bikesmith.com knowing that I may have to file to fit my situation.....do you have any experience filing cotters to fit that I might benefit from? I desperately want to keep this bike era correct, which means I have to learn how to file these cotters for this bike. As always help is greatly appreciated because I am learning these skills on the fly.....

thanks again,
rsterman

rsterman

I actually bought the sun tour replacement pulleys today, watched the utube video on installation and am ready to do it.....

rekmeyata

Interesting because everyone I ever knew including myself had a different name for Simplex derailleurs...Simply schit, and Simflex! Sorry, but if you like yours fine, the plastic (delrin) one was the worse because not only the body was made of this flexible stuff but so was the knuckles and the parallelogram plates, and the derailleur simply flexed too much. The steel Simplex version seemed just barely acceptable but with many brand on the market back then that functioned a lot better everyone I knew junked their Simplex stuff and either went to Huret or some other brand that had the hanger attached which I don't think there were many brands that did that attached hanger thing and in fact was a antiquated design that most companies had stopped making. Pros raced on them almost exclusively but this was way back in the 20's and 60's where the Simplex invented push and pull rod system was the best anywhere for a long time. Simplex has a very rich and storied history, but when the push and pull plunger system was superseded by more modern derailleur designs Simplex fell along the side of the road. After their fall in the mid 60's onward mostly French pros still used Simplex due to being forced into using them, but eventually the French riders showed their disgust and switched to other brands like Huret and Campy that were far better.

rsterman

All of these comments are very interesting to me.......I know nothing of bikes in general.....I'm very happy to have access to all these people who know so much more than me......I want to keep my bike as era responsible as possible, but i also want it to be the last cycle I plan to use for the duration of my cycling endeavors....that being said, probably the truth is I would probably upgrade to the huret derailleurs fore/aft along with the attendant shifters if necessary......but what I have now seems to be working just fine, so I'm going to go with it until circumstances tell me I have to go a different way......this is a smooth riding bike, and I just love it. It Is a beautiful cycling machine.....

big chainring 

The Simplex derailleurs work well for me. I really don't think people gave them much of a chance way back when. Rumor and falsehoods abound about this deraileur. I just purchased the long cage version of the Prestige from ebay. A great derailleur that you don't see too often. It was original equipment on Raleigh Gran Sports. Really nice action and light touch with the long cage.

And as an added note. I recently bought a '71 Raleigh Competition. It had a Suntour VLUXE derailleur on it. Replaced it with a plastic Simplex Criterium model. And a Prestige front. They really are my favorite.

FastJake

You can find an aluminum square taper crank that's "period correct" that would be a huge upgrade over the cottered crank and you'll never have to deal with it again. You could keep the bottom bracket cups and just get a new spindle. Frankly I wouldn't bother with a cottered crank but it's your bike.

rsterman

Can you give me a name/style to look for @ the EBay goddess to look for?.....I'm more than willing to make this change hoping to eliminate ever having to deal with cottered cranks ever again....

FastJake

If you have a bike co-op nearby I would go there. They usually have tons of parts like this and they will be cheap. Chasing something NOS is pointless in my opinion and will be way too expensive. Any used road double crank will work fine.

The most difficult part will be determining the correct square taper spindle length to get, but that depends on the crank you're using...

Phil_gretz

I remember one retailer that carried Le Jeune bicycles, but I didn't know anyone who rode one.

It was super common for us to replace Simplex parts with SunTour back in the 70s. On of the first changes/upgrades that we did - shifters, front and rear derailleurs. I wonder how long that front derailleur will last if the OP uses it...

Phil_gretz

so why do it now? At that time, you'd either have run the Simplex until it failed, or you'd have gone SunTour. My riding friends did one or the other, but never swapped Huret stuff, unless you had a totaled Schwinn laying around for parts.

Only the Jubilee is interesting, but would do nothing on that bike and would be too expensive. Go aluminum Vx ... with plain SunTour shifters.

big chainring 

Here's my Peugeot UO-8. This compares to the OP's Lejeune. I put on a Brooks saddle, Nitto handlebar and a pair of alloy wheels. The alloy wheels were a $20 swap meet find. This was the bike that got me back into group rides, I rode this for a summer, put some good miles on it, The group rides were 50 milers at a good 22-25mph pace. The bike performed excellent. No problems whatsoever with the derailleurs.


Here's another. Gitane Interclub. Steel crank, Simplex Derailleurs. Pretty much stock except for the saddle. A lot of miles on this one too.

rsterman

I've been trying not to ask this, but I have failed......what does OP stand for? It refers to me in some way, but I can't figure out how.

rsterman

What does OP stand for when it refers to me in posts? Both of your bicycles are beautiful.....I thought the
Peugeot UO-8 was a higher quality bike than my Le Jeune TDF?

big chainring 

OP = Original Poster.

A UO-8 was equipped almost exactly like your Lejeune. Maybe even part for part the same. I would rank a Lejeune just a tad higher than a UO-8. It's certainly a lot less common.