Jakenks

Super! I love Kleins. I used to race a Pinnacle and sold it about ten years ago. Unusual teal color, mission control bars, etc. very responsive bike that was much better than I was. I'd love to score an early road bike.

T-Mar

I'm late to the party again, but perhaps I can offer some information...

Frames were in production prior to the 1980s. Full colour advertisements started appearing in Bicycling in very early 1979. By this point the derailleur cable routing had already been redesigned to go under the bottom bracket shell. There was also a B&W advertisemnet in the late 1970s, though I can't recall its chronological relationship to the colour advertisement.

The bottom bracket was a proprietary design based around a Dura-Ace spindle.

The dropouts appear to be the same as those appearing in the early Klein advertisements.

This another piece of concrete dating evidence, as Klein switched to 6 speed spacing for 1978. From what I've seen, the frame should be pre 1978, though I can't say by how much. I'll check back through my mid-1970s literature and see if I can find anything else.

T-Mar

Well, I found the B&W advertisement. It's from May 1976. So, it looks like consumer frames were available in 1976. It has derailleur cable routing over the BB shell like the OP's frame. The shift levers are down tube mounted via an oversize clamp. Basically, it doesn't allow us to confirm that the OP's frame is pre-1976, as the cable stops may have been custom.

DiabloScott

Kristen Klein used to moderate one of the Klein fan Facebook pages and she posted this ad once. I asked if that was her, and she said no, it was someone who worked for Gary though... maybe a college student / intern, but she wasn't sure.

Sir_Name 

Thanks, All. Nice to hear. It's been fun slowly building this back up. I can't wait to ride it - no doubt it's better than I am. I worked on paintfill earlier this evening. Currently waiting for it to cure and I'll clean around the edges sometime this weekend. I'm also hoping to get the spokes and tires order within the next day or two. Getting close!

Sir_Name 

T-Mar - Thank you. I appreciate you sharing what you know and taking the time to dig up the advertisement. Great information. I was able to find mention of the Dura Ace BB spindle a while back, the look/tooling marks of the exposed ends match online images of the first-gen. well. The spindle is hollow as you saw earlier in this thread. I'm not sure that I've encountered the exact decal type and layout pictured in the ad until now.

It is also interesting to see what may be a first gen. SR rear derailleur mounted as well as a clamp-on record FD in the ad. I have seen at least a couple other early examples ("The High-Tech Bicycle", etc.) with clamp-on record FDs and am beginning to think that I should revisit the idea of modifying the one on pg3 to fit. It'd be more elegant in design and certainly more correct than the adapter in place now - though perhaps not as strong. I have a junk spare sans-cage to experiment with. Minimal bending (if any) and light file work to the 'ears' at the opening of the band clamp should be enough to convince it to fit around the tube, longer bolt to hold things tight. From the link below: "The recommended method for front mech install was to "gently massage" clamp & body, and use included extra long bolt." Bending the aluminum much and with any repeats is a natural concern, though bending lightly once may be unavoidable. It's been done in the past, but who knows how long those examples lasted. Maybe some are still intact somewhere.

Quite very early Klein frame | Retrobike

Sir_Name 

Are any of the Facebook groups still active? Maybe it's time to dust off my account and go poking around. Thanks again for the info on your blog.

T-Mar

I don't think that is a Campagnolo SR rear derailleur but a black SunTour Cyclone. My first thought was black Shimano Crane but it appears to have a slant parallelogram. Also, the brakeset is first generation Dura-Ace. I thought the shift levers might be Dura-Ace too, as the first Kleins with brazed-on shift lever bosses used the Shimano bosses and Dura-Ace levers but these do appear to be Campagnolo Record. Also was surprised to see Campagnolo (36H hubs no less), knowing that slightly later versions used Hi-E.

Sir_Name 

Right you are, good eye.

Sir_Name 

It's starting to look like a bike again...

This wheelset is a bit of a puzzle.
-Locknuts are '76 which would be consistent with approximate build date, but the rear was spaced at 126 - not 120.
-The freewheel that came with the bike is a two prong 6sp Sachs Maillard 700 Course "Super", but it doesn't match any of those shown on velobase. There's an "88" stamped on the back/NDS face of largest sprocket (guessing that's a date, there's also an "MA") - there's a 5sp Regina on now.
-Each NDS spoke has a number of threads exposed, so perhaps the wheelset could be original and was re-spaced and dished for the 6sp freewheel...but there are some DS spokes with exposed threads, so that theory isn't sound.

I re-spaced the rear to 120 with the same process on the previous page - replace the ~12mm DS spacers with a 6mm. The 5 speed FW fits nicely. I'll re-dish just to have the wheelset (new spokes of the correct lengths). These wheels are nice and light, too light for me for now.

Paintfill turned out pretty well, too. Pics of that soon. I'd like to eventually bring this to a full correct build, but am pretty friggin' happy.

Rideable wheels and final touches are all that's left.

Sir_Name 

I threw the old cables on it and went for a quick easy spin earlier - this thing feels great. The cables are JH Stroh and feel pretty good, need to find out if a bit of friction is due to a worn liner or brake adjustment. It also looks like I could stand to add another link to the chain, it does shift into big-big, but it's labored. The original 130mm stem with some goodies might actually be a better fit for me than this 120 with standard hardware, fingers crossed.

^I redished the rear from 126 to 120 a while back, it turns out the spokes all come out pretty much even once trued up, so maybe this wheelset is closer to original than I thought.

I need to build some everyday wheels...



According to the bathroom scale it weighs in at 20.6 with the pump, 20.2 without.