Spaghetti Legs 

Got another one! I rolled the dice on a first time eBay seller for a EM Century in Reynolds 653. It arrived today pretty poorly packed but no shipping damage. The previous owner had done some atrocities to this frame, namely shoving the Campy Aero seat post in to the hilt and securing it with some type of 4+ inch carriage bolt. My biggest concern was damage to the seat bolt clamp and crimping in that area but other than a lot of scrapes it's in good shape. I got the seat post out with loads of WD-40 and the stand on the bottom of the saddle while twisting and pulling frame method.

Down side - the chrome looks worse than I thought and probably done for and seat post will probably be a 27.0 by the time Im done sanding out the scratches.

Up side - Other than paint dings the frame is in good shape, came with a Campy BB that is pristine (go figure!) and prospects that the headset will be good as well, spins smoothly at any rate.

The sizing info was vague in the bay listing and I had thoughts of a flip but turns out it's a perfect size for me so I'm excited to see how the Century geometry rides.



This was the set up as shown on eBay. Looks like a cloth was stuffed in the gap in the aero post.

3speedslow

Congratulations !

Seatpost atrocities will always make me scratch my head in disbelief.

Hope the chrome is not as bad as you think.

rccardr 

Yeah, that chrome looks toasted. Too bad, but not uncommon as the original chroming wasn't very good to begin with. And the seat post...what was he thinking?

Might be worth considering a Wanta respray.

eastbay71

Nice frame it will be worth the effort to bring it back to life. I've been looking for a 50-52cm 653 EM Century forever. I want to have a 653 bike in my collection and it should be a Merckx because wasn't 653 developed for him because he didn't like 753?

OldsCOOL

Keep us post-ed.

horatio 

I saw what you did there.

Spaghetti Legs 

According to the Internet, which is always right, Eddy wanted a light tube set that wasn't as harsh as 753. Result is a variant of the 531 for the front triangle with 753 rear triangle labeled as 653. The Century frame was first sold in 1989 with this tube set and then they went to TSX in 1990.

Im thinking this is one of the rarer production frames and since it should fit me, will be worth the time and effort to make right. I'm going to " do by self" for a while but will investigate a re-chrome or repaint. On a side note, my other Merckx is 753 so I still have one in Columbus on my n+1 list!

qcpmsame 

Wow, your shop looks just like a kitchen, or maybe you have a complete kitchen in your shop. You must always be cooking up something for your bikes.

Nice EM frameset, I was afraid it would be a horror story when you started off with the bit on how poorly it was packaged for shipping. Other than the seat post things it sounds pretty nice. A good score, one in the win column for you.

Bill

Fahrenheit531 

And now you're stuck with saying "I think I'll ride an Eddy," and then there's still a bike choice to be made.
Oh, the horror.

Spaghetti Legs 

Well pleasant surprise, turns out what I thought was bad chrome on the drive side chain stay was actually residual adhesive from a protector. Cleaned up nicely! I'll be using all the tricks learned from these forums on the rest of it.



Yes that is a small kitchen in my basement. The stove gets used mostly as an accessory work bench. Most importantly the beer fridge is right there. OBTW, the post is out, the picture didn't link, but it's pretty beat up.

3speedslow

Thing about chrome is we can speculate gloom and doom all we want but then it shows us how good it really can be.

Glad ad one of the bumps got smoothed out ! Beer fridge in the workshop, too dangerous!

I hate the non- linking thing going on, so frustrating.

malcala622

I continue seeing these EM bikes and I may I say if I weren't collecting bianchi I wouldn't mind having a few of these also.