cuda2k

A continuation of Pastorbob's thread.

ridethecliche recently sent me a nearly complete early 80's SunTour superbe group for a yet to be determined project. He had gotten the cranks pretty well cleaned up, but many of the other parts needed a bit of attention. The perfect project to get started on a very very rainy afternoon here in Dallas.

First I got to work on the pedals.



Took the toe clips and straps off. Gave the aluminum parts a quick polish, wiped down the clips. Clips look to be a little on the small side for me. Considering either stripping or repainting the cages.





Next on my list were the brake levers. Both had some road rash on them, one significantly more than the other. My choices were either a quick wipe down of the bodies and levers... or I could break out the sand paper and knock down the roughness and then polish up the levers. I went with plan B.




(Wish I had a "before" picture of these. Doh!) I'll finish stripping the annodizing off later this week when I can do that outside!

Then I moved on to the front derailleur. It seems these early Superbe front derailleurs had a tendancy to develop a small crack near upper pivot point. Combination of a stress riser and a very strong spring.




(before cleaning)

... and after cleaning and a bit of grinding work at that crack...

cuda2k

(continued)

Lastly I tacked the rear brake.







became...

cyclotoine

Jon, I have a spare set of NOS superbe pedal cages. PM if interested.

Cheers,
Anthony

Old Fat Guy

Nice job, cuda!

I take a Dremel with a brass brush to the nuts and bolts and springs of my brakes, and they come out looking almost like new. The brass is soft enuf that it doesn't damage the finish, but knocks the rust off.

cuda2k

Of course you do. You always seem to have what I'm in need of. I'll get with you on those soon.

Ah, the brash brush, that's what I need for a few more finishing touches on those brakes! Knocked off most of the rust with a little 1500 grit wet/dry sandpaper I had already out from working on the levers.

GT2005

Do any of you use a product called Never Dull on projects like this? -GT2005

cyclotoine

yeah it's pretty good but autosol is King.

g-funk

I'm glad that the superbe group went to a good home.

pastorbobnlnh 

I'm glad I was able to inspire a companion thread. BTW and FWIIW, it's still snowing here in the NH mountains. So, it's still good polishing and wrenching weather.

ridethecliche

Me too!

Cuda2k, the parts look amazing! I'd cleaned most of the things up when I got the bike, but I didn't clean anything but the crankset after taking it off.

I'm glad this stuff came to you and I can't wait to see what it goes on!

USAZorro

What speed do you run the dremel at when you do that? I've tried all sorts of variations of gentle abrasives, dremel bits and polishes. While I can always achieve some improvement (unless I goof badly), but never do I achieve the excellent finish like Jon and others do. It leaves me wondering what they're doing that I'm not.

USAZorro

Nevr Dull leaves a haze that needs to be removed afterwards. It does quite well taking things from "ugh" to "pretty nice", but it doesn't produce the degree of polish Jon got - at least not on steel or aluminum alloy.

Old Fat Guy

I use about 3-4k/rpm, and only use the brass brush on nuts, springs, qr levers, etc.

abeyance

This is after about 8 hours of work. It looks even better now.

USAZorro

I only have the single-speed dremel (way faster), and a variable speed knock-off brand that's just a bit off center. Might have to get another of the knock-offs to see if I get lucky and get a straighter one.

cuda2k

For the levers, I didn't use the dremel. Just started with a fine grit sandpaper to knock down the road rash and bite through the anodizing. Followed that up with 1500 grit wet sand to smooth out the marks left from the first standing. Then went over it by hand with a little Mother's. You can easily see on the photo of the lever where the anodizing wasn't removed (yet) and where it was (and got to a high polish).

As for the front derailleur, I only used Mother's on a felt pad that I ran on the second speed setting on my variable speed Dremel on the aluminum base parts. Then went back over by hand to even out the polish as the dremel can sometimes create some uneven results.

btw: if anyone has any hoods for Superbe levers, I'm interested!

cuda2k

Polishing work continues. Unfortunely the clamp band that bigbossman sent me for the superbe levers above didn't work. So the levers are still incomplete and only one is usable at the current time. Going to do some asking around at some of the shops locally to see what I might be able to find. Might just pull the levers off the bodies and resell the levers only here or on ebay as replacements for someone's who may have been road-rashed. I'm currently waiting for the easy-off to work its magic on the second lever before doing the final sanding and the first round of polishing on it. The first lever has been fully stripped and its first polishing completed. I'll probably give it a second go with the dremel tool and one more hand polish with a clean cloth before considering it complete.

cuda2k

Time for more pictures.

One lever, from anodizing stripping to full polish:


Just rinsed after being set outside for 10min with heavy-duty Easy Off oven cleaner.


Final sanding with 400 grit wet-dry sandpaper. Used it wet, avoided the top of the lever mostly to avoid losing the "S". Most of the scratches in the levers are now gone or much reduced in side and feel.


Final sanding with 1000grit wetdry sandpaper, again wet sanded. You can start to see some reflection in the lever again. Finish should look satin with no visible standing marks. Any remaining anodizing that didn't come off with the stripping or rougher sand paper should easily be visible before proceeding to polishing.




Hand polished finish with Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish. Used a white terry cloth for polishing. Will probably go back and hit a few areas with the dremel tool polishing wheel at a high rpm to give a better polish in some areas before doing a final hand polishing. My polishing cloth was getting pretty dirty and was having a hard time getting a clean final buffing.