sjpitts 

I bought my wife a pink schwinn yesterday. It is pretty nice. Pretty much all Dura-Ace 7400, except for some cheesy seatpost that isn't even round.

The good news is that I think it will be the perfect size for her. The other cool thing is that it was made just a few months after mine. Other than color, we almost have matching bikes.

Although I think the bike is nearly perfect, I am going to have to do some "upgrading". The first thing she is going notice is that it does not have a triple. In fact, it does not have much low gearing at all. I am going to have to remedy that, or she is not going to like it when we start biking up hills.

Any suggestions on how you would go about that?

And based on her experiance with her sirrus, I am sure she would also like an upgrade to upgrade to bar ends or STI. I am not sure how I could do that with the existing dura-ace, as I don't think they had dura-ace bar ends for the 7400 series.

Jared

Dhorn33

Beautiful bike! I assume you were joking about the seatpost so I won't comment....

jamesj

Awesome! i saw that on craigslist for a couple of weeks now... i was wondering when someone was going to pick it up...

Old Fat Guy

Glad you got it. 26t is as large as you can go with that RD, and they are tough to come by.
Hyperglide cogs can be altered to fit, though.

repechage

I bought a pink Schwinn once, a fair lady, used from the local Schwinn dealer, I immediately took it apart, had a "top tube" welded about 60% of the way up, painted it chrome yellow, fork flat black, added knobbies 20 x 1 3/4 (after that those became the hot set up for "pre BMX" bmx), did a few other mods, it was a hit, sold it for for a profit to buy a Phil Wood BB and used Campagnolo pedals a year later.

sjpitts 

Yes I was joking. But I am not sure what level of seatpost this is. Is it a Record? Or a lower level?

Jared

sjpitts 

Let me back up. The cassette says MF-7400. It is a six speed. I thought that this was going to be a Unglide cassette/freehub, and not one of the older screw on freewheels.

But I looked here:
https://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-Dura-Ace...d=p3286.c0.m14

And see the MF-7400 being sold, and that one is clearly a freewheel. And it looks like the one on the bike.

So I may have a screw on freewheel. I am not really sure how you tell the difference. And I am not sure if that is good or bad.

And that ebay freewheel looks pretty good-- 26 teeth. Then I would just need to find some seven speed bar end or STI shifters.

Jared

sjpitts 

And another question. Was there a "compact crank" or just smaller chainrings available for the dura ace 7400? Or something similar that would also be nearly correct for the bike?

Jared

prof2k

You will probably have trouble getting that Front derailleur to work with a triple crankset. Also the cage on that rear derailleur is probably too short for a proper triple setup. You might be able to get it to work with a wide range triple setup but you will have to make sure the wife doesn't do any cross shifting.

As for bar ends, there are 7400 series bar ends out there that index 8 speeds. I don't know how easy they are to find, but they are out there. You could also try to track down a set of 8 speed brifters. There are no 7400 7 speed bar-ends or brifters that I know of.

The easiest thing to do would probably be to get those rivendell bar end mounts that allow you to mount your downtube shifters as bar-cons.

prof2k

Oh, It's 6 speed. MF-7400 is a thread on freewheel. You should be able to use any 6 speed freewheel you can find, although the dura-ace ones shift nicer than a lot of other ones.

As for compact cranks, again, you might have trouble with the front derailleur working with it, but maybe not. There are no real compact racing cranks that would be era appropriate that I know of.

Sugino currently makes some retro looking cranks that are compact, but I do not know if they are easy to come by.

GrayJay

It should be pretty odvious if the rear hub is threaded for a freewheel and not a cassette hub. A casette hub will have an asymetrical "bulge" inboard of the spoke flange, while a freewheel hub is smoothly tapered and symetrical between the spoke flanges.

If you have a freewheel hub, it will probably be even less complicated to convert it to 8 speed than if you have a 6 speed casette hub. You will need to get a 8 speed freewheel (sachs made a bunch of them back in late 80's, early 90's), add 4mm of spacer washers to the axel to accomidate the wider freewheel and then re-dish the wheel. You can also have the frame cold-set (Bent) to 130mm and have the drop-outs re-aligned if you want to do it really right and avoid as many broken axels. Your derailler should then be fine to index with pre 1997 STI 8-speed dura ace shifters or 8-speed barcons. Changing to a freewheel will also be a convienient time to increass the cog size of the lowest gear to get her over the hills. You can also go down to a 38 tooth front chainring to avoid needing a tripple front crankset. 38x26 should be able to get over some pretty major climbs.

GrayJay

Lots of good dura ace compatibility info here too;
https://www.2avr.com/Classic___Vintag...t___26181.html

Looks like you could also convert to an ultra-7 spacing FW (rather than 8-speed) and then keep the axel spacing at 126mm, no need to add the axel spacer, re-dish the wheel and bend the frame. Spacing for 7 and 8 speed is identical so 8-speed Dura Ace STI or indexed barcons would work fine on a 7-speed setup with one extra unused click.

JunkYardBike

That seatpost is C-Record.

JunkYardBike

Yeah, don't get your hopes up. I've been watching them too. The last one up sold for $98!

You'd be better off trying to trade your drivetrain for something modern, but classy. But then you'd have to purchase wheels and STI/Ergos separately. Not exactly a bargain.

snappy

it's a great looking bike ... but did you buy it for yourself or your wife? a triple and sti shifters ... you're looking at replacing pretty much everything except the brakes. at that point, you might as well keep the brakes with the rest of the group and get a set of dual pivots.

sjpitts 

Cool

sjpitts 

It is for the wife. If she ends up wanting her triple, she will get her triple. If I need to strip and sell the dura ace I will. But I really do love the look of it as it is. So I might try and 26t freewheel and a compact crankset first.

If I went to a triple, what is the best way to do that? I have some ultegra 6500 triple parts, including the long cage RD and STI shifters. But I that would require getting a new rear cassette hub, rebuilding the rear wheel, and a lot of money.

I could strip the deore lx stuff from her sirrus, but putting a mountain bike derailleur on a paramount seems a bit sacrilegious.

Jared

snappy

yeah i'd do that. you'll also need a front derailler.

JunkYardBike

I kinda agree with snappy. Does she really want it? It is beautiful of course, but you could probably trade or sell it for a complete modern road bike.

If you are determined to convert it, I think a Campy triple group in alloy silver would look nice, and it will compliment the seatpost, stem and what I assume are Cinelli bars.

Did you sell that Specialized Expedition yet? You could probably trade that for a triple group somewhere...or put it up on ebay and get your money's worth. It's difficult bridging the vintage to modern world though. Modern stuff is expensive and it doesn't seem right that selling a nice vintage complete bike will only buy you some shifters and maybe a crankset!

sjpitts 

Where am I? Did someone move this out of the C&V forum?

Of course she wants it. A pretty pink lugged columbus SLX frame, in her size? What is there not to want? Why would I even consider trading it for a "modern" road bike? What would be comparable?

The only thing she wants is a lighter gearing and something easier to shift. I think I can do that without ruining the bike.

Seriously, why would you even say that? There is a whole thread dedicated to STI's on vintage bikes. And I think I can figure out a way to provide lighter gears without ruining anything. And I don't think that this bike necessarily came with these components from the factory. My understanding is that the frame was commonly sold separately and people built them up as they wanted.

I sold it. That is how I paid for this bike.

Jared

Old Fat Guy

I'm not so sure. It's tough to tell Record from Chorus from Athena.

This is a Record:

JunkYardBike

Well, let's say I'm fairly certain. Both Athena and Chorus had a different saddle clamp bolt arrangement.

Here's Chorus:



Here's Athena:

sjpitts 

Interesting. The shape is similar, but there are differences. OFG's is prettier, but that might be his own doing.

Is there anyway to know for sure?

Jared

EDIT: After seeing JYB's photos, mine does not have the cut out at the back. And looks much more like the OFG's.

JunkYardBike

Because I like how it looks as is? It's my opinion, not an edict on how you should proceed.

Old Fat Guy

You can always check here:

https://www.campyonly.com/history/catalogs.html