Originally Posted by wrk101

Serial numbers are almost always meaningless. There was no industry standard, and even individual companies changed their serial code methodology many, many times. Best bet for age is to look up the component codes. That stem should also have a date code.

+1 Low end/bottom end Japanese bike, 1980'ish. If that is an Apex crank, then the bike could be from the late 1970s.

The Japanese made some great bikes, so even low end are pretty good. And this is a good candidate for your plans. Enjoy!