Alrighty then - so if you read Collin's thread on the nice Peugeot he
took a chance on, you know that it went from a nice-looking bike to a
real pain, real fast. Looking for a challenge, I took it off his
hands.

It's a 1984 PSV10, Super Vitus 980 tubing, almost all-original except
for the seatpost and seat. The frame is a good shape- a few surface
rust spots, the usual light scratches and scrapes. The paint is
generally good, but the decals under the clear coat have cracked and
spidered. Bottom bracket is definitely Swiss, which is interesting
since the 1984 PH501 I have is English. There are some tiny rust
spots on the fork, will try to buff them off the chrome.



The headset was stuck, and the stem was *very* stuck. The first thing
I did was apply some fire, and the headset came loose after a few heat
cycles. The needle bearings are fine and the bearing surfaces are in
good shape as well. The stem on the other hand was a different story.
I heated it, doused it in liquid wrench, heated again, tapped the
bottom, tapped the top, and briefly considered sacrificing a chicken.
I let it sit for quite a while, heated the heck out of it, and used a
2x4 as a lever at the fork crown and it finally squeaked a little and
moved about 1/8 of an inch. Copious back and forth for about 30
minutes finally got it out. It was interesting how dry the most
corroded part of the joint was- the penetrating oil didn't penetrate
very far at all. Perhaps it would have if I would have left it for a
few days. There was so much corrosion that the steerer tube has an
outward bulge where the worst of the corrosion was. Anyway, stem out.
Since the top of the stem was dinged I filed, sanded, countersunk, and
polished the top of the stem and it looks fine and presentable, but
I'll be on the lookout for a replacement ATAX stem, hopefully a bit
longer than this 100mm one.



On to the crank- the good news is that the threads aren't stripped on
that non-drive side arm- I used a brand new Park crank puller with
nice fresh threads which may have helped. The bad news is that the
arm is 100% committed to staying with it's spindle. I cranked the
puller as hard as I dared, heated it, cooled it, heated it again- no
joy. Not wanting to ruin the arm I stopped, and will do the same
thing Collin was going to do- repack the bearings and reinstall the
crank. The bearings and cups feel perfect, so I'm not worried about
being able to remove that arm right now.





More to come as I work through this bike. With some touch up and decal
work it could be a great example- I ordered some new decals for it,
have to put some thought into how to remove the old ones or get the
surface prepped well enough to take the new ones without hurting the
paint. Maybe I'll just leave it alone, but it would be great to be
able to get some new decals on it and a nice fresh clear coat.