Today I got to spend some time putting some pieces on the bike, but I've had some issues since my last post so I'll fill you in about those first.

I took the bike to the LBS to get my Campy Record threaded headset installed and to clean up the bottom bracket threads. I took my fork in because I was just a bit worried about stack height, and it turns out, for good reason - my fork was a bit small and wasn't gonna work out. The shop offered to order a new chrome fork that was long enough, but time and money weren't on my side. The shop owner had a fork in his office that he offered to me for $10. It was pretty heavy, but the lugs were similar and it looked pretty good. I got the headset installed and the bottom bracket threads cleaned up. I'm working on painting the fork, It's gonna be silver on the bottom and red on the top, to mimic the look of the polished aluminum and red for that fork I started out with. I'll keep my eyes open for a nice chrome fork for later on.

While I was waiting for the paint to dry I broke out the boxes and started putting some pieces on. I got a Campy Veloce bottom bracket - Italian threaded. It went on painless and looks pretty nice!




Next I went for the front derailleur. It's a boxed NOS Suntour Superbe Pro. This is where I'm sure to be berated - for putting Japanese parts on an Italian frame. Remember, I started this project on a budget (which grew a lot). My first real road bike in college sported Suntour GPX and I liked it quite a bit - it was a Schwinn 754. I wish I still had it now! I decided to build this up as a bike that I would have wanted, and could (almost) afford to buy back in the late 80s...kind of my affordable dream bike - as opposed to my anything goes dream bike!





After the front derailleur it's time for the shifters. I found an NOS mini Suntour Sprint group still in the box. It included 13-23 6 speed freewheel, rear derailleur, shifters, chain and shifter cables. I never built a bike back in the 80s, my buddies were bike mechanics and did all my work for me, so I really had no idea how to install the shifters. After scraping away a little paint they went on great!






After the shifters I decided to mount the rear brakes. I also bought an NOS set of Suntour Sprint calipers and levers.






I'd read a lot about the poor stopping of the stock Sprint pads so I decided to replace the pads with Kool Stops.




You can see how much more material there is in the new pads, as well as a superior compound.




I ran into a snag, however, and wasn't able to mount the caliper - the brake bridge is too narrow. I've got to cut or grind some of the stud down, but since I'm not at my house I don't have the tools to do it here. I may see about using a dremel to do it. I'll have to get back to that later.