thanks for the heads-up on the fenders CH. I'm still on the wire about fenders in general and have some bigger fish to fry fist.

The Dia-compe 986s on your bike look much more modern than the D-C 960's on mine. I spent the better part of yesterday installing new levers and then trying to get the pads centered and aligned and toed in all at the same time, quite honestly it was a nightmare. It's my first experience with cantilevers, and I did get it very nice eventually, but if I had to go through that at the roadside, uhgg, it took hours. (well, i was being very picky).
Nice that you've got the original racks, I'm going to have to spend money to get at least a rear rack.
My rear wheel, like yours, is 40 spokes; I never counted the front, probably the same 36 as yours too. They're not perfectly in true, but not bad enough to want to mess with it.
Lugged frames, yeah - I mean, geez. There's something just reassuring about a lugged frame. You know, this Lotus is for my 18 year old son. My bike is a 1980 Trek 400 series, Cromoly, fully lugged. I'm the orig owner; I think that bike will outlive me