Originally Posted by
outashape
If you do get S & S couplers, make sure you get a new paint job. I just spray painted the one inch area, and eventually water got in the tube and siezed the bottom bracket. Bilenky said the frame was unsafe and trashed it. I would not do it again. The case, the couplings and the paint job cost a lot of money. I had to pay $75 to fly with Delta. They charge if it is a bicycle, not by size. I did get my money worth before the steel frame rusted, but I would get a Bike Friday next time. I am retired so I drive to cycling events. I have not crossed the big pond with a bicycle.
Water often gets in bottom bracket shells of bikes that are exposed to the rain, can come in through the seatpost to seattube area if that is not greased, can come in to the head tube and then flow down the side of the head tube until it finds the hole where it goes into the down tube. A friend of mine that works as a bike mechanic says that it can come in at the water bottle cage mounting holes in downtubes from capillary action.
S&S provides little discs that some manufacturers use to seal off the tube ends where the couplers are. Some manufacturers use them, some don't. My frame, the discs are in the ends of the tubing, if water got in at the coupler it will not flow down into the bottom bracket shell. But if any water got in at the head tube, it could fill the down tube. I sealed off that hole in the head tube with tape, hopefully the tape is still there. (The manufacturer had actually put the tape in there, but I removed it to frame saver the frame, so I put new tape back later.)
It took me a day to get a bottom bracket out of an old Bridgestone that had been stored outside. A lot of water had gotten into the frame, it was not a coupled bike.