With the patient help of the members of this forum, I bought some tools, refreshed the hubs with new bearings, sourced a replacement BB and rebuilt that, got the stuck stem loose without further damage, found good repro brake hoods, replaced the cables/housings/tape/chain, recovered the Turbo saddle (not currently mounted), rehabbed all three freewheels that came with the bike, swapped the freewheel to a 13-24t, got the shifting to work on all 6 cogs (the chain jammed in the small cog originally), removed any rust, treated it with Frame Saver, and gave it a good cleaning, lube, and wax. I also sourced a period-correct Cinelli 64-40 handlebar to replace the too wide/too deep 66-42s that came original.



The only part of this process I had done before was change bar tape. Literally, I had never even used down tube shifters before. On the steel bikes of my youth, all I’d ever done was fix flats, adjust seats and handlebars, and retape the bars. Oh, and wire up a generator light. So both my lust for vintage steel, and my ability to rehabilitate this bike, are completely due to you folks. I blame you all. No, wait, I thank you all, sincerely. This was a therapeutic process for me. I feel like showing this off is like defending a master’s thesis in C&V.



I decided that I wanted to keep this build as true as I could to the original owner’s intent, with a few adjustments. I went to red tape and cables (and eventually the Turbo saddle will reappear in red leather) because the mix of red and yellow didn’t work for me, and the yellow seemed to highlight the paint fade. What little rust was there cleaned up well, which is not surprising since the entire bike is chromed under the paint. I’ve verified that the seat tube is SL tubing (as opposed to SP). Without pedals and with the current saddle, it’s a svelte 20.7#. It feels even lighter. With the Turbo saddle and heavy M520 pedals it was 21.6#.