Thread: PX10 find!
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Old 05-13-18, 04:37 AM
  #37  
bikemig 
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Originally Posted by verktyg
Based on the Peugeot down tube decal, the frame is a 1966-70 PX-10. Almost all of those bikes where white with with black painted Nervex Pro lugs. Prior to that, PX-10s were blue with yellow lugs. I've heard tell of a few blue PX-10s from the late 60's era. Blue PX-10s were common later in the 70's but they had different decals and lugs.

Snip . . .

The Simplex Criterium RD is stamped 2 69. I would trust that February, 1969 date more than the 1973 date on the AVA bars.

Cheap French alloy bars from that era tended to start drooping which eventually led to catastrophic failure. It's likely they may have been replaced BITD.

Look for a date code stamped into the cantle on the underside of the Brooks Pro saddle. This one is Stamped C 65 (3rd quarter 1965). The Brooks Pro on my all original 1967 PX-10 is stamped B 67 (2nd quarter 1967). Not all Brooks Pros have a date stamp on the cantle but if one does and most of the other components are correct then it's safe to assume that the saddle is original to the bike (BITD they came on PX-10s, Raleigh Pros, Motobecane Le Champions and Team Champions).

The bike originally came with Mavic sewup rims mounted on quick release Normandy Luxe Competition large flange hubs.

Someone installed a set of CHEAP 27" steel clincher rims with CHEAP nutted axle large flange hubs. That was a common occurrence with better quality bikes that came with sewups.

Why? Several possibilities: During the bike boom FAD, most high end bikes were frequently vanity/impulse purchases (usually on a Saturday afternoon). A customer would come into a shop and say "What's the best bike you have?" "I'll take it.", regardless of whether it fit or was properly set up.

After a few short rides resulting in a sore butt (because the bike was never properly fitted and adjusted to the customer plus they were not educated about those kinds of bikes) and... flat sewups, the bike got consigned to the garage or basement. Worse yet, the owner took it into a shop and had the sewup wheels replaced.

We saw a number of less than ethical things done by some shop bikies too. Inexperienced customers brought their all Campy bikes into a shop and someone switched out their top end sewup wheels for garbage steel clinchers!!! (Karma = many flats and broken spokes)

Back to the OP's bike, some ham fisted hammer mechanic got carried away over tightening the kick stand clamp on the chain stays. Reynolds 531 is very tough and for normal use the damaged chain stays shouldn't be a problem.

Kick stands sucked!!! I seen a gust of wind blow over rows of parked bikes balanced on kick stands.

My comments and editorial about stems: I take issue with Saint Sheldon Brown (RIP) over his AVA "Death Stem" comments. Millions of cast aluminum stems were produced from the 1940's until the 1970's using old fashion casting technologies (sand castings or lost wax molding). In my 50+ year of messing with derailleur bikes, I've never seen a cast AVA stem fail. The ones that have been reported supposedly failed at or behind the bar clamp.

snip . . .

I have to ask, was an oversized bar installed in the stem??? French bars were 25mm. Japanese, British - others used 1" (25.4mm bars) or larger bars.

Not trying to defend the old AVA cast aluminum stems, but the real culprits were PIVO stems, especially from the early 70's bike boom era. Almost all of the broken cast aluminum stems that I've seen were made by PIVO. They broke off around the bottom of the quill at the top of the expander slot! I had it happen to me twice while test riding customer's bikes. Fortunately I was going slow enough to come to a controlled stop both times.

During the 1970-73 bike boom there was little or no quality control among most of the French component makers. Stems that were poorly cast with lots of porosities and shrink points should have been thrown back into the melting ladle (PIVO). Instead they were finished and sold to European bicycle makers who in turn just put the bikes together and shipped them as fast as they could box them up and push them out the door!



I'm running bike boom era cast aluminum stems on a number of my classic rigs. I only take them out for special rides. I don't recommend them for hard or everyday use.

I carefully inspect these stems for any signs of cracking plus I drill a round hole at the top of the expander slot or slots to reduce the possibility of a crack forming from a stress riser.

snip . . .

BTW, In the mid 70's Japanese companies started producing cast aluminum stems that they euphemistically called "melt forged". They were pressure cast injection molded which eliminated most porosities and made for much safer, stronger stems. The French followed suit in the mid 70's.

French steerers are supposed to have an ID of 22.0mm. Most are slightly oversized, also the original spec for French stems was 21.9mm not 22.0mm. You need a little clearance to insert the stem.

GOOD 22.0mm stems are getting hard to find. I measured the diameters of 20+ Nitto stems marked 22.2mm. All but one measured 22.1mm diameter. They should fit most Peugeot steerers with very little modification. Take solvent and clean out the inside of the steerer. Next run a a brake cylinder hone or some sandpaper around the inside of the steerer until it's smooth and there are no burrs. During reassembly put a glop of grease in the steerer and on the quill of the stem. It eliminates stuck stems and makes height adjustment easier (same with seat tubes)..

Stronglight crank arms: NDS (left side) crank arms fail more often than DS arms. They just do, Campy, Stronglight, it doesn't matter. There have been a number of discussions as to why the left side crank arms fail so often but that's for another thread..

The original Stronglight 93 crank arms that came on this bike were forged aluminum. You have a Stronglight 104 cast aluminum NDS crank arm. The correct Mod 93 LH crank arms show up on eBay. They've been running for around $70.

This site has info on PX-10s and serial numbers: PX-10_History

verktyg
This gets my vote for a great post. I'm running a CTA stem and pivo bar on my PR 10; now you have me worried about that damn bar, lol.

Last edited by bikemig; 05-13-18 at 04:43 AM.
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