My comments in bold
Originally Posted by
raria
But then how would I sell the the 49cm touring bike. I would list it as a nearly new 2013 Fuji Touring with well used 2009 components? As we all know touring riders are pretty picky and I would be a bit dubious about buying such a Frankenstien bike.
A. You said you could get it cheap at a thrift shop. B. You said you want the components, which probably covers the cost of the bike. C. You list the left over bike on CL as is. Probably you could sell it for the cheap price you paid initially or you at least got the components cheap.
Also swapping the parts is no small amount of effort. Also, I'm not even sure it would work. I'm guessing the 49cm cable lengths will be too small for the 54cm frameset and the RD hanger looks a bit different as well (2009 has road groupo (4500 Tiagra) and 2013 has MTB groupo (Deore).
Replace the cables with new ones when you rebuild. Almost everyone I know does that when rebuilding a bike. They cost like $1 each. Keep the cable guides on the bikes they came with. It's really not that complicated. But.. point taken: If this sort of thing is confusing perhaps a retro fit isn't for you.
These Fuji framesets as I wrote earlier are just weird. 5.5cm more seat tube but only 1cm more ETT and 2cm more HT?
It's as though they assume that people on the larger frames will have longer legs but just as short arms, kind of like a T-Rex!
What we don't know is how much seat post your current bike has exposed or how well it really fits, hence the advice to actually sit on the bike rather than dismiss it out of hand. The seat post may be slammed or it may have 10 inches exposed with plenty of wiggle room for a different frame. dunno.
In previous posts I described how to make the frame fit with minor adjustments or swapping parts out if it's within ball park range of fitting. You said you like the components and the bike is
thrift store cheap so some (myself included) also suggested buying it for the parts you want. Flippers, backyard mechanics and Coop members do this stuff all the time. It seems pretty straight forward from this end and only depends on your comfort in doing some work to get what you want. No one here can gauge that for you.