Originally Posted by
ddeand
I made it through about 15 pages of this thread, tried the Search function, but finally gave up trying to match up my serial number. The bike is most certainly a 1987 Ironman Expert - it has the appropriate color (magenta/yellow), all 105 components, etc. Through the first 15 pages, I can't find a match to my serial number. For those of you who have been on this thread for 13 years, I apologize if this has been already sleuthed - I'll eventually get there! The serial number is:
M7K6988. The Centurion will be one of my two daily rides and will get most of the bike path and road time. I'll be rigging it up with a full D-A group (8-speed). Right now, I'm drop-filling the chips and scratches with primer/filler, then I'll sand, mask, and airbrush the bad spots. It'll be ready to go by next Spring!
This is a bit of an anomaly. The M-prefix in this format is representative of Miki. They were a known Centurion source for the mid-range and upper end models but were used in the late 1970s to very early 1980s. The 1987 Ironman variants typically come for Tano, who used a similar format but with an N-prefix. Either WSI used Miki as an alternate source for some Ironman production or somebody at Tano accidentally grabbed an 'M' stamp, instead of an 'N'.