Originally Posted by
gearbasher
I bought a Moser off of Ebay. The frame is fully chromed. The PO covered the BB shell's cut-out with a piece of cardboard inside the shell. When I removed the BB, the rust flakes in the shell were about a 1/4" high. All I did was clean out as much rust as I could with a strip of cloth, wire and oil. I've had this bike for about 15 years and use as my foul weather ride. It has fenders on it and sees rain, snow and salt. I open it up and oil the tubes every two years, or so. It's still going strong. Moral of the story: I don't let rust bother me.
I had a similar experience. Bike was purchased off of eBay, and had been well used, but was still in good condition. It is a quality frame with Nivacrom tubing. Outside of frame has no indications of rust. There are no drain holes in the BB, and the ones at the bottom of fork blades seemed plugged with rubbery substance (or maybe accumulated goop, not sure if it was intentional or not). When I pulled the BB, I was shocked to see rust flakes coating the cartridge BB and forming a pile in BB area (first picture). I tapped all the tubes vigorously to knock off any loose flakes, and used a brush around BB area as best I could. I then used Pro Gold (like Framesaver) to treat the inside of frame, and afterward it looked much better (see second picture below).
It seems to me like it was just surface rust. I wonder if the flaking behavior has to do with the nature of the metal alloy (Nivacrom, versus plain old CrMo or 531 MnMo)? In any case, I have full confidence in the frame, and rode it just yesterday.
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