Much progress, and significant components changes.

(a) The SunTour RD cleaned up so nice, polished and lubed... THEN I found that the parallelogram's bushings were shot and no way to get it to stay vertical, too wobbly. Got a long-cage SunTour BL from a forum Member, with a matching FD in the bargain! Owner said OK, so now all-SunTour shifting. The new units cleaned up nice as well. This new RD is 34T max per Velobase, and the freewheel is 32T, so I have margin.

(b) Stronglight 93 is not going to make it. Rough finish, I tried de-anodizing, OK, but I just cannot get a tolerable finish on it. Forum member Bulgie is guiding me towards what I'd call sanding-based polishing, aggressive and it should work... someday. So, digging around, it's not French but my Vitus 979 project came with an Ofmaga crankset in nice shape and I am not using it. Owner said OK, so I popped it in with two mis-matched French cups I had laying around & the no-name spindle that came with the Ofmega cranks. Don't recall whose bearings I got. Well, the Frankencranks not only installed OK, but the chainline looks great. Need cheap generic dustups for this and his sister's bike... ideas?

(c) Compared to what arrived last autumn, not the rims, cranks, pedals, seat post and handlebars are now aluminum. I figured on 2LB possible weight loss. I post #1, I started at 30.6LB, today... 26.0LB! That's with water bottle and cage, but not the $7.99 handlebars bag I found at Walmart.com (trying to add a little more blue to the TriColour scheme.