I am in the middle of a conversion. I have scraped the "rene" of so the bike just says hearse now, and painted over some parts of the chrome (kind of a striped pattern) with some black spray paint. I was wondering about grinding off some of the brazings and cutting out the rear brake bridge etc. Is all of this OK? I also had to strip out the threads in the BB a little cuz the sealed bottom bracket I am using wouldn't fit until I used my breaker bar to install it, but don't worry it isn't going anywhere now!

This bike was my grandpa's (he was french). I know how happy he would have been to seem me fixing it up.

One final question, I have a profile design stem that doesn't quite fit. Is it OK to grind out the head tube a little. I don't want to weaken or mar the shiny chrome of the frame any more than I have to.

thanks for any advise!