wrich

Hello all. Newbie here. I acquired an old Peugot road bike (1970s I think) for free about a year back with intentions of restoration. Well, after completely dismantling the entire bike (the easy part) I went off to school, hoping that I'd find time to rebuild. I did not. Now, however, I have a lot of time on my hands, and I want to jump back into this project. I was hoping that this community might give me some recommendations on how to get started back into this project; as I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment.

I have an imgur post with images, but I can't post them because I'm so new.


The serial number is B4034971 if anybody can help me identify the model. Also it has a campagnolo rear derailleur (installed aftermarket I think), a simplex front derailleur, and wienmann brakes. Thank you for your time!

Edit: grammar

SurferRosa

Put on some music, crack open a beer, and start cleaning the sht out of everything.

wrich

I forgot to mention that everything is clean! I do still have to degrease the bottom bracket and remove some minor corrosion from the threads. Although that I will take the beer into consideration.

zandoval 

Fun, fun, FUN... Welcome to the forum.

It will be interesting to see pics of your bike and progress. Some people make a big deal about the term restoration. I have had a few bikes that I originally intended to restore to vintage specs but gave up due to the expense. If ya dont have another bike to ride then just clean that baby up, get it fully sound, and ride, ride, ride.

One thing for sure is that an old Peu can give ya a real good ride...

wrich

Yeah I’m very much looking forward to the day I can take it out and cruise. I got the chance to ride my brothers vintage Canopus in Central Park once, and it was a dream.

aTechnical

There exists somewhere a website with the old Peugeot catalogs. it's impossible to identify a bike like that through the number. best bet is to cross reference the pretty pictures with the components it's got. my Peugeot bike came with a simplex Rd, and weinmann brakes. turned out to be a 1973 bike. keep us updated brother!

dedhed

​​​​​​https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/

Bill Kapaun

One problem with these older French bikes is they tend to be "non standard" re: many of their parts.
Just spend a minimal amount of $ spent to make it rideable.
If you want to pour a lot of $ into a bike, get something later than 1990.

_ForceD_

Now that you’ve got the bike disassembled, one thing that will help a lot is reassembling it in an order that avoids having to take newly mounted or reassembled things back off. For example…installing the chain before you have the derailleurs mounted will cause you to either take the chain back apart, or disassemble the derailleur(s) to route the chain through them.

Here’s a bike assembly checklist from Park Tool
https://www.parktool.com/en-us/blog/...-bike-assembly

You can get a lot of instruction from that Park website. Also, there is a trove of info available, including maintenance, for old and new bikes on the Sheldon Brown website.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/

Good luck and have fun. Post some pics for us.

Dan

RB1-luvr

how are the wheels? are they true? are the bike's bearing surfaces smooth, not pitted? Looking forward to seeing it.

BTinNYC 

@wrich,
If your old Pug is like the ones I've worked on, you're going to need new:
Cables and housing, tires and tubes, and brake pads, budget about $100 for parts and about $15 for the cable cutters (pliers don't cut it).
Typically the bearings on the wheel hubs, crankset and steering headset need cleaning and new grease.
There are bike co-ops in NYC that can help with the work (and have the tools), plus your dedicated team of online opinionated curmudgeons to jiggle your elbow as needed.

Biker Pete 

I’ve just started doing the same (disassemble, clean, re-grease, replace parts if needed) to my 1975 Motobecane Grand Record. I’ve just ordered the tool for the Maillard five speed freewheel and crank puller for the T.A. Crank. Fun winter project!

grumpus

Be careful with those cranks: IME (of a handful of vintage TA cranksets) the threads aren't very strong and the tapers can stretch. I guess the metallurgy wasn't great, which is a shame because they look really cool.

Biker Pete 

Thanks. Back in the day I had the crank arm puller for this crank and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the tool seems to have been lost, probably in one of my moves over the last 45 yrs. Looking on eBay for another one…..

dedhed

If it is a lower end model with chrome steel wheels do yourself a favor and upgrade to aluminium.

grumpus

Me too, I'm sure I had one in 1988 ...

JohnDThompson 

May as well get new wheels instead of just rims. That way you'll have an English thread hub (or modern cassette freehub, depending on what you choose), and can run modern profiled sprockets with far better shifting performance than the old freewheels.

JohnDThompson 

You can get a double-ended (TA 23mm/Stronglight 23.35mm) extractor tool on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/35375646607...MAAOSwCxVhg-Lk

Iride01 

When you say restoration, do you mean you want to keep it all with original or period correct components. Or just restore it to get it running? Or does restoration include upgrading it?

If you have pictures at imgur. Then just type the URL in the text of your message. If it balks when you try to post it, then take off the www or https:// and then change the .com to dotcom. Someone here will figure it out and post them for you.

wrich

Hey guys, thank you for all your responses and input. After doing a little digging I think I can place my bike as 1985-1987 PH501. In response to some of suggestions and questions: I know at least one of the wheels is not true as it is missing two spokes. As for the other one, I can't say because I don't exactly know how to test that out. Ass more as money goes, I'm not really concerned as this is a bit of a personal project and I did get the back for free. With regards to the restoration, I'm hoping to reuse as many of the parts that came on the back, but obviously I know that there will be some limitations with the wheels. As I started to unpack the parts I realized that there were some parts that I haven't cleaned. As of now I'm in the process of removing corrosion/old grease from the front and rear end and the bottom bracket. One of the things I'm most concerned with at the moment is the bottom bracket. I would like to replace the caged bearings, but I am unsure of what the measurements are. Additionally, the races on the adjustable cup seem to have a little bit of corrosion and I don't know if they can be reused. I will post pictures when I am able to (I just have to make a few more posts). In the meantime, I will drop a partial link to my imgur page: //imgur.com/gallery/0SO05b8. Thanks again for all your advice and comments, your guys' welcome is more appreciated than you know!

wrich

Also forgot to mention that I am not based in New York at the moment, rather Virginia.

wrich

Here is a partial link to an imgur of the bearing/races: //imgur.com/a/EqbFL8h. As for the wheels I know for certain that the rear isn't true because it's missing two spokes. I can't say much for certain about the front wheel.

wrich

Nice lookin rig!

dedhed

Ditch the cages and go with 1/4" loose grade 25 balls. Cheap and easy. In fact replace all the balls in the headset/hubs/BB, maybe even pedals if it's not too big a hassle. If you insist on cages just pop new balls in the old cages

sweeks

This ^^
I restored an old Motobecane Mirage and did this. One potential advantage of losing the cages is that you may be able to fit more balls. The OEM bottom bracket on my bike had 7 balls on each side... no wonder it wore out a couple crank axles. I was able to fit 11 balls on each side... more than a 50% increase.