bwilli88 

I have been spending way too much time working on fixing my house here in Lancaster, PA so we can sell it. My wife went off to a meeting and I had finally finished the daily job list early enough to ride down to the local Co-op. I rode up and spied a Raleigh Froggy green bike laying out front, I was thinking they were cleaning up the place and moved an old Raleigh Grand Prix that came in a few weeks back with a bent chain stay. As I came closer I saw the script writing on the top tube and it was different from a Grand Prix. I stepped into the shop and the one owner stepped out to greet me. I asked him about the Supercourse. He said it just came in that afternoon and had a crappy headset and stuck pedals, long story short I asked him what he wanted for it, he said it's yours, I said how much and his answer was take it and you will have my eternal gratitude.
here it is as found


So What Shall I do with it...?
Strip to bare metal and repaint, if I do, Red is the top color, ????
Wire brush and touch up
Chrome the whole dang thing

After repaint...
Single Speed/Fix it?
3 speed with Town bars?
Modernize it?


Front lugs


Seat cluster


Seat tube with a residue of 531 decal


Head tube


Bars


Stem and shifters


Crappy front brake probably replaced by the local bike butcher


chrome fork


Chainrings and crank

bwilli88 

RD, didn't check what it was, says Tourney



FD, what a mess



NDS chain stay

bwilli88 

O, I forgot to ask, Any body know what year, thinking pre 73

Only number is on the bottom bracket, 1760

Edit to say, both the seat post and the stem came out. The Seat post took a bit of a grunt but the stem came out easy.

Kobe 

It looks like it was pulled up from the bottom of the Susquehanna. You must have a lot of free time now that the house is done.

Cleaned up and repainted it will be really unique.

CannedPakes

That rear derailleur sure looks a lot like the Shimano Tourney on my Murray.

3speedslow

Strip it, check for strait ness then go wild. CHROME it !

OTS 

Clean it up.
Check all the consumables ( cables tires, tubes, eic.)
Grease and repack as necessary.

Ride it like you stole it.

If you still like it then repaint, re-chrome or .....

I bet once it is cleaned up, it will have great patina, probably well earned.

I kinda like patina so I would probably leave it as is.

Ultimately, it's your call.

Velocivixen

That'll buff right out! I couldn't help it. I really love green. Take your time and don't strip the paint just yet. Clean/polish/wax and see if the color grows on you. Does it fit?

cyclotoine

Strip it and throw all the components in the trash. clean it up and assess paint and chrome then. Make it a fixed gear.

bwilli88 

It fits, and I already have a Raleigh Froggymetallic green Grand Prix.

MeadMan2

I've found that going over the bike with 0000 steel wool soaked in WD 40 cleans it up nicely & while it is a bit expensive, Evapo-Rust does a unbelievable job on the rusty bits. *I would try that before committing to a repaint.

gugie 

Chrome it? Naw, don't do it. You can go through this site and find lots of reasons why not, but let's just summarize and say it would be pretty expensive to get it right.

I'd strip it down to the bare frame, clean it up, remove rust, then see what you've got. Make sure the frame isn't damaged in a way that compromises the frame. Small dents won't hurt anything, rust in gaps between lugs and tubing are a potential issue.

The capella lugs used on that bike were only used on Raleighs on several different models in 1973, but could be found on models a bit after, best I can tell (others will chime in with more precise time period). That makes the frame fairly interesting.

After that, you could just clean up, regrease, and rebuild, replacing parts that are just too far gone. Wax the frame first. Ride it and see what works well and what doesn't.

A step up from that would be to upgrade some parts for better performance. Tires, saddle, and brakes come to mind. That drivetrain may need some upgrading as well.

Lastly, strip the frame and repaint it. Rattle can it yourself or powder coat it. Decals are available at VeloCal. Rebuild the wheels, or just put new ones on. Keep the bits that are worth keeping, modernize the rest.

It all comes down to how much money you want to spend.

Google Raleigh Super Course and look at images. Look through this site, you'll find plenty of examples of what others have done. They've turned these into fixies, 7 or 8 speed internal gear bikes, put on triples, brazed on all the typical braze-ons for water bottles, cable guides, shifter bosses, even cantilever brakes.

It's a chameleon frame, and will become most anything you want it to be outside of a competitive racing bike. Tourer, city bike, dirty roads, commuter, "sport-tourer", or randonneur.

Or build it up one way, ride it for awhile, change it later. If I found one like you did, I'd be pretty happy.

USAZorro

Aluminum foil on the chrome of the fork and stays.

Check the outside of the left rear dropout for serial numbering.

edit - the stem, bars, and wheels are worth considering for retention.

AZORCH

According to the lugs, it's a 1973.

nlerner

Yeah, that's my understanding. Capella lugs = 1973. I've had a SuperCourse, Competition, and International with those lugs, and the latter two were built in '73 according to the serial #s .

That's one crusty project. Good luck!

bwilli88 

Wheels are crusty steel and the hubs are shot along with the headset. I think the stem and bars are salvageable and little else.

Just checked the left rear dropout, Serial # 0006854

lord_athlon

It looks like someone got it as a frame and a few parts, and got a cheap BSO 10 speed as a donor to put it together BITD

Lascauxcaveman 

I'd give t a good bath and dunk in oxalic acid before I do anything as rash as repainting it. It's not an Italian bike, that paint will actually buff out pretty well. .

gugie 

So now we're talking about a set of wheels. In Portland you can find a set of used wheels for $50 if you don't have a spare set laying around. Headset at your local co-op, get some new tires and a new chain, is it rideable then?

gugie 

Now that would be cool, a quadrafecta of capella lugs. 73 International, Competition, Gran Sport, and Super Course MkII. Then go and find the odd Raleighs that were made with leftover capella lugs.

72Paramount

Do whatever makes you happy. I have always liked the Capella lugs. Kind of unique.

jyl

Neat!. I would remove all the components, clean and derust the frame, use some gentle rubbing compound and polish on the paint, aluminum foil on the chrome, and admire the patina. Then build it up as you wish. Can it be a 650B rando bike?

3alarmer 

...this. I have four or five of the various Raleighs with these lugs. All date from this period. Carlton used them for a number of years prior, so they also show up on those from the mid 60's onward. I think maybe they were sitting in stock at the Carlton works and Raleigh (now the owners) decided to use them up.

...I just restored a Gitane TdF that was as bad or worse than your SC, just as an experiment. I usually go for something less ambitious. I soaked it in oxalic acid so I could get at some of the interior rust in the frame, then rinsed it well, took it over to the local powdercoat guy, where the exterior (including all chromed surfaces) were media blasted and prepped and powdercoated in the original white. I bought decals for it, and saved what components I could (Stronglight crank and Mafac brakes were about all I salvaged of the components). It turned out better than I expected. That GB stem is kinda iconic, and probably still OK, unless it's really really stuck in there.

The BB on these was Raleigh threaded, as is the headset, so you might run into some issues finding a replacement, unless the co-op where you got the bike has a good selection of stuff...not impossible, just inconvenient. You can usually derust and wire brush your originals to usability if need be.





...one of the nice things about a project where you're starting with little but the frame is that it frees you from the "keep it original" restrictions that often take over with some of us.

nlerner

Pics or it didn't happen!










I haven't seen a Grand Sports with that lug set, but that doesn't mean there aren't some out there.

USAZorro

Have a Competition frame that I believe is a '74 with those lugs.