Mr. 66

Holy crap o' magic just finished putting on the last cable and the Falcon weighs in at 20 lbs on the bathroom scale. I'll try get pictures up later.

Bogester 

Hi,
I don't know if this qualifies but a vintage lightweight is back on the road so I am happy. Last summer my 17yo neighbor brought over his moms 1980ish Trek over to tune it up and get it back on the road. I'm guessing it was last on the road many years ago. We stripped it down to the frame in an hour or two and the plan was for him to come back, learn about bike repair, and help put it back together.
Fast forward one year....no return (I'm pretty sure he forgot about it), bike and bits sitting in garage, boy is graduating and going off to college in a few weeks. I didn't want the frame hanging around and I hadn't gotten him a gift so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and fix it up and give it to him before he left. I used many of the old parts but also added a few other parts (wheels, stem, bars, shifters) that were hanging around my garage. I didn't spend a penny and got rid of of some stuff. The final result isn't the most beautiful vintage bike but it rides well and should be a good campus cruiser. I don't know if he's up to 100k yet but he was super excited (as was mom and family). Here's to keeping the old steel on the road.

Rob

bike.jpg

leftthread

Looks good, zammykoo.

leftthread

Rode the red Sierra 51.5 miles on 8/27, so with the 15.8 miles earlier, that completes the entry.
The original knobbiest have a bit of rolling resistance to them...

Murray Missile 

The deed is done!!! 100.76Km.....

I'll swap saddles, put a new pair of matching tires on this weekend and put the Bird on CL.

ryansu

Congrats @Murray Missile

Murray Missile 

Thanks. It was fun but most importantly it got me off the couch and back in the saddle. I've already started looking for next year's bike but so far anything close to my size I've found has been well over $100 and nothing I'd pay any more than half that for. Been pretty dry around here for decent deals on anything much less vintage bikes.

Murray Missile 

Put new tires on Big Bird and listed him on my local CL last night with 4 other bikes. Spent the last 3 days hosing off and rearranging bikes and decided it's time to thin the herd. There may be a couple more hit CL before the week is out.

Here he is as listed on CL....... I'll "kind of" miss him when he's gone.

Kevindale

Since I last posted, I continued to tear the bike down. I got a very generous gift of a replacement spindle (thanks @ecnewell !), but no luck on a replacement seatpost. I decided to stick with the current one, with the hose clamp on top. I have a 27.2 seatpost that I think is ugly and will never use, that I've started to sand down to 27.0, but I won't include that here because I don't know how to value it.

The rust on the cable guides was pretty nasty. The stickers were also obnoxious, not just from age but because a PO had taken a Sharpie to all the sticker parts that were pink (and they weren't very skilled with the marker). I sanded and touched up the rust spots with Rustoleum primer. Now I needed to figure out where to go from there.

Kevindale

I stripped the stickers, first with a heat gun, then Zippo fluid. With the stickers gone, the line between the green and white paint looks terrible. I briefly thought of going for a tri-color paint job, by keeping the green in the back and the white fork and head tube, and spraying most of the top and down tubes red. I like Italian tricolor paint jobs, but that would be white/red/green, and the white and green paint is in crap shape. And I don't have any of those color paints, unless I want to do a wacky brush job. What I do have is a 3/4-full spray can of Rustoleum grey high-build primer, and a half-full spray can of matt black paint. So I decided to go rat-rod matt black. which I think will go well with the very oxidized aluminum components. I then jumped in and started sanding, but I've been stuck waiting for the rain to clear, and the humidity to get below 60%.

Kevindale

I gave a polish pass with Mother's to the cranks. I'll need to strip the anodizing to make them shine, so here again I'm going with the rat rod look. I haven't jumped on cleaning the hoods and bars yet. Hopefully I won't destroy the hoods in the cleaning. I did a careful cleanup of the front Wolber wheel, and sadly found one spoke nipple hole has a small crack. Bummer. It's the only damage anywhere on the wheel, and the back wheel is fine. I think it'll be fine for the challenge, if I can get the challenge done in time, but I'll have to replace this wheel before the bike goes to my nephew.

I also carefully cleaned the chain. It had virtually no where/stretching, just very grungy and a little rusted. On a ROI basis, I'd never do this except that it's the clunker challenge. After multiple cleaning passes, followed by rinsing and WD-40, I notices one link is badly cracked! How the hell did that happen? I think I have some partly worn but usable take-off chains I can put to use and still stay under budget, but these last two issues have taken a bit of the wind out of my sails on this bike project.

Narhay

And here I am riding my nice bikes. Heh heh.

chainercygnus

Is it too late to get in on this party?

If not, here's my entry:



1974-76 Peugeot UO8 obtained for $0 from work dumping some bikes.



Here we are after spending the following:

• Bar Tap: $8.80
• Tubes: $16.00
• Tires: $25.60
• Seat: $0.00 swap out from bike from the same dump pile.

Total: $53.42 after tax

Still to be done:

• Cable for front derailleur
• New Chain
• Wheels Trued

I will be completing the to be done list tomorrow at my local bike co-op. Hopefully I can get out and ride soon, but the air in Boise is a wee bit smoky and bad for health.

Here's a shot from part of the 9.6km (6mi) I have done on her so far.

Kevindale

Since I may not finish my primary entry this year (the rat rod Sirrus), I'm doing a backup entry. In a recent C&V appraisals thread, I documented buying a 1991 Bridgestone RB-2. I'm not sure this really is a proper candidate for the Clunker Challenge, because:

1. It's not really a clunker.
2. I spent the entire $100 budget on the purchase.
3. Except for grime, rusty cables, and a badly adjusted RD, the bike is complete and functional.
4. The bike appears to be 100% original, including tires and pedals/clips, except for the Cannondale saddle.

Here is the bike as it looked when I brought it home. All I've done at this point is adjust the seatpost, saddle, and stem. Next up is check the hubs/BB/headset, carefully inspect the wheels and tires, adjust the RD, and do some cleanup. There are plenty of places I can find a fatal flaw, but if I'm much luckier than I've been with the Sirrus, it won't need anything outright replaced.

[I used a couple of photos I didn't use in the Appraisals thread - check that thread if you want to see the RD and cranks/FD in it's "as bought" state.]

BTW, how do upload photos and get them to be displayed in profile mode, not landscape mode, short of putting them in my Flickr account?

chainercygnus

If you are using Windows, you should be able to right-click on the picture in its folder and have the option to rotate. Then you can upload as usual.

Kevindale

Using a Mac. Also, for these I'm using the 'Attach Files' box below ('Manage Attachments' button). The photos are correctly oriented on my computer. The Bike Forums uploader seems to automatically orient photos to landscape mode only.

In the past I always put photos into a Flickr album to avoid this, but some of these photos I just want to upload to the forum, and not bother with the extra steps. I could swear I read an off-handed comment once here where someone had the same issue but figured out how to fix it, but I don't think they described their solution (if there is one).

Kevindale

Here's more photos, already in landscape mode so they should show fine. I opened up the hubs and found the cone nuts and cups, as well as the bearings, in great shape. There was even some functional grease in there, though it was very sparse on one side. I couldn't get the dust caps off, so I left them. Normally I'd replace the ball bearings, but under a magnifying glass they looked great, and I don't have the budget for even a dollar's worth of bearings! They did get nice fresh Phil Wood grease.

I also cleaned the rims (barely any wear discernible on the brake tracks), scrubbed the spokes (a bit of oxidation and roughness in a few places, but cleaned up well, and zero rusty nipples), and scrubbed the external hubs. One photo shows the one damaged rim decal - I may try to glue that down. The other photo with the tire visible shows the one rough place on the side wall - I may put some contact cement on this area. I've already trimmed the loose thread. Note also the valve stem is cockeyed. I was able to deflate the tube and massage the tube and tire to get this straight. Given that I believe these are the original tires, and are 26 years young, I didn't want to stress them by taking the tire off. I just squeezed the sides to break the bead seal, and then massaged the tire/tube into place, and re-inflated.

The rims are Wobler GTX hard anodized 700C 32H, spokes #14 UPC (whatever that means, it's from the catalogue), and tires Avocet Road 20 700x28c skin sides. I mentioned in the other thread that the front tire's actual width is less than 25mm, and in the rear it's about 25 and a half.

jethin

Neat projects all, and cool to see the ingenuity involved in getting these back into ship shape.

Kevindale

I had the correct tool for the cassette removal, but don't have a chain wipe, so I rigged one up with an old uniglide chain and a set of vice grips. Here's what it looked like after a little scrubbing and shaking dry and WD-40. The rusty spots on the FD come off easily with aluminum foil (the before shot is no good), and here's the inside of the RD after a little wiping but no polishing. I'm really doing the minimum on cleaning and polishing, at least compared to the bikes I cherish.

The cassette is Shimano HG 7-s 13-23T. You can see some corrosion on some of the cogs, but not enough to worry about, and almost no wear on the teeth. The FD is Shimano Exage 400 EX (A400, date code Jan. '90) and the RD is the same with a June '90 date code.

No photos, but I put some teflon chain lube on the rusty shifter cables where they feed through the little plastic tubes under the BB. The RD adjusted very easily with just a bit of fiddling with the limit screws and especially the barrel adjuster, and the FD was already in adjustment.

With the chain off, the cranks turn very smoothly, and I can't feel even the slightest grittiness in the BB. I will open this up as some point, but not yet. Until I ride 100 km, ignorance will be bliss, since the BB is really the only wild card left.

Kevindale

Summary
Spending: $100 - bike
$0 - everything else
Km ridden: 47

I put the hubs and cassette back together and did an evening 10 km neighborhood test ride, which went fine. I think I can feel the weight going up the small hills, and the brakes squeal like stuck pigs despite my sanding them, but otherwise it rode well.

The next day I took it south of town and rode 37 km (23 miles) in the mid-day sun. Very solid rider, and I averaged a respectable 16.7 mph from start to finish, with a few bursts up to 27 mph down some hills. I was worried about the saddle, but it felt great the whole time. It seems to have virtually the same shape as the Prologo saddle that came with my CAAD 10, which is very comfortable up to about 30 miles, at which time I start to feel it.



I did the evening test ride in thin-soled running/workout shoes, and the balls of my feet hurt. I was surprised that my Shimano MTN bike shoes fit into the clips/straps readily. I did try to "twist out" at the end of the ride, but fortunately remembered in time to safely extract my foot. I did have some numbness in a few places on my feet with these shoes, which I don't have with clipless pedals, but it was manageable.



The bike shifted flawlessly, and the wheels are reasonably true. The top tube is a bit longer than I'm used to (58cm square frame), and with the long stem it kept me stretched out. There was some wind, though, and I used this to my aero advantage. And I found that I could do a kind of invisible aero-bar position by putting my hands in relaxed fists right on top of the points of the hoods, and resting my wrists and distal forearms on the ramps of the bars. I wish someone had been there to get a photo - I was curious how flat my back was.

Since I was riding solo, I put the seat pack from my CAAD 10 on this bike, since I know I'm taking a chance with these tires/tubes. However, those tires felt nice and supple. The bike seems to like accelerating, but not uphill. It felt top heavy when I stood up in my very brief climbs, but that might be my riding more than the bike.

Oh, and we're in lovebug season here. Driving to Shreveport, I had to stop to scrape the thousands of splattered lovebugs off my headlights and windshield (they mate in the air, in swarms of many thousands). There were a few clouds of these buggering buggers that I rode though, fortunately with my mouth closed. In the photo I uploaded to the BF site, you can see 4 or 5 mating pairs clustered around my right lever. I also spooked a couple of racoons but wasn't fast enough to get a decent photo.

Kevindale

Before the final rides I finally took a damp cloth with a little dish soap to the bar tape, and did a little more cleaning to the rest of the bike. It looks damned good from 10 feet away.







Here's that looong stem. It has a nice structural shape, though it's not especially elegant.



After the storms, the weather has changed, and these last couple of rides were very pleasant. Even though temps were in the low 80s, I actually felt cool as I rode. I did one 17.5 mile ride pushing a bit for speed, and the next day I did a slightly more scenic ride of 18 miles. It was an easy and uneventful 64 miles, at an average speed of 17.2 mph.



Overall a very competent bike. I've decided I'm going to keep the saddle, take it down to New Orleans, and put it on CL. I'm slightly temped to keep the Wolber GTX wheels, but the bike works well as is, and I need to thin the herd my better half realized what my N is up to.

Final tally:
Spent - $100 (complete bike)
Spare/replacement parts required - none
Consumables required - none
Miles ridden -64.66 miles/104 km

ollo_ollo

I'm just about fully healed up from my crash rash, just a few lumps & bruises left, plus our 1st rain showers for months cleared the smokey air somewhat, so I took a short ride down along the Santiam river on my last year's Clunker Challenge Super Sport.

I had fit a fat 35c on the front and even fatter Nimbus 41c on the rear wheel during my recovery, so its ride is smooth and stable, like a Cadillac now. With my confidence restored, I'll be back on the Super Course again to finish this year's challenge.
Don

ollo_ollo

Some classy $100 bikes in this year's challenge. Still anticipating some pics of Mr. 66's twenty pound entry. Don

mangosalsa

EDIT: I see plenty of re-sprays in challenges. Disregard. Day1 pics coming.

--
Just got wind of this challenge ... yeah, two weeks left. I have a complete in the shed that needs a push to rebuild.

Quick question: I don't see anything in the rules about painting the frame. Allowed? Frowned upon?

Thanks

zammykoo

Best to preserve the clunker's rattiness for the challenge. A few of us plan to repaint after it is over.