Don Buska 

Living in the Chicago-land area doesn't always make for Christmas Day rides, but I did put up with the 15 degree temperatures to snap some pictures of my recently restored 1986 Fuji. For those who might have followed my earlier thread when I purchased this unique LINK>> 1986 Fuji frame a couple months back I now offer you my completed restoration effort.

In homage to my two favorite companies from the 1970-80 road bike time frame I dedicated the build to Fuji and Suntour, especially the later Superbe Pro line. On the down-tube is the Superbe Pro logo that I scanned from one of their old catalogs and spent a great deal of time in Corel Paint enlarging it and cleaning it up pixel-by-pixel to produce a detailed enough graphic to allow Velocals the ability to easily reproduce. Which they did and this Superbe Pro decal is now part of their standard offerings! The head-tube supports the period correct Fuji head-badge decal and their 9658 tubing decal is properly located on the upper seat-tube. To top things off I paid special acknowledgement to the 1986-88 Fuji 'Design Series' by having a decal made up by Veloink calling this frame the 'Sekkei Series' with the Japanese flag leading things off.





I used as much Suntour Superbe components that I had available at the time of the build. However, the crank for example is a Sugino Super Mighty that is essentially a Superbe CW-1000 as it is this model that was rebranded to make the later model for Suntour. The headset is what came on the frame and is not the Superbe branded model. Eventually I may change these two items out if and when I come up with the Superbe versions in nice condition and at a reasonable price.

One item I'm really proud of is the Suntour Command Control (SL-CD00) handlebar shifters. These were really not offered in the Superbe Pro lineup as they only offered the down-tube SL-IP00-B with this group. Actually I almost used the aforementioned down-tube shifter. When I first installed the rear SL-CD00 shifter to test, it would NOT properly shift through my Suntour 7-speed freewheel. Yes, it was a later generation Accushift capable freewheel and I was using NOS Accushift cable housings and even Teflon coated cables! I just couldn't get it to work. I was then going to throw in the towel and use the SL-IP00-B set I had for the down-tube. Remembering I had purchased a second rear Command Control lever a year ago and decided what the heck I'll give it a try. Sure enough it worked perfectly! Someday I'll need to open up that defective lever to see if I can determine why it didn't work. Let me digress a bit. I always wanted to try using those Command Control winged shifters on a build as they were Suntour's last hurrah attempt to compete with Shimano's Brifters (1990). However, I never liked the various mounts for the Command Controls. They made the shifters stand way to far off the handlebars IMHO and as a result bar wrapping was very difficult to perform and make it look somewhat good. So the only way I was going to use them was if I could adapt them as directly mounted to the brake lever body. That I was able to achieve, as can be seen in the pictures. It wasn't an easy task and I would not recommend it for those who don't have a decent shop, i.e. vice, drill press, grinder etc. I had very little room inside the brake lever, as these are aero levers, to house some mounting bolts (4mm hex head). On these specific levers that was an area about 9mm X 30mm. I may post my Command Control - Brake Lever project pictures to another thread here later.



I'd love to try some leather bar wraps like those made by Walnut Studiolo. Has anyone tried it with two covered cable jackets??

Sadly I finished this up last week, but due to the cold temps and salty roads here this bike might not see a ride for a month or two. That's OK as I have a 1975 Fuji 'The Finest' and S10-S that are also being restored this winter.

Thanks to everyone who provided such valuable information to my earlier posting about the frame. All the investigative work made this restoration so much more interesting and challenging. The component line-up is in the next message in this thread.

Don Buska 

As it stands now here is the component line-up:

Frame: Fuji S/N C652 (March 1986 build #52) 9658 Tubing like the Design and OPUS III Series w/Chromed Suntour Superbe Pro Dropouts.
Derailleur Rear: Suntour Superbe Pro RD-SB00-SSB
Derailleur Front: Suntour Superbe Pro FD-SB00-H
Shifters: Suntour Command Shifter SL-CD00 7-Speed Accushift (Indexed)
Freewheel: Suntour Winner Pro 7-Speed 12-13-14-16-18-21-24 T
Bottom Bracket Set: Suntour Superbe Pro BB-SB11-E
Crank Set: Sugino Super Mighty 144BCD 52-42T Drilled (Same as Superbe CW-1000 which Sugino made for Suntour)
Crank Dust Covers: Suntour Superbe Racing Equipment
Pedals: Suntour Superbe PL-4000 with NOS Cages
Chain: KMC X8.99 Silver
Brakes: Suntour Superbe CB-3100 Short Reach 40-50mm - Recessed Nuts
Brake Levers: Suntour Radius BRS BL-RA00 (A little Acetone to remove the ID marking and it is essentially the same as the Superbe levers)
Lever Hoods: DiaCompe Aero
Seat Post: Suntour Superbe Pro SP-2100 26.8 Dia. (Has Fuji ID on front side - Came with frame)
Saddle: Selle Anatomica X in Vintage Leather (My favorite Saddle)
Headset: Hatta Vista (Came with frame)
Stem: Nitto Dynamic 7
Handlebars: Nitto Mod 55 Anniversary Edition
Bar Tape: Fiziks Superlight Microtex 2mm Honey Brown
Wheel Hubs: Suntour Superbe Pro BH-1500 36H (126mm Rear)
Wheel Spokes: Wheel Master 14G SS (Real Araya 12mm JIS Spoke Nipples!)
Rims: Sun CR18 Silver 700-25C (Stickers Removed)
Tires: Panaracer Pasela Protite 700 X 25

IamCAT

Nice one

r0ckh0und 

Very nice.............We're in for a bit of a cold snap. I drove to work this morning and my van wouldn't warm up unless I was going over 70mph and then no one else showed up.

kcblair

Hello Don, and Merry Christmas , Happy New Year to ya. Man, that is one beautiful bike. The original paint was in good shape ?? I've never seem those shifters in my travels, very unique . I'm impressed with the decal re-creations.

Well, you can sit around, dreaming about that fist ride. That's one thing left on my to-do-list, wheel build. Only added a few new accessorizes to one bike. Last winter was major overhauls. This year, polish, cleaning and interval training. My BS500, got 600 miles on it, was fun riding. KB

Don Buska 

Thanks Ken, and others above for the kind comments. Notice I have a EVO kick-stand attached to the non-drive side chain stay. This bike had scratches on the drive side top-tube and seat stay. Why?, because like so many road bikes the kick-stand isn't considered "appropriate" and it got leaned up against stuff for many years. I feel these bikes are to valuable so I attach stands on all my vintage riders - sue me . I'll live with the added 0.25 lbs weight I touched up the dings with nail polish that matched as close as possible and over-coated with a clear varnish (Humbrol Clear Gloss Varnish out of the UK). Not perfect, but better than it was.

kcblair

Well, it looks good in the photos, so it will look go in person, you know the 10 foot rule. Everyone in my club thought the BS500 was new, from a distance.

I didn't even notice the kick stand. KB.

Edit: I bought a SA NSX saddle for my Concorde, for Christmas. Now 4 bikes have SA saddles. KB

Don Buska 

Oh no - I think I've created a convert

kcblair

But damn, they are just plain compfy, no break-in and classy on a C&V bike. , My touring bike won't get one, as that bike doesn't get ridden much and that saddle is fine for what I do with the bike. KB

Don Buska 

I've also added an Album with more pictures here.

kcblair

You gotta love that color. Thank for photos. KB

Hardrock23

Love the color! It's a beautiful bike, and I like how you set up the shifters on the levers...looks great.

speedevil 

The installation looks very nice and the cables being under the wrap is cleaner than most I've seen. If I get a vote, I vote "definitely" on seeing those project photos and writeup. I just picked up a 1992 Cannondale tourer, and I'm seriously considering those shifters for an upgrade. It has downtube shifters now, so barend or the suntour shifters are the two options for me.

Don Buska 

Thanks Dale. Maybe I'll make up a little Photo album showing the pictures I took with a brief explanation of what I did. Naturally different levers would possibly require a different procedure than mine.

Also, looks like we share another hobby NL4T. Mine is N9OO

IamCAT

Love the restoration and colour