I'm going to see it this morning.


I don't think it's bent. But...

Right up me alley! I love the patina, what’s the story with it ? It may clean up nicely, let us know. Joe

Well worth the asking price.

If the seatpost and stem aren’t seized, you’re good to go.

Doesn't scare me at all

I had a white Cilo that was on that shape, it whitened up really good. Turtle Wax was the most effective at the stains. I tried windex, wd 40, rubbing compound. I bet barkeepers' friend would work good on it.

Looks like it has the Nervar crankset with guard, which was much better executed than the Stronglight "3-ring" double since it has a much more-symmetric Q-factor.

Judge the frame by the joints and alignment. Many G.S.'s have truly substandard brazing hygiene and alignment that is obvious to see and which compromises integrity.

The oxalic acid or vinegar soak (using soaked towels wrapped around the tubes and joints) will remove the rust. Do this before doing any sort of mechanical removal steps! The frame will look great (and should ride great) if the joints were brazed by one of the better factory hands.
I never understood why people so often clamped the bottle cage over the transfers.

Evapo-Rust wrap also works! The Gran Sport is an amazing and underrated frame that lends itself to so many builds! The Nervar Star uses a standard 22.0 mm crank extractor and has become one of my favorite cranks. About the only stock part of a Gran Sport I wouldn’t feel comfortable riding with are the stock Simplex bits - but that’s what SunTours are for!

i just completed the Clunker Challenge on a much rougher specimen that now awaits decisions about what form to build it up into next!

So did you get it?
Ben

Grabbed it. I was worried about what looked like rust on the fork blades up near the crown. Turns out to be only grease👍 I'm curious why dddd suggests a soak before removing components because I thought that oa was unkind to alloy bits. I haven't used oa before but maybe this is the one for it. I was surprised how light it was even without wheels, saddle and pedals and a very quick look at the brazing and it appears to be neater than the Carlton Competition G.S. I had. Status of stem and seat post tbd.

edit: stem and seatpost are free. Only hiccup is the aluminum crankbolt dust covers.

+1, esp when you see those black delrin parts turn chalky gray, you just know there's an imminent ass-plosion.

Hmm, I just noticed, cable stops on the downtube rather than shifters. Wonder if it has bar-ends? Or stemmies?

madpogue-

Stem shifters, I would think. The black taped left bar end shows a plug and there is a small black spot near the stem which could be the bottom of the stem shifter.

Pic Assist

What he means is to use OA and such before resorting to steel wool and such.

This bike should make for a great "Before and After" thread.

Awesome looking project with the winter months approaching! A great rider from what all has been said about it.

Happy for you!

It had stem shifters and was listed at $30.

Heck of a deal.

For the alloy crankbolt covers, what you want to do is get penetrant working around the edge and also inside of the covers.

After some penetrating time, get a wooden dowel about 3/4" diameter and use this as a drift with a hammer. Impact the area around the outer periphery of the cap, moving around in circles. The cap should then unscrew with only modest torque on a good 5mm Allen wrench.
You could also use a thick leather toe strap as a buffer, allowing direct impacts using a small-headed, lighter hammer. The impact momentarily unloads the threads and breaks any corrosive bond as the cap flexes slightly.

Good idea. I'll start a new thread and try and keep my phone with me. There are some fine documentarians on the C&V subforum. I'll get in costume and play the part for this restore.

Edit: Another thing I am not is patient and I rushed into dust cap removal. They are goners.

I've had on my workbench for at least a couple of years now a non-drive side Nervar crank arm with spindle attached off of Raleigh SuperCourse MkII. The dustcap was seized, and no amount of penetrant, hammering, drilling, or filing has made it give in, thus blocking access to the crank bolt. It's a gonner, Jim.

I dremelled a slot which didn't help. Then I drilled two holes for the red spanner which didn't help. Then I used a nail set and a hammer in the hole I drilled like we use on freewheel lockrings and that worked.

That was a fantastic score! It looks just like mine did when I brought it home, but you paid $5 less. The frame cleaned up amazingly well with a fine wet sanding, polish and wax. It's definitely my patina bike, but it shined up very nicely. Yours will, too. The Nervar Star is an underrated classic. A build thread would be great to see.

I'm a huge fan of OA bathing for parts, but have found that frame surface rust is *far* easier - and more thoroughly - addressed with pink Naval Jelly applied thick and "worked" with a bristle brush for about 20-30 minutes before a simple rinse off -- gets you right back to bare metal. Immersion in OA will get there eventually, but I've learned that some delicate paints (looking at you, blingy 1970s italian frames) suffer discolouration from so long in the OA.

pls pls do not attempt repainting. i've done it, regretted it for years. 1st of all, paint job done at Carlton workshop is one of the most stubbornest jobs in the entire history of painting. fearsome amount of paint strippers will be needed, no worth. good luck with rust removing. folks here have great resources for all kinds. you'll like riding it once restored, one of the best riding bikes IMO. such pleasure to ride.

Groody Brothers did a great job powder coating a couple of mine. Media blast takes the paint off very easily.