Chuck M 

In one of her pictures there was another bike in the pile. Did you by chance see it and was it anything worth checking into?

dbhouston 

She had an old Free Spirit 3-speed, which prompted a whole discussion about A-D and Sears.

dbhouston 

I'm most comfortable on bikes labeled 56, which are generally 56 both ways. It's hard to get my head around the long and low 53c x 58c geometry of this bike. I've read that, on some models, A-D kept the same top tube regardless of seat tube length, which would seem to be the case here.

Chuck M 

Well I respect you felt it right to offer her another 10 for the AD. With a $20 price on the bike she sold you, did she setthe FS being worth more or less than the AD?

JulesCW 

That is pretty weird sizing. Although I personally find upright conversions of nice old road bikes to a be a bit sacrilegious, this frame with that super long top tube would be a good candidate for a shortish stem and a pair of nice upright tourist-style bars. That would make it a "stylish" coffee bike.

dbhouston 

Off to Dallas today to deliver a 1953 Claud Butler to its new home! But first, I wanted to share pictures of the rustiest part of the A-D to see what others think of the condition. This is really the make-or-break part of the frame, determining if I have a bicycle or shiny wall art, so please share your thoughts. I've done three or four rounds of gentle gel de-rusting (ran out of Evaporust, settled for the Rustoleum version from the store to continue).




The rest of the frame looks good, if not at all noir. I see now why examples of this bike have so often lost their black tinting: the underlying chrome is super durable while the noir is clearly an overlay. If the chrome requires a hard cleaning to remove surface rust and oxidation, the black is lost. It was mostly lost before I got the bike, and far more so now. So, I have a shiny chrome frame I'm going to name "Vent d'Argent."

Wharf Rat

That rust wouldn’t stop me from building & riding that bike. Just to be careful, I’d take a look inside the bb shell & up the tubes. I’m sure they are fine.

dbhouston 

So happy the weather has turned here. Sunshine on snow is beautiful, too. But mostly, I'm happy to be back in the garage. First thing on the A-D was to start in earnest on the stuck seatpost. Really stuck. I've been drizzling PB Blaster on it all week, and let it sit last night was Blaster sprayed in from the BB. No luck. It's stuck enought that you can see the teeth of the plumber's wrench have really dug into the post. Maybe it just needs more time with Blaster? Heat/cold hasn't been much of a winner for me in the past, but I'll certainly try it soon.

dbhouston 

This is the end? Well, after all the time spent on this damn thing, I may have reached the end. The g*&#$%ed seatpost hasn't budget one milimeter after a couple of weeks dripping Blaster into it. So, I resorted to pulling the collar open just a bit more a few days ago. Today, after a strenuous session of trying to turn the g*&#$%ed thing with a pipe wrench and a vise (separate sessions), I noticed this:

That looks fatal to me. What say smarter people? Damned shame, as I had high hopes for this old thing. BTW, I had been waiting to work on the rust in that area when I got the post out, so that's why that area looks bad still.

dbhouston 

Also, if I were a more observant person, I'd have noticed that this tear appears in my February 20 pictures, above. So, it's been there for some time.

cocoabeachcrab 

stop drill the crack.

Chuck M 

Plus one on stop drilling it. I work with machinery that is older than this bike and will get beaten like a rented mule and that is a common practice.

unworthy1

Not fatal (yet) but read up on all the techniques for freeing stuck seatposts and get ready to use them all. If you drill the "stop crack hole" NOW it may also help provide another entry port for spraying in some juice. I strongly endorse Kroil (PB blaster is way too wimpy to play in this league). And add HEAT, if you have a good heat gun use that before a propane torch but keep heat/cool cycles in between sessions of "coaxing" You have to do this with ventilation cause heat will make the solvents off-gas. Lucky for you no paint or decals left to "baby" but you should not be heating anything up to "paint bubbling" temps anyhow. You will eventually prevail, don't give up. Salvage the seatpost cradles, the rest of that post is gonna be scrap.
AND if you were looking for an excuse to buy a Monster Bench Vise and anchor it to bedrock..this ship has just docked!

dbhouston 

HA! It's amazing how much of that aluminum seatpost has peeled off under the plumbers wrench. And my bench vise always seemed plenty anchored until I started twisting this frame in it, stressing the old 2x4s the top is made of. I've never believed a seatpost couldn't eventually be freed, but this one has me questioning that. Knowing I paid very little for this frame doesn't alleviate the need to "win," though, and I would love to build up a new, uber-vise out there!

dbhouston 

On a related note, I've found numerous places on this bike where I believe someone once used adhesive in completely inapprorpriate places. The RD attachment bolt I had to drill out, multiple spots in the shifters, a break lever clamp, all were horrible to remove and showed hardened residues I'd never seen before. Those parts have required aggressive cleaning after they are freed, too. I suppose it could all be various kinds of corrosion, but I'm inclined to hate the uncle of the seller, who apparently fixed the bike up in the early 2000's. If I find proof of adhesive in this seat tube, I may need to track that guy down.

francophile 

Heat. Take heat to the alloy seat post, propane torch, heat the hell out of it to point it's grossly discolored, then leave it to cool. Expansion during heat-up will likely break the chemical or mechanical bond, and on contraction, it should theoretically free.

As for the crack, that's a bummer. But yes, as you see the seat collar is already drilled to help avoid such cracks, you need to drill the crack, and once the seat post is out, consider having it filled with braze and filed if you're willing to put forth the investment.

EDIT: It's also worth noting: The crack and stuck seat post may be a result of the same thing: Previous owner used too large of a seat post. That looks like a spread crack to me, not a torsion crack. I wonder if a previous owner hammered the seat post in, THEN it fused to the inside of the steel frame? Would explain a lot. Sad to say, your best bet may be drilling the damn thing out, but I'd still give torching it a shot first.

cocoabeachcrab 

i was a crew chief in the AF, and the old F-4's i worked on the the Philippines had so many stop drilled holes that i think the plane probably whistled when it flew!

thumpism

Spotted this plate today and just thought I'd leave it in the most recent A-D thread. Could go in many others.