Embarking on two over-the-winter restoration/rehab/upgrade projects for relatives-of-relatives. Both are in decent condition, except a bit dirty, some scratches in paint, probably 50+ year old grease in everything, and both are heavy and I am looking for cost-effective upgrades (my goal is to present the bikes back all done by spring, and gratis).

Went for a short ride with my wife and her cousin as well, and her husband showed up on this Gitane Grand Sport. It does not look abused, but not exactly “cherished” either. I offered to, at the end of the season, to work it over and it just showed up. He said it’s from 1973 (he grew up local to us in the DC area, so one might surmise which shop it came from) but I have yet to explore the serial number. 25-1/4” seat tube c-to-t, and by my scale 30.6LB (someone recently showed a Gitane Catalog page here, and the Grand Sport was 28LB IIRC but that must have been on a small size, so close enough.

Mostly, the components are not much of a surprise. 27” steel rims on Normandy high-flange hubs (but almost unridden Pasela’s, more on that later); steel cottered cranks; Weinmann center pull brakes were probably a Bike-Boom supply-chain choice at the time; steel double-sided pedals with toe clips and straps; straight steel seat post; Pivo (yikes?) alloy stem with steel bars. Shifting is semi-unexpected: Suntour rear derailleur and shifters, and a Huet (likely original) front; well, Suntour might have been a period upgrade. That said, the RD is “locked” fully back, I wonder if the short-cage unit is at or past its max tooth count? If so, a longer cage one — or just a replacement cage — might help. If I found a long-cage Huret Jubilee combo at bargain-basement prices… well, that’s just fantasy.

Paint looks pretty good, and there is one (or more) torn decal, but Cyclomondo has them. After break-down and cleaning, a dunk in the oxalic acid, and Frame Saver, gets it ready for touch-up and then polishing.

Upgrades could really help on getting that weight down, some stuff coming out of my parts stash. I am contributing a set of 700C wheels left over from my Palo Alto, that should help a lot; I also have a set of period-correct Stronglight 93 cranks I have not been using for decades. Swap out the bars, seat post and pedals for something aluminum, I might get the whole thing down to… 28LB?

Should be a fun bike to upgrade and ride.
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With respect to the Pivo stem, that is not a bad piece. It’s the AVA stems that tend to crack. And even those stems can be modified to eliminate the problem. In short, many French stems use an expansion slot that has a square end. The corners of the square end are stress risers. You can fix that by drilling a hole at the end of the slot. I do that with all my French stems.

The AVA stem got its reputation because it had two square slots. When those started to crack, the crack quickly propagated around to the other slot, with ugly results. Again, drill holes for both slots.

Looks like a fun project. With respect to the locked RD: seems to me the chain is way too short: after taking the chain off see if things work as normal.

Thanks for reminding me! Will do.

You might be right. I need to look up on Velobase what the acceptable tooth range for this RD is. Definitely "locked", I cannot budge the upper pivot at all. Dating the RD? The ink that and the shifters look like perhaps a decade newer than the bike. The Huret FD suggest that the original RD was... an Allvit?

Your freewheel appears to have about a 28T large sprocket; your derailleur should be able to handle that fine.

If your SunTour derailleur does not pivot on the upper bolt, it may be that it is mounted incorrectly. There is a slotted lockring on the back of the upper bolt. This should be set loose enough for the derailleur body to pivot on the upper bolt, but not so loose that the fit is sloppy.


The lockring bears against the mounting claw, and a thin nut should be on the back side of the claw to secure the assembly.

For best shifting, also check that the "B-screw" is set to allow the parallelogram to pivot forward so that it is parallel to the chainstay.

...and THAT is what I was expecting for a SunTour. Let's see what breakdown reveals.

Just a reminder, I'm a Bike Bigot, used to Italian or French; but there's a special place for SunTour's technology, so it does not go in the dumpster quite yet.

And I would not object to a longer-cage version , if that is what is takes.

If that's a v luxe RD, it's rated at 24 teeth:

https://velobase.com/Pages/ViewCompo...6F75C&Enum=108

Easy enough to find a longer RD at a bike coop. Suntour RDs are the pre-indexing cat's pajamas.

Biggest upgrade is obviously alloy wheels. This bike is hi tensile steel so easy to spread to 126 if that is what your 700c wheels are.

If you want to replace the crank, it is possible to run a cotterless crank using the existing fixed cup.

I'm actually fine with turkey levers on my personal bike but if you like this relative of a relative, you might as well remove them.

No more photos quite yet — check again later. Yesterday I broke the bike down to a bare frame, so I can do the oxalic acid dip before it gets too cold outside. While at it, I composed a note to the owner asking some questions on what direction to take the project; either some upgrades, or “just as it left the factory”.

Well, “just as it left the factory” might not even be what I saw when the bike was dropped off, and dismantling it showed a few odd things, some of which might be bike-boom-supply-chain compromises, but I am skeptical. For instance, the BB’s adjustable cup is a Sugino? While I could see the Suntour V-T Luxe RD might have been installed when the bike was new, the shifters seem to be the LD-1600 which according to Velobase are newer (and the FD is Huret?). The F/R brake hangers are Mafac, but the calipers and levers are Weinmann (so no QR on the entire system) — and the longer brake on the front and the shorter one on the back? At least, now by reversing that I think there’s enough additional drop for the switch to 700C.

I finally got to use the cotter press I bought a few years back, but there’s a catch. While the NDS side was no problem, I ran into clearance issues on the DS, this press is beefy steel (bought from a supplier of stuff for mopeds); even removing all the chainrings, etc., did not help. So, I resorted to my wife holding the frame with the crank arm supported on my bench vice while I drove out the cotter with a punch & hammer. And, yes, now I need to source a new cotter if the owner wants to stick with these cranks. Ugh!

Overall, the bike is in good enough shape in that nothing is damaged, but all grease in all bearings is dried up, it’s surprising that the bike could have been ridden at all. That locked back RD at the upper pivot? I do not think that was intentional, just frozen up; when I got that loose and the RD swung forward, no chain tension. I thought maybe the lower pit spring was dead, but it’s so gritty in there I think the grease just solidified. Not finding this exact model at Velobase, I can only guess that it will handle 14T-28T out back and 42T-52T up front once it has been rebuilt. Otherwise, I might post a WTB for either a replacement RD or, ideally, just a cage.
BTW, bare frame is 6LB 3OZ, fork is 1LB 14.2OZ

Very similar, but not quite; this has a somewhat longer cage. And I genuinely wish there was a co-op nearby!

EDIT: Error in my topic title, "?#" should have read "#1" of course, maybe a moderator could fix that?

Here’s the latest on progress as I proceed on the this winter project

With everything possible dismantled, I gave the frame some attention. I am not happy with the paint touch-up (I never am but going back to bare steel and then new paint or powder coating is very expensive) but with wet sanding down to 1000-grit sandpaper, and then buffing the entire frame with polishing compound, at least it is all-over white and from 10 feet away, one might not notice the color mis-match. The decals from Australia arrived and went on easily enough, I was worried about the full-wrap red foil one on the (vertical) seat tube but it turned out nice. Over all this — a coating of automotive style ceramic “wax” to protect the finish.

A lot of the little bits have been treated to cleaning in my ultrasonic cleaner; a brake caliper or a derailleur breaks down into many small parts. Then, I’ve been polishing by hand until as shiny as possible (I hope you like shiny!) after a protective coating, I can lubricate and reassemble. The Suntour rear derailleur really gleams, probably better than when it left the factory. Bigger stuff, like handlebars, cranks, whatever, will follow.

The wheels I had laying around to contribute has, as I may have mentioned, a broken rear axle; and the replacement from another brand (the original is unobtainable) does not fit. A forum member has machine tools and volunteered to help, so I’ve shipped off the axle to him. This gives time to clean up the wheels — getting 144 spokes on four wheels to shine again is not fun, but I’ve had good results in the past.

Wow — THREE layers of traditional, adhesive-backed cloth handlebar tape, and 50 year old adhesive. I presume an attempt to give some cushioning. I’ll improve on that, but I had to get it apart to free up the stem; we’ll save that but the steel handlebars were badly rusted under that… I’ll change to an aluminum set. One Weinmann brake lever had bad “road rash”, too deep to polish out but I found in one of my parts boxes a pair of similar levers, grungy but nice condition, one difference is they are the version with a quick-release on the cable to easy wheel removal (cool, one less thing to buy). And the “safety levers” will swap right over, no problem.




Still sourcing a few things, not only new small stuff like handlebar tape (waiting for a Sale) and used Forum members. Of the latter, I’ve found a nice set of French aluminum handlebars, and straps for the toeclips in red, and the ugly steel brake yokes will be replaced w/aluminum.

What type of tape are you looking for?

Oh, had not thought about getting tape via the Forum. I've been using cushioned Fizik a lot, a royal blue for this Gitane (he's going along with my red/whie/blue theme) and the other project, the Atala, dark blue to emulate the frame decals. I had just been waiting for online sellers to have their next sale.

True but lots of people are not great at drilling holes, can make it worse. Drilling at the top of a slit, the lack of any metal on one side of the hole makes the drill want to wander to that side. Do-able of course but some drilling knowledge and experience is required. One option is drilling just above the slit so the drill doesn't have as much desire to wander, then connect the slit up to the hole, but that has its challenges too, and it's reducing the amount of un-slit quill, lengthening the slit. Drill the smallest hole you can (that still removes the sharp corners) because any metal removed is likely reducing the strength of the quill.

I think for most people, a needle file is safer, though slower. Just file a somewhat-rounded shape at the top, minimum amount of metal removed until the two 90° corners are gone. The hole doesn't need to be round, just "rounded".

Many people don't own any needle files but they're cheap and easy to find, so go grab one. Typically they come in sets with various shapes including triangle, flat, thin wedge etc, but the round one will get used 5x as much as any other, so ideally get a set plus a couple other small round ones in several sizes and coarse/fine. "Import" quality (code for China) is good enough for occasional use on soft metal like alu h'bar stems. Seek out better quality (like Grobet) if you dislike buying badly made tools.

Good advice. Hmm, how about if I strap a strap of metal over the spot with, say, hose clamps, as a guide?

I'm also a Bike Bigot... it's why I use SunTour rear derailleurs on any bike that should have come from the factory with a Suntour rear derailleur.

Which is basically all of them, especially in the 1970s. (I've never had one of the slanted-body aluminum Simplexes, but if they work like the similar-looking Shimano 600s, I wouldn't kick either one off of a bike.)

If the bike would have been bought as a frameset, then I'm putting Sun Tour on it, because the dude who built it should have.

They're just that much better than everything else in-period that I've ever run a chain through.

As to capacity, I've not played with a short-cage V-series, but I've run a 1st-gen Superbe on a 14-26 with room to spare, and SunTour spec'd that for a 23t max. On the Fuji that it's on, with Suntour dropouts, I'd try a 28 and not be at all surprised if it worked. (Or if it didn't.) It's also rated at 23t chainwrap, and I'm using it in a 45/42/30 x 14-26 6-speed without complaint.

So, yeah, I'd leave the Sun Tour on there.

--Shannon

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Some progress on the Gitane since the last installment.

The rear wheel is now done; for a “free wheel set” I donated to the project, the rear absorbed some money. In other topics here at C&V/BF, (a) the broken rear axle, now replaced with a Campy I had, modified by machine work by member Bulgie, and (b) the hairline cracks in the rim meant replacing said rim, so both wheels now have CR18 rims. I think going from 27” steel rims on basic Normandy hubs and lower-pressure tires, to the sealed-bearing hubs, alloy rims and GP5000 tires, should mean a performance upgrade.

The 25.0mm seat post from member Nlerner looks nice, very good finish, but super-long so I presume meant for a mountain bike or BMX. Even being generous with insertion depth, I removed 6 inches. As an experiment, instead of sawing, I tried my plumbing pipe cutter. OK, it took longer than on 3/4” copper pipe, but it worked fine — left a little ridge but I needed to champfer with a file anyway.

Off-brand bar tape in blue matched a set of Cardiff plugs I had laying around, with gel pads underneath for comfort. In the photo, you see the modified white hoods playing well with the safety levers. I had bought a bag of REG brand lever covers in assorted colors, intended for upright-bar levers but, when immersed in hot water, become pliable enough to fit drop-bar levers, so a white set to match the hoods.

For the "red, white and blue” color scheme, the cabling is red. (1) the front brake's cable loop seems fine, but I think I need to remove a couple of inches from the rear brake’s one. On the shifting cables, those shallow “cup” braze-on fittings offer no control on exit direction, so the chainstay stop does nothing to correct that odd angle on the housing leading to the RD. Might resort to a clear zip-tie holding it down to the chainstay. With the red cabling, red water bottle and red toe straps, might be plenty of red but need to add a little blue somewhere on the bike (seat bag, maybe?)

Still need to get the Stronglight 93’s on the bike, source a freewheel (I really hope to fit a 14T-30T with this RD) and rehab/restore one of the sets of Campy Black pedals I’ll probably never use.

Looks wonderful, You are so generous, especially the tires.

Sharp lookin' bike!

--Shannon

This seems to be some odd mid-range RD, longer cage (at about 60mm c-to-c on the pulley bolts) than a short cage Luxe, but not exactly "touring". I'd like to give him a bit more range, especially at the Stronglight 93's at 45T-52T. 14T-28T is marginal, how about 14T-30T? And I have an almost unused Suntour 14T-32T that I could use, any hope of (a) will this RD handle that, even with a drop link, considering there's only 7T swing on the chainrings? Or hope of finding a longer cage (the RD polished up and well rebuilt now, hate to waste it) to fit?

Thanks, I only wish the paint had been less chipped up. Nice "ten foot bike" after all the touch-up and buffing. I sent this photo to the owner, his wife e-mailed back that they should display it in the living room! Were it a TdF or Super Corsa, well, maybe --

Why ever not? It's a lovely bike!

Yes, the rear mech is not a V Luxe as a couple people said, it's a V-T Luxe (medium cage). Like the V-GT (and unlike the short-cage V), the V-T has the cage that lets you take the chain out without tools.
Specs for V-T:

• Maximum cog: 30 teeth
• Total capacity: 28 teeth

The 1980 Superbe on my Fuji is rated at 23t max, and clears a 26 with room. At least on a Suntour dropout. (It's got no b-screw, so it sits where it sits.)

Are all Suntour RD's so conservatively specc'd?

--Shannon

Well — good news, bad news indifferent news.


Indifferent: easy to shorten rear brake housing do drop my infamous Tall Loops about 2”. Looks a good match to the front brake now. Also, got another 2mm of reach on the front brake, whoever recommended carbide burrs for the Dremel a couple of years — thank you!

Good news: the 14T-32T Suntour freewheel I had in the basement seems to have had few miles, spins freely. Just a little chain grime and not a lot of that. For fun, I tried my wife’s Dawn Power Wash and a toothbrush, cleaned up nice (it looks much better in person than in the poorly-lit photo below)

Bad news: The SunTour VT-Luxe mid-range RD is not being my friend; a shame as it cleaned up nice. (a) To clean the 32T, I ordered an inexpensive drop link. Bolts up to the “claw” OK, but attaching the RD to the drop link… remember that nut that goes on the back of the Claw to adjust tightness of the upper pivot bolt? No room, the nut works fine on a steel claw, not on the alloy drop link. I planned on grinding down the drop link, but removing enough aluminum to clear the nut would effectively cut the link in half. So, maybe the RD will handle 14T-32T and 45T-52T but if not… (b) a bit of wobble so I thought the upper pivot was not adjusted correctly — no, the parallelogram itself wobbles, the back of the fore-aft arms where the attach to the top of the RD upper pivot section near the H-L adjustment screws. If no chance of tightening that up, time for a WTB for a replacement RD, and a longer cage this time. (C) wow, the “H” adjustment screw really does not want to screw in far enough, I wonder if I mis-reinstalled the little spring clips, and I’ve never liked the Japanese-style screws that take straight-slot or Phillips, they never seems to have enough depth for the screwdriver. Considering A&B, likely C no longer matters.

Much progress, and significant components changes.

(a) The SunTour RD cleaned up so nice, polished and lubed... THEN I found that the parallelogram's bushings were shot and no way to get it to stay vertical, too wobbly. Got a long-cage SunTour BL from a forum Member, with a matching FD in the bargain! Owner said OK, so now all-SunTour shifting. The new units cleaned up nice as well. This new RD is 34T max per Velobase, and the freewheel is 32T, so I have margin.

(b) Stronglight 93 is not going to make it. Rough finish, I tried de-anodizing, OK, but I just cannot get a tolerable finish on it. Forum member Bulgie is guiding me towards what I'd call sanding-based polishing, aggressive and it should work... someday. So, digging around, it's not French but my Vitus 979 project came with an Ofmaga crankset in nice shape and I am not using it. Owner said OK, so I popped it in with two mis-matched French cups I had laying around & the no-name spindle that came with the Ofmega cranks. Don't recall whose bearings I got. Well, the Frankencranks not only installed OK, but the chainline looks great. Need cheap generic dustups for this and his sister's bike... ideas?

(c) Compared to what arrived last autumn, not the rims, cranks, pedals, seat post and handlebars are now aluminum. I figured on 2LB possible weight loss. I post #1, I started at 30.6LB, today... 26.0LB! That's with water bottle and cage, but not the $7.99 handlebars bag I found at Walmart.com (trying to add a little more blue to the TriColour scheme.

The C&V version of 3-cup monte.

Liking your project a lot, just finished an '84 Gitane Sprint - the ride really suprised me, not wanting to hijack your thread, video below, Dan