Eddy Merckx need some work
 

My coworker brought his bike into work today to show me and needs some helping fixing it up, as you can see it's in some tough shape, he ran the thing into a tree and bent the fork quite a bit. He actually tried to straighten it back out but didn't get far. The frame looks only cosmetically damaged and the fork is totalled obviously. He said he bought it back in 1984 or so and it has full dura ace components on it. Anyone have suggestions on what to do to fix this thing up? I'm having a hard time finding replacement parts and am not familiar with a bike as old as this since I was only born in 1982 :P You can see where the wheel was rubbing against the frame when it crashed. Also, does anyone know if Eddy Merckx would repaint this frame if sent to the factory?

...

cool bike you got there! Eddy himself is not going to paint it i'll tell you :p
It's a Belgium bike and a very nice one. What I would do: replace the front fork. If you can't find one in the same color, take a chrome one. Take care to buy one with the same length because otherwise the bike won't steer the same as before (under or oversteering problems). In the mean time i would spent some time to clean and make the bike more perfect. The rear brake cable for example is too long.

Cool bike, don't paint it. I'm not sure what to do with the scratched part. Perhaps preserve it with some transparant paint or try to find the matching color.

It looks from the pic like your friend was lucky and did not deform the frame...check for buckling behind the headtube on the top and down tubes. If there's a little wrinkle he succeeded in really damaging the resale value of the bike. If not, then do what Leunkstar says and replace the fork. Leunkstar is tongue in cheek as well - Eddie doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, but the factory still paints - but I probably wouldn't want to repaint it either. The bike is in pretty good shape overall. The forks can be had by watching eBay. Make sure you get one with a long enough steerer (they can be shortened, but not stretched...anyone need a Vitus 992 fork with a really really short steerer?)

suggestions on where to get the fork from? Any good online retailers out there for vintage stuff like this?

You can watch ebay for forks, but before I did anything I'd talk to a local framebuilder
and have them double check the frame.
If the fork was that badly damaged I would be very surprized if there isn't damage
to the frame.
Can you take detailed pics of the top tube and down tube just behind the headtube?
any bulging? cracked paint?
really nice bike. . . even if damaged might be worth it to have your
friend fix it.

marty

I'll take some more pics tomarrow morning and post them

back in the late fifies/early sixty's bike shops use to have steel block jigs that you could lay a damaged fork into and bang it out to original conture. it would seem that this fork would be a candidate for that kind of repair. i damaged a 1958 raleigh lenton fork, similiar to the damage on the bike you show, and the bike shop straightened it in a matter of minutes. of course that was old school when things were repaired verus replaced like in today's culture.

Yeah, I've had a couple of forks straightened at my old LBS in the early '90s. Took them just a few minutes.

There's a thing called a fork wrench, a long widgie that cradles the fork and allows the puller to bend it back into shape. I was told that once you get an S bend in the forks yer outta luck, the wrench will only pull out single bends. I dunno, I have never used one. (You could pay a lotta money for a similar fork on the new Pinarellos...)

dou you guys really trust a fork like this forced back in original shape? I'm not a rocket scientist nor steel worker but wouldn't be my cup of thea ;)

Eh, that's a good point. The first fork I had straightened was just mild steel, so it was pretty much worthless to begin with. The second was a very stout chromoly mountain bike fork, but I got a set of Rock Shox shortly after so I never got to see if it would hold up. Mine bent closer to the crown, and it bent forward :o