I found a green with horrible 80's "spackle" paint Univega road frame and fork that looks about my size on the street. The paint was covered in rattle can gray and can be rubbed off. I've got the following vintage parts to use: 5-speed wheelset, compatible derailleurs, brake calipers and saddle. To get it going, it will need brake levers, seatpost, a headset, stem, handlebars, and new double chainring (triple ring on the frame is bent).

If you were in my situation and wanted to spend just a few bucks and get this baby back on the road, what would you do? Is it worth dumping money into a cheap chromoly frame if you don't have to? To clarify, I have neither the equipment nor the experience to build a tallbike, but am open to the possibility.

If some folks have suggestions, I promise to post pictures of this monstrosity once it's done

Cheers, Alan

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I see you are in the SF Bay Area - you anywhere near San Ramon? If so, let's toss it on the stand and take a look.....

If you are not in Bossman's area, this helped me out
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/straighten-chw.html

+1 on the thrift store bike. As long as the bars and stem are aluminum, your only difficulty would be guessing if the seatpost is the same size. If you had a post that fit, you could run a strip of paper around it and mark it. That would give you a closer guess. Some of our LBS have bins of cheap take off parts, $5 stems and such. Worth checking your area, but the thrift store is still probably cheaper.

Paul Bosman
(one S)
Minneapolis

700c cruiser

Thanks for the help everyone...the more I think of it the more I'd like to turn this thing into a tallbike or just leave it on the street for someone else to work on. Someone else might enjoy it more.

Horizontal dropouts? Make it a fixie.

Nope it has vertical dropouts