Murray Missile 

1986 Fuji Del Rey, Before, During and After. The Before pic doesn't look too bad but trust me there is a huge difference.

Before:


During:



After:

RiddleOfSteel

Man that Del Rey is beautiful! The stealthy and sultry black and grey with accenting decals and silver is just fantastic. And they made these in super huge 68.5cm versions (that's more for me though, haha).

ryansu

I picked up this 87 Miyata 112 in November as a leave it on the covered balcony trainer bike with the intention of eventually doing a tear down and passing it along. Just finished. Nothing spectacular but a solid road bike that I hope will sell in this crazy covid market EDIT Sold in under 3 hours


As found

After a tear down and replacing the consumables

Rocket-Sauce 

Why are the brakes reversed?

ryansu

Rocket-Sauce simple answer -brain lock. I got them cabled and dialed in and then realized they were reversed. They worked well and I know some folks (motorcyclists) do this on purpose so I left them like that.

Murray Missile 

'75 or '76 Schwinn Traveler I bought for the Campagnolo NR rear derailleur and Mafac Racer brakes someone had swapped onto it decades ago.



After disassembly, scrub down and a rebuild with "Schwinn Approved" leftovers form my parts bins.

bear_a_bug 

Found some old pics of bikes recently, thought it might be fun to post before/afters here:

BEFORE:
1983 Trek 620, as purchased from Working Bikes here in Chicago in 2016:


FIRST PASS:


LETS TRY 650B:


NOPE, THAT'S NOT RIGHT:


LETS STOP MESSING AROUND:


Have to admit that I really liked the 700c "First pass" version, running Bon Jon Pass 35mm tires, but always had such a ridiculously hard time pulling the tire off when I flatted that I got too nervous about taking it out on longer rides. Maybe there's still a wider-tired 700c machine out there for me, maybe. As is, I now have two 650B bikes, a 26" MTB cruiser, and a skinny-tire Bill Davidson racer.

malcala622 

88' Krono out of the shipping box November 19, 2019







Completed September 11, 2020

GreenNeedle

Quite pleased with how this one went:
Saw this frame on ebay. Raleigh Quadra "Series 2". Overpaid for it really @ £80 for just the frame and forks but I wanted it:

Quadra Mk2 frame and forks

Quadra Mk2 Forks

Initial idea was to just treat the rust and touch it up but once I got it I realised it was going to need a full strip and respray so........

...........I tried to keep as faithful to the original as possible whilst not spending an uber amount on it. This was originally Shimano 105 throughout.

So items used that I already had:
Shimano EX400 groupset which is the right period, give or take, minus calipers so for the small difference between these it wasn't in my mind worth buying the 105.
Campag Mirage calipers. I think these are close to the period, not sure.
Raleigh engraved bars. These are much earlier than the bike.
Wheels came off my '90 Holdsworth when I bnought that. Wolber "GTA Gentleman" rims with Shimano (not sure which level) hubs.
Sakae seatpost and stem.

Items I bought:
Decals. I had to buy from several sources. The main set didn't have the Quadra decal nor the "made by" or "Hand built" stickers. The actual "Raleigh" decals are a tad smaller than the original but not by much and the Series II was Series 11 so I had to snip the top of the ones and paint the bottom and top line of the II bit.
All the Quadra decals online are wrong so I kept the original and painted over it carefully by hand. The "hand built" and "made by" stickers came from Lloyds and the Reynolds stickers came from Reynolds themselves after giving them the frame number.
Shimano 105 Headset (hard to find the right crown race.)
Shimano white hoods with levers (Bought from a vintage seller in holland who sent me a free bottle too.)
Wolber "NOS" 700 x 20C tyres. I had to buy these when I saw them to match the rims. They have the reflective strip around like the original Quadra's tyres. Just for the pictures though. Not the most comfy ride on these. Shhh, don;t tell anyone but Conti S2 25Cs are on there now.
Bar Tape. Found these on ebay and ridiculously they arrived an hour later. Turned out the seller of this rare tape was in my City, doh.
White cable donuts

Quadra above pool

Quadra nice and Clean

Micro details, need more practice

Raleigh engraved bars

Series 2 decal needed some work

Backend Quadra

Yellow fade tape

Wolber Central

Campag 105 Raleigh mix

GreenNeedle

A couple of more pics it wouldn't let me upload. lol:


View from the rear

Wolber City Central Reggie.

Murray Missile 

1986 Takara Highlander

Before (5 years ago..........) Suntour XC Sport 3 X 6 friction shift.




After ( 5 years later LOL) Complete overhaul and upgraded to Suntour XC Sport 7000 3 X 6 Accushift.

malcala622 

GreenNeedle Darn that's a sweet paint scheme on your Raleigh great build too.

malcala622 

I was hoping I wouldn't have to replace the headset after just 2 years of building this but knowing the cups were in good condition it was inevitable. Big thanks to jeirvine for the SR headset. Its a beauty and smooth as butter.

Duke of Prunes

Love that chrome Voyageur & your changes.

GreenNeedle

Thank you . I tried to copy the original as closely as possible. This is the bike in the 1989 Raleigh Catalogue. The weird thing is that around 1990 ish I actually had 2 of these bottles. The bike was out of my parent's price range as I was 14 in 1989 but those bottles were the cheapest ones in Halfords. I asked my Dad on the off chance if they were stashed away in his shed somewhere but they weren't.:

89 Quadra Series II

WGB

1983/84 Corsaro Astron

Before

Terrible photos but it had Cyclone drivetrain, Tange 2 tubing, Sugino crankset and Dia Compe 500 brakes.




After

I need a way to add a cable mount that will let me run barcons or brifters using the single boss for the Cyclone shifters. For now, it rolls very nicely and I can certainly live with Cyclone shifting. Already had the Brooks and the bags and the pedals and the tubular wheels. Next trick will be mounting fenders and racks.

The lesson from this? Piss poor photos don't mean a bike is bad, just means you need a better look. Well worth the 35 minute drive each way.

Bicicletta89

I love the light and dark blues of the frame and bar tape. And yeah I would think you’d have no problem selling at this time so the three hours does not surprise me. Bought my bike, a Fuji Gran Tourer from the seventies, back in June. It was hard enough finding something then the market has only dried up even more. It’s tough for buyers now BUT it’s great seeing so many beautiful classics being fixed up and used as they were meant to be. Here in DC I’m happily amazed by what a high percentage of the bikes on the roads are lovingly cared for vintage road bikes.

alex_74

When doing a resto project is power coat a bad idea?

arty dave

It all depends on the bike, it's current state of finish, your budget, its intended use, and your care factor (will you care what others think). You will have a lot of opinions and reasons in yes, no, and maybe flavours. I've seen some great powdercoating examples on this site. It is tougher and cheaper than a wet paint. It is much harder to remove PC. Although I did use some spray on gasket stripper to remove powdercoat from a crankset & it worked very well. If you do decide to PC, do your homework or go with a recommendation, with both the sandblaster and the PCer. Use people that are familiar with bikes and have a good rep.

Tell us a bit more about the bike etc?

polymorphself 

Most recent:

Fastguy1955

Love the Motobecane! what bars are those? Where did you get them?
Mark

EddyR

Great job on the Motobecane. Getting rid of the derailers and cables cleans up the looks of a busy frame.
Ed

Andy_K 

This is a work in progress, but treating the rusty lugs with EvapoRust seemed fitting for this thread.

Before:


After:


The container I used for the bath wasn't quite deep enough to cover the lug, but I should be able to clean that up with sandpaper before painting.

KenNC

1972 Raleigh Competition before:





And after:

SJX426 

Did I show this one already?
1972 Bottecchia Giro D'italia 60cm on Flickr
1972 Bottecchia Giro D'Italia (Professional conversion) on Flickr