Greetings from a newbie,

I've got a neat old Univega Alpina Uno, in excellent condition. The whole frame is chromed. There is a little rust in a few places, such as seat post triangle union and fork crown. I've used phosphoric acid to treat these areas.

Question. Is clear coat a reasonable solution for preserving this frame?

I know waxing is important, but a bit difficult for these hard to reach areas and i thought clear coat might also help preserve the decals.

Feedback appreciated.

Cheers,
Mark

Is that an early Mt bike with a solid fork? I was going to look at one of those this week and from the pictures it looked like it had 26" tires is that correct. What else can you tell me about it components and stuff like that? Can you post some pictures? Not sure about the clear coat but +1 on the wax

When I stripped my 1985 Team Fuji down to chrome, I noticed the same sort of rust spots in the same location. I suspect that it has something to do with the brazing process. What I did that worked pretty well was to sand the rust down a bit with a Scotchbrite pad and then touch up the areas with Testors silver paint. I really helped to cleanup the frame. It's not a perfect match, but if you work to blend in the paint, it ends up looking like a roughish area in the chrome.

Very effective. I look at the pictures and can only guess at where you've touched up. Thanks for the tip.

My alpino uno is a 15 spd and probably about 1984 vintage. Frame is all chrome, solid forks with neat double crown. Dia compe cantilevers, moose type stem w/ riser bars. Sorry can't get a picture right now. Yes its got standard 26 in. alloy wheels.
I plan to make it a fixed gear and keep all of the original components so that it can easily be restored.

Holy Cow, that saddle is WAY far forward! You should move it back and get a shorter stem...

Another option is to replace the seat post with a zero set back post. It would put you farther forward on the saddle rails. Been there, done that, works great.

One of the questions was, can you clear coat the frame?
Yes.

Once you effectively get it to where you want it, no problem.
Your paint shop will tell you, though, that the chrome has to be very, very, clean.
It's worth it, though.