reverborama

I picked this bike up at a car swap meet a couple of years ago. I bought it with a Japanese mixte-framed bike that I wanted for a very short friend. This was with it and as it was my size, I grabbed it as well. I finally got around to fooling with it the other day. Both bikes hung upside down in the same garage for what must have been 20+ years based on the amount and location of the dust. There's a serial number, hand stamped (poorly) under the BB that reads 10 72722 followed by a diamond stamp. The dropouts are stamped, not forged, and don't have anything on them. The frame has been re-painted and uses clamps on the top tube for cable routine. It has Dia-Compe center-pull brakes front and rear. Components are all Suntour (Honor for RD). The frame looks very '70's to me. Someone went to a lot of trouble to paint and fix up this bike, back in the day. My guess is it was sold with the mixte to a couple. My desire to find out the source of the frame resolves around a stuck fixed BB cup. It is resisting the usual methods of extraction and before I really start to crank on it I want to make sure no one snuck a frame with right hand threads on the fixed side in on me.

Here are some pictures of the lugs.

reverborama

Crisis averted. I took a known JIS threaded cup and checked it against the cup I had removed. They were the same. So I reasoned that the fixed cup was left hand threaded, and using the Sheldon method I pinched it between some big washers with a good sized bolt after an application of Kroil. It didn't want to come out by hand so I lit up the compressor and used an impact wrench. Everything came apart fine and the threads are perfect. A known JIS fixed cup threaded in just fine.

Still wouldn't mind knowing what I've got. I'm thinking entry level, early 70's Japanese frame.

T-Mar

Glad to hear that you were successful with the cup.

Offhand, I don't recognize the lugwork or serial number format. Given the components, it probably is a Japanese manufactured, boom era, entrty level model. The only observation I can add is that it is probably from the latter half of the boom (i.e. circa 1973 or later). My era literature suggests that the major Japanese brands (Fuji, Kabuki, Miyata, Nishiki) were slow in introducing ladies' lightweight models and when they did, they were the traditional, double down tube style. In general, the Japanese appear to have been several years behind the European manufacturers in adopting the mixte, introducing them circa 1973.

It's tempting to reverse engineer the serial number to a MM YYxxx or MM Yxxxx format, which would make it October 1972 or October 1977 (even if employs the Japanese imperial calendar, the latter format would work out to October 1972). Of course that's pure specualtion but should be verifiable using the date codes on the components.

This may be a long shot, but are there any headbadge holes of distinctive pattern?

reverborama

There are two holes where a wrap-around logo would have gone on the head tube. They are where a Fuji badge might have gone except the holes on my Fuji are down a little on the tube whereas these are half-way between the top and the bottom. The crank I pulled off was a Sugino Maxi. At first I thought I might have an S-10-S because the pinchbolt on the seat tube has a Fuji logo on the end, but I can't find any Fuji with lugs like these. I've checked Nishikis, Kabukis, Maruishis, etc. and have yet to find anything that looks like these. I'd spend a lot more time on this if it was a high end frame. I'll just finish greasing it up and ride it around this spring a little before finding some tall kide who needs an inexpensive bike.

T-Mar

Just realized that it isn't a mixte, but that you bought it with a mixte. D'oh!

An Honor rear derailleur in conjunction with a Maxy crankset would typically indicate an upper, entry level model, assuming it is boom era. The Maxy will also have date codes it, but depending on the exact year may use the Japanese Imperial Calendar.

Edit: If you can narrow down the year via the date codes I can go back though some of my literature to see if I can find a match.

reverborama

The crank has 49-8 stamped on both cranks (not a period on the left hand one, but a dash) indicating 1974. The brakes have 74-7 stamped on them. I was thinking it was somewhere in the 73-74 range. It has a couple of braze-on's for cables at the RD, and at the BB, but the routing across the top tube still uses clamps. I'll take and post some better pictures of the frame tonight. It's nothing special but now I am a bit curious.