bluehills3149

Here's a Classique I had but have since passed on. I found the frame dumped on the street pretty much stripped of most parts but looks like it had Shimano 600 Arabesque originally. Frame was made from Champion tubing. I built it up using parts I had lying around - hence the non-matching collection.

Kuromori

You wouldn't happen to know if those were specced with 165mm cranks on the small sizes like yours? I've been having a hard time finding 1st gen Deore crank arms (with the oversized pedal holes) in 165mm and the Lotus Eclair seems to be one of the only bikes imported to the states that had Deore cranks as standard equipment.

ascherer 

Sorry, @Kuromori I have no information about the original specs. This is an original spec Eclair. Maybe you can find it's owner. You might get an answer here as well. Good luck!

Classiq 

Calm down Dude - that's a reproduction water bottle. The originals had a horrible plastic smell and got brittle with age in pretty short order. I still have one but glue and tape hold it together. It's only useful as a prop.

mkeller234

Classiq 

OK, I'm going ahead with the frame repair and rebuild project on the mystery '84 Legend. I'm not finding a willing source for chrome dipping the fork and chain stay ends so it will be a solid end-to-end respray. But I don't have any source of the an accurate way to duplicate the original Lotus "Oxide Green" color. Does anybody out there have any idea of how to spec a DuPont paint color close to the original oxide green?

jjhabbs 

Can't can't believe I posted that 6 years ago. Maybe I should try riding this bicycle

Classiq 

Hey, is that Legend Comp of yours the "oxide green" color? I'm trying to find a DuPont paint color close to the original Lotus oxide green but I don't have access to any oxide green Lotus to compare paint sample chips to.

seypat

Yes, yes it is. there area couple of pics on the vintage Lotus site.

https://www.vintagelotusbicycles.com/

Classiq 

Those are just pix - I have no way of knowing if what the color looks like in the pix in any way accurately depicts what the real paint color actually is. For example, in your pix the paint color looks like dark gray, not green.

seypat

I will see if I can match it for you.

ascherer 

Classiq 

Thanx! If you can match it to any kind of standardized color check system, even just Pantone, that would be a great start. A DuPont metallic paint chip would be even greater but I'll take anything for starters. Lotus just didn't paint many bikes oxide green, especially not the much more plentiful popular models.

Classiq 

OK - Yellow Jersey batted this one out of the park. Mystery blue Lotus is now Green Legend. I never could get a good reference paint number for Lotus "oxide green" so I punted. But I'm happy as heck with the results. YJ even put the project photos on their website (3rd bike project down from the top): Nishiki Frame Alignment, Lotus Repair & Respray at Yellow Jersey

mkeller234

top506

Yellow Jersey has painted two framesets for me; I'm very happy with their work, prices, and service.
Now if they could only clean up their website.......

Top

Classiq 

Thanks. As I said, it was a punt. Even though an automotive paint company gave me stacks of old paint chip reference books, it was pretty hard to find any paint that resembled "oxide green" in my mind - or even looked like the pix on the vintage Lotus site. Green doesn't seem to be a popular auto color either because the choices were few and kind of odd. But Yellow Jersey had a pix on their website of a Raleigh Record they had repainted in what looked like a pretty nice dark green so I just told them to run with that. "42861 Chrysler Green Metallic" I just lucked out because it looks really great in person.

Classiq 

Yeah, they were really fast on this job and the frame came back like an emerald jewel - I feel like I should be wearing white cotton gloves and I'm kind of scared to put a wrench to it.

Yeah, their website is pretty overwhelming and chaotic . . . interesting though, unless you're in a hurry to find something.

But their paperwork is even weirder. They apparently reuse any paper that comes into their shop with a blank side so one of the notes I found in the box with the frame was printed on the back side of a Melania Trump fundraising letter. Makes it a little hard to spot which side is your business and which side is misc. junk mail.

cromagnum

Hello Everyone I am new to the classic and vintage forum and have a question regarding a bicycle I just got. It is an Lotus Elan 75 with the sequino 75 cranks derailleur front and rear gear shifters headset etc. It is white with fade black paint job. The question is what wheels and hubs came with it originally they are missing and I would like to put it back into original condition. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

LittleGinseng 

here ya go Elan 75

cromagnum

Thanks for the quick response. Since I am new to this would the rims /wheels be 700's or older style 27 1 1/4 the specs do not say.

Aubergine 

Classiq 

And those 700 rims would have been for tubular (sew-up) tires, not clinchers, if you want to be totally accurate. Yellow Jersey would probably be the best source for those kinds of rims and tires.

cromagnum

appreciate all the responses and I will begin the process of restoring the bike in the next few weeks. Hopefully I will be able to post pictures
Thanks Again

ascherer 

Here's my wife's 84 Eclair in its' latest incarnation. I pulled the Tiagra derailleurs, 9-speed brifters, and wheelset off her Cannondale Synapse. Mounted Compass Bon Jon Pass tires and wrapped the bars with Brooks fake leather, which provide more padding than the real leather that was on it before. She's very happy with the setup and I think it sits pretty nicely. One day I'll get her a nicer crankset but for now this Sugino MountainSomethingorOther is working fine.