Vitus 979 frame repair.
 

I was just burned on ebay. I purchased a 979 for a decent amount of money. When It arrived I noticed it had a three chain rings on it. Well the smallest ring has gouged out a good portion of the bottom tube of the back triangle. Is there a way to have this replaced?

Thanks,
Eric

I fix a lot of aluminum frames and may have an answer. Can you make some photos available?

1) Is the issue covered by the ebay coverage? Always strive to exhaust the buyers coverage before making any repair attempts or dissembly as any such attempts will pretty much negate the coverage (if there is any)

2) Do the photos in the ad on ebay show the 3 chainring?

3) Does the wording of the ad including any mention of any damages or disfunction or need for a tune up to make it shift right? The seller may have no idea of the damaged frame.

4) In your queries to the seller prior to buying, what did the seller say about the crankset in response; such as brand, model, number of teeth on each ring, number of rings, bottom bracket type and brand, estimated number of miles on the components, etc.?

I suspect the root cause analyis will come down to either Malice or Ignorance on the part of the seller. It could be either or both. Hopefully the seller or ebay's buyer protection will at least partially bail you out.

At best you will get some of your money back, but not getting the Vitus frame in ridable condition is a bummer.

When you have exhausted the recovery options, then it is time to see Frank the Welder. Search and look at the many photos in this forum of his work... there is no doubt he is one of the best at the technical aspects as well as the art.

/K

That's the screwed and glued type, no? I've recently seen one of these with a triple and the small ring is very close to the stay. Given their reputation for flex it seems like a recipe for this sort of damage.

No.

See the full description of joining method (loads as PDF). Link courtesy of Vitus979.com

ALAN's are screwd and glued. Viti just glued. A member on the classic and vintage subforum, martl, had an ALAN repaired by rebonding the entire bike with the propietary loctite glue used in the original production, and cured it in a baker's oven!

Good luck on finding a replacement stay, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Like others have said, start the eBay procedure against the seller.

I took the bike to the local bike shop, they directed me to a local welding company, they say they can fix it. I should be riding it by tuesday! I'm excited about that. As for ebay, The seller returned my money and is letting me keep the bike. so in the end I have a free and usable Vitus 979.
Thanks for all the replies,
Eric

I'll be curious to know how they are going to tackle welding a glued bike without disrupting something.

Depending on the location of the crack heat sinks can be used to draw heat away from the joints. Heat sinks or dams can be wet rags, clay amongst other things. My concerns are more along the lines of the Alu alloy used, any anodizing present and how both effect the resulting weld. Andy.

They used to be supported for tube replacements , so was AlAn, but For US residents, the Shipping to Italy Was Brutal..

I understand that principle but I'm picturing a gouge from a granny ring and the bonding point for the stay/bb being too close together for anything but a liquid nitrogen drip to solve the heat sink issue.
It also might be hard to not have some sort of build up in the repaired region that could cause clearance issues.
I admit to having no idea how precisely and clean an Al weld can be executed since most finished welds seem to be left looking like a bad caulking job.

I'm sure some tig guys will be offended by that but that is a humorous(if not accurate) description:thumb: