Cleaning up my old bike

royzer · Sep 23, 2008

So, I've finally got my GT Timberline stripped, but before I rebuild her, I'm keen to give her a thorough clean! It's a cracking wee steel frame which is nearly 10 years old, and it's been sitting around in my garage for the past 5 or so years, so it's currently looking slightly past it's best!

Has anyone got any tips of how to clean the frame up again, especially around the bottom bracket shell and the inside of the seat tube, as these have some slight rust marks and general crud around them. Is it just a case of giving it a scrub with some wire wool and a blast of WD40??!!

Cheers guys,

Andy

lewis1641 · Sep 24, 2008

hi there. try to be as sympathetic as you can to your 10 year old paint. keep the wire wool away unless all else fails. at the end of the day it is paint so use the same stuff you would with a car.

degrease everything and give it a good scrub. t-cut will get rid of fine scratches and generally make the paint look loads better. it will also get rid of rust stains. if the paint has bubbled then the rust is more serious and you'll really need to strip the paint and investigate further. it sounds like you want to tidy up rather than restore so you should be ok.

once you are done with the t cut use a really good polish and then seal everything with a good wax.

hope that is some help.

royzer · Sep 24, 2008

That's brilliant. Thanks for your help!!

legrandefromage · Sep 24, 2008

1998? does that qualify as 'retro'?

I thought it was only stuff that was held together by the original paint after rusting through from '88 that qualified as truely retro.....?

Pickle · Sep 25, 2008

Muc-Off is the best stuff for cleaning.

Period.

Cleaning up my old bike

royzer

Retro Newbie

lewis1641

royzer

Retro Newbie

legrandefromage

Pickle

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