'80 Carlton 531 rebuild project

I found this in the deepest darkest corner of my shed and after quizzing my landlord about it - it turns out it's his. I've been looking for a new project for a while now so this looked like a perfect fixed gear project.

My landlord said I could have it, and so the FG project began...or so it seemed. I stripped the bike of all it's componenets before realising it's measures in at 60cm which is far too big for me. I'm pretty gutted about it to be honest as I was looking forward to riding fixed.

Anyway, since I've already stripped her I decided to just do a restore and pass it back to it's original owner good as new.

Most of the main componenet are now all cleaned up and I've started wire wooling any rust on the frame. Once that's done I'll paint strip her, fill in any pitting caused by the rusting and get her resprayed back to that lovley blue and get some decals made by my Dad (who's a screen printer).

Pics

Looks very much like a Carlton Clubman frame as I had a red version of this.

Good luck on the renovation

You've done a good job on getting the brakes and gears back to condition. They looked a bit far gone initially but it's surprising what can be achieved with a bit of work and elbow grease.

Did you say 'decals made' and 'Dad' in the same sentence? Interesting.

Ha ha! Yes you did a good job there! Glad you did not go fixie route. Far too much of that about! There is only a limited fixie fixation before you get banished to another well known site!!

flint catcher

Hi,did i spot a flint catcher?,don,t see them now very often

Re: flint catcher

craggy":390okj32 said:

Hi,did i spot a flint catcher?,don,t see them now very often

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Look again, in the uncleaned photos above

I've cleaned them separately.

Finally got the stem out, took a bit of gentle persuasion that included a block of wood, a lump hammer and loads of WD40.

Next I need to somehow get the seat post out, which is dug in there good! It's going to have to be a blow lamp job as I can't get the leverage to twist the post. I just need to find out whether Steel or Alu' expands first. If it's the Alu seatpost, then I have no idea what I'm going to do.

stuck seat post

hi,i had a similar problem with one.i ended up putting 24" plumbers wrench on the post,and brute force got it out,it messed the post up,but felt good to start fresh.good luck p.s. don't forget to put the flint catcher back on

You've probably discovered by now that the alloy post will expand faster than the steel frame, but it will also contract faster as it cools hence break the bond. But if you could try to avoid using heat and damaging the paint that would be best. Try a great big monkey wrench or a big bench vice, get yourself some 'Plus Gas' rather than wd40 and soak it for a few days.

Best of luck with it, would be such a shame to damage the paintwork.

Nice work so far

Old Ned":14z63w7c said:

You've done a good job on getting the brakes and gears back to condition. They looked a bit far gone initially but it's surprising what can be achieved with a bit of work and elbow grease.

Did you say 'decals made' and 'Dad' in the same sentence? Interesting.

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I'd be very much interested in knowing just how I might achieve the same results; how did you clean them up so effectively ?

Autosol ? . . . . . . . and elbow grease ?

Tel":3n4xhzwq said:

You've probably discovered by now that the alloy post will expand faster than the steel frame, but it will also contract faster as it cools hence break the bond. But if you could try to avoid using heat and damaging the paint that would be best. Try a great big monkey wrench or a big bench vice, get yourself some 'Plus Gas' rather than wd40 and soak it for a few days.

Best of luck with it, would be such a shame to damage the paintwork.

Nice work so far

Click to expand...

Or vinegar, or 'proper' Coca-Cola poured into the seat tube through the bottom bracket. In fact any mild acid should help to disolve the corrosion between alloy and steel.

Don't forget to bung up any holes in the seat-pin!