1977 Claud Butler Cavalier #005616

Last February me & my lad Jimmy started on our first father and son restoration,Jim looked the part in his overalls and I couldn’t have been more proud with how the project turned out, with a great Majestic for me and a cracking little 19.5” framed, 26” wheeled Electron for Jim…


Now throughout the year we have worked on a number of projects, a mixtie for his sister and more recently one for Mrs Peachy and I’ve noticed his boiler suit was getting tighter and tighter, till really it was just plain ridiculous, so obviously two things needed to happen, firstly a new boiler suit, see below (how did that happen in 11 months?)


Secondly, we need to start his next bike sharpish……
Namely a 21” framed, 27” wheeled, 531 plain gauge forked, Claud Butler Cavalier from 1977
Never heard of one before? No surprise there really, very short run, late 1976 – mid 1977. It’s basically a Holdsworth Equipe, which was a low-end bike painted up like the Holdsworth race team bike in the Kingfisher Orange & Blue colour scheme. I’m guessing these didn’t really take off like they thought they might, so I think they decided to badge some up as CB Cavaliers to see if they could shift them that way as well.


Roll on 41 years and one ended up being cleared out of house up hear in Yorkshire, £44 of Jimmy’s own pocket money and we have this;



Right, lets crack on….

Nothing like training your pupil hands on nice one

Cheers Nob, this one needs to be ready by Easter, the plan is to build it up as a tourer like my Majestic now is and go camping.

Love your threads!

Cheers Chris

Some of the decals on this frame aren’t readily available, so rather than compromise with something close, I thought I'd knock up some of my own... these have been e-mailed off to Gil at Retrodecals. (keep him busy over Christmas)

I do like a shiny new sticker!

Last night there were two things that Jim couldn’t couldn’t quite finish off, “not to worry, I’ll sort them" says me…

Headset was a little tricky as I really didn’t want to damage it as it’s a nice BBB sealed jobby, probably not original to the bike. Upside down in the bench vice after a night soaking in oil sorted that..

Now, the Bottom Bracket….. totally different kettle of fish. Off side/fixed side, no problem. Locking ring, a bit stubborn but eventually gave up the goods…. But the adjustable near-side cup, what a B**stard!
2 hrs and two bent pin tools latter and all I had was two stress damaged pin holes and no movement.

What to do? Well you-tube is full of twats hitting things that look about 5 years old that my niece could undo with the correct tool.
How about RetroBike, great forum with loads of knowledge, yup, great when the search works!
How about good old Sheldon Brown?
Well he came up trumps so he did..
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbcups.html

First, bolt together an M12 nut & bolt with washers to help space it out, then stand that combo in the vice.

Next, tighten it up like your life depended on it, then hold on to wrench/spanner with your right hand and pull the frame against that with your left..

It worked!

Box of bits to be cleaned, pair of rims waiting for new spokes and a pile of orange Reynolds tubing ready for a £20 dip and vapour blast at my local powder painter.

I set the lad to cleaning today (as he’s off school now). And he’s done a pretty good job of these Weinmann rims (he took a before and after side by side photo so as to prove how hard he’s been working) and the Miche front hub and Quando rear have come up like new… I know these aren’t period correct but are in good working condition, and as this total build has to be paid for by Jim himself, we are trying to keep costs down.
A 1950’s CB will no doubt turn up with some 70’s Super Champion 58’s on it, until then these will do.

I’m going to try to keep his spend down to tapes, pads & cables and the striping of the frame and the new stickers.
Paint is on me and I’ve already got the correct Suntour front mech & leavers and the correct SR chain/crank set in the spares box. And I’m pretty sure I’ve got some tidy Blue SKS Bluemels knocking around somewhere oh and some used but good condition Schwalbe white walls….

Stickers!

A combination of some stock items from Steve @ H. Lloyds cycles and some bespoke drawn by me, printed by Gil at Retrodecals.
The frame has been dipped, blasted then rattle can sprayed and is now hanging up over a plug-in radiator in the workshop... sooooo tempted to start applying stickers now, but I think I might hang on another 24hrs.

Now then, the wheels are finished with Sapim SS spokes, a mix of newly ordered and some left over stock from previous projects, so only £12 spent.


Time to dig out those Schwalbe white walls..... oh dear... basically in good nick with plenty of tread left but a bit oil stained and more of a mucky yellow really...


Bit of elbow grease and some hot soapy water has them looking pretty good, we’ve re-used the original inner tubes, so no cost there.