70's Europa but not the one most of you are thinking of

allenh

rBoTM Triple Crown
rBotM Winner
Now I bet most of you were expecting to see yet another 70's team colours Raleigh, and yes I know I've got form in that department but there's nothing Raleigh about this old girl, and even those from its home country might not know too much about these as info is scant online. Believe me there's been far more googling to gain what info I now have than a bike of this ones middling origins deserves but I love an interesting project and I doubt I'll see another in the UK.

This sorry looking old hector has travelled thousands of miles without even turning a wheel because the frame was built by Tecnotrat in Cuneo Italy, a lot of the parts are Italian and it was all shipped out to Ezio Abeni, an Italian emigre himself and founder of Europa cycles in Sydney Australia where it was assembled and sold under his Europa brand, so how it made it all the way back to Kent in the south east of England I have no idea but its a very long trip either way.

The history I've gleamed thus far (and please anyone who can verify or correct this please jump in) is that Ezio a master frame builder himself sold bikes under a couple of brands with the Europa branded bikes either being mostly Italian like this one or some a bit lower down the pecking order being Japanese in origin. He also built his own frames when people wanted something a bit different to stock or higher up the food chain which were either using the Abeni or Europa brands and he also built frames for one of the Australian Olympic teams. The shop in Sydney is still going and now run by Ezio's son John.

I did also read that there were a good few Reynolds 531 Abeni's and Europa's as the family bought a job lot of tube sets at the end of the 70's which were still being used well into the 80's

Most of the Tecnotrat ones I can find on the internet seem to have been blue and built using Oria tubing but this is red and is built with Falck tubing which I don't think is that unusual but a little different all the same.

The bike scruffy as it is does look to be pretty much complete and original, the pedals are wrong, the front mech is missing and so is the lever. It has an Ofmega Mistral rear mech and chainset which is correct but finding a front one might be difficult and the gear levers are Shimano which I'm not sure is correct. The brakes and levers are Universal and the wheels are Araya rims on Suzue hubs which again I understand is original equipment.

The paint and decals are shot but the chrome on the forks looks savable and decals are available even if they are on the other side of the world.

I intend to restore it back to as close as original as possible, so time to start striping it down, cleaning it up and searching for the missing bits.
 

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Ok buddy, you've got my attention....
 
PeachyPM":1rxm6mtt said:
Ok buddy, you've got my attention....
Well it's got mine as well and I suspect a lot of ongoing elbow grease if I'm going to get anywhere with it.

I've got most of it apart now and a lot of what's come off is either caked in very hard dirt or just generally in poor condition but where there's a will there's a way. The last bits left to take apart are the bottom bracket which shouldn't be too bad and a very very stuck seatpost which has been soaking for over a week now but thus far is refusing to budge so I might have to resort to the caustic soda method, I've never had to resort to it yet so I'm not looking forward to it.
 
If you block the bottom of the aluminium post with some rag etc. Spray a load of plumbers freeze spray down there. Then heat the outside of the steel tube with a heat gun. Then tap to break the corasive seal. Should pull out easily after that.
 
PeachyPM":o10v69nv said:
If you block the bottom of the aluminium post with some rag etc. Spray a load of plumbers freeze spray down there. Then heat the outside of the steel tube with a heat gun. Then tap to break the corasive seal. Should pull out easily after that.

Are you thinking chop the top of the seatpost off first so you can get the freezy stuff down there?

Asking for a friend... :oops:
 
Not with this one, it’s an open tube. With the posts that have the parallel seat bar saddle fixed in place you will need to drill a small hole in the post as close to the seat tube as possible, turn the frame upside down and squirt the freezing spray into the hole (the plumbers packs come with a fine tube for this)

Of course the post is pretty much always going to be sacrificed.
 
PeachyPM":34dv80ly said:
If you block the bottom of the aluminium post with some rag etc. Spray a load of plumbers freeze spray down there. Then heat the outside of the steel tube with a heat gun. Then tap to break the corasive seal. Should pull out easily after that.
I haven't made my mind up on what to do with it yet but the one time I tried the freeze and heat method it was more of a struggle than I was expecting which was almost certainly operator error, either not enough freeze, too much heat or not blocking the bottom of the seat post properly and I fancy giving the the caustic soda method a go. The seat post is quite a way in, well and truly stuck and will be going in the bin anyway.

whichever way I go I'll try and take some pictures but at the moment work is taking up far too much of my time to devote much time to my projects unfortunately.
 
Have undertaken the caustic soda method about 4 times now. Each time it's getting more refined! Happy to guide you through it if you need.
 
MartinB123":1k3vi2c1 said:
Have undertaken the caustic soda method about 4 times now. Each time it's getting more refined! Happy to guide you through it if you need.
Thanks for that, guidance on any method for getting out a stuck seat post is always very welcome, annoyingly the bar stem was properly greased so came out with absolutely no fuss at all and I always find stems easier to get out than seat posts so if the previous owner was going to grease anything I would rather it had been the seat post.

My thinking is that with the seat post being almost all the way into the tube that it might make the cold/heat method more difficult but the caustic soda method easier, that may well just be in my head of course so any experience either way is welcome.

I had a read of the Sheldon Brown pages on the caustic soda method which looked simple enough but like all these things you refine them the more you do them.
 
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