Raleigh Banana Restoration Project Help

Good evening all,

I've bought my first road bike today, a Raleigh Team Banana but I need to do some minor repairs, and I need some advice on the replacement parts needed.

Firstly, I need to some new tyres and inner tubes, how can I work out what size I need?

Secondly, I need a new chain, derailleur and a pair of down tube gear levers as the original plastic ones are broken.

Links to show what I should be looking for would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance

nice buy and welcome to the forum.

get some pics up.

if you look on the old tyres they will have the size stated but they will probably be 700 x 23 or 700 x 25. have a look on wiggle.co.uk

inner tubes can be had for £5 from halfords and often have a range of tyres that they fit.

have a look here for your bike and it should list the hardware it would have had originally.
http://www.velobase.com

Thanks for the reply, I have had a look but couldn't see the Banana on there, but I'll look again tonight.

The tyres have perished and I can see any writing on them, I'll try and get some pictures up tonight so everyone can see the task ahead of me.

I am now thinking about a respray now after looking at the fine examples in the readers rides.

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z106 ... 020818.jpg

I haven't got any photo's of my own bike yet but this is the same, just in a lot better condition.

I need to replace the following parts:
- The gear levers in picture 1
- The front derailluer in picture 4
- The rear derailluer in picture 5

Also I like to change the pedals, any ideas on what the thread is likely to be. Looking at the other pictures it seems this bike is fitted with 28" wheels.

Thanks for looking.

May have rim size stamped on the rim somewhere. Failing that a tape measure will do

The pedal size will be 9/16th. Any particular reason you need the replace the Sachs Huret Front and Rear derailleurs? Although simple they are usually bomb proof so it may be a case of a good cleaning. If you need replacements I'd search Ebay for Sachs Huret but don't pay much, there's 1000's of them around

Tyres are definitely 700c size. I don't think 27" will fit. Schwalbe, Vittoria and Michelin all make good budget tyres. Ebay is the ideal source. Ebay good for gear bits there are new Shimano Acera mechs for £6 posted on there, Shimano fronts mechs can be had for a couple of quid, gear levers seem to cost a little more though.

There are Bananas everywhere....

Schwalbe blizzard or vittoria zaffiro 700 x 23c tyres will work well and dont break the bank. Try ebay and wiggle there is loads. Vittoria do them in yellow to match your paintjob. Giant inner tubes are only £2.50 each at wiggle.

The shimano HG50 chain is what you want, £10.99 from wiggle. Chain tools are £3 on ebay, very easy to do, follow this guide:

http://www.bicyclinglife.com/HowTo/ChangeAChain.htm

Try cleaning and loobing your front & rear mechs, and fit new gear shift cables, once you've got a new chain (and i would suggest fitting a shimano 7-speed Mf-tz21 freewheel/cassette (only £15 ish) then you'll probably find your gears work fine without renewing the mechs. They might need the mech adjuster screws adjusted at the moment, but you have to adjust them further to upgrade to 7-speed.

Poor gear operation is normally down to worn chain & sprockets, stretched cables, mis-aligned, dirty and badly adjusted deraillers and pulleys. If you replace them, the new ones would need setting up anyway

For shifters search for vintage friction downtube shifters on ebay. Avoid SIS shifters they probably wont work. They can be a pain to get to work and suss out which order the washers should go in.

I havent looked at your pics but you might get away with a thorough frame cleaning with white spirit, wet wipes, localised touch-up and/or spray paint & new decal set rather than a full respray (which is a bit of a PITA)

Another thing to consider is modern dual pivot brake calipers. The old single pivots are poor. Campagnolo veloce or centaur's are only £30 a pair, look the bizz, transform your braking and are a very easy worthwhile upgrade. If yours has steel/chromed rims the brakes will never work good however

This does seem to be a full rebuild now! Oh well it'll keep me entertained!

I don't think I can post pictures yet until I get my post count up.

Can anyone recommend some nice black wheels?

Thanks for all the recommendations so far, Percy I can see my PayPal account taking a hit tonight!

You can post pics from photobucket or whatever regardless of post count

for black 700c rims try ebay item number 270997101254, they are handbuilt retro style with retro 126mm rear hub and screw on cassette, and nice black hubs, QR scewers, very good spec of spokes, same fitment as yours bike

They are about £110 with shipping, and i got hit for £15 import duty when i got mine, which is no biggy. Heres my raleigh eclipse (similar to the banana but a few models higher in the range:





Or if you want to spend less, you could fit weinmann XR18 700c wheels, they are black and silver with more modern aero shape. They are about £35-50 each depending where you shop. I got some on my raleigh kelloggs, again very similar bike but higher model than the banana. These are great for the money but dont look retro like the ones i got from ebay USA:

Kelloggs with weinmann XR18's: