Raleigh Gran Sport build

Good news... that awful temporary seatpost is gone! Bad news... awful temporary pedals fitted instead.

Latest progress... Cinelli XA stem courtesy of dglshrn on lfgss, and Cinelli bars, Shimano 600 seatpost and Selli Italia Flite saddle all from scrafton of this parish.







If anyone knows where I can get a set of 6 speed 7400 dura ace downtube shifters or some nice 90s aero levers, please get in touch...

Gran Sport

I have recently bought a Gran Sport which is pretty original though the guy selling it was thinking of selling the Campagnolo bits seperately. Sadly mine has some rust on the front fok and no chrome stays at the rear. It looks as though they have been painted over. Mine is dated Nov 1982 and was built in worksop. It's obviously lost its original 531c sticker and has had a 531 st one put on in a different place. Mine needs wheels trued and new chain etc plus cables and the like as well as new hoods. (Not campag on account of the price. THe second phase will be to have the forks rechromed.

wow, that looks in good nick. Before you lay out folding money on having the forks rechromed, look up "aluminium foil rust removal" on google.

GazK":1w6na89v said:

wow, that looks in good nick. Before you lay out folding money on having the forks rechromed, look up "aluminium foil rust removal" on google.

Click to expand...

Thanks watched a youtube vid on that looks amazing will give it a go and let you know how it goes.

Thanks

Richard

GazK":29490etg said:

wow, that looks in good nick. Before you lay out folding money on having the forks rechromed, look up "aluminium foil rust removal" on google.

Click to expand...

Thanks that has amazingly very largely done the trick. Just a slight blemish left which I can live with. Though I may give it another go on another day.

Ta
Happy Christmas

I thought it was about time I brought this thread up to date. Over Christmas I replaced the golden arrow FD with a 7400 DA to match the rest of the drivetrain, fitted DA downtube shifters - love the friction / index option - and got hold of some Chorus Monoplanars and 105 levers. Sorry again purists! I added Nokon outer housing for the rear derailleur, a modern Lezyne bottle cage and Shimano A600 pedals.

After that I rode it for a bit - lovely! The 100mm XA stem felt a bit long so I swapped it for an 80mm 1A - now I'm hunting for an 80mm XA, but they're rare as hens teeth.



The bike is great and comes in at 9kg. But its increasingly clear that the shonky paint job is going to have to go. Bits are already falling off, revealing the original colour underneath; and the seat tube sticker wrinkles every time I put it in the workstand. So the current plan is:

- ride it some more,tweak the fit
- obtain an 80mm XA stem, decent quality headset and BB
- strip the bike later in the year and send it to Argos, get them to do something like this:



What does everyone think?

Re:

missed the last post

????? confused.

It's been an age since I updated this thread but I've been busy in the meantime....

The shorter stem I fitted has sorted out my position well, so it's been replaced with an 80mm Cinelli XA. Bot they're hard to find at sensible prices! I replaced the Cinelli cork tape with Fizik Microtek, it just looks nicer. The paint job continues to flake off, so the new bar end plugs hint at the colour of the forthcoming repaint, just saving my pennies now.

Some updated pics below.

Raleigh Gran Sport build - BACK FROM RESPRAY

So its finally farewell to that awful paint job... got this back from Argos today:













To say I'm very pleased with their work is an understatement...