'61 Raleigh car boot find. First bike project!

Hi folks, I posted up in the general section a few weeks ago asking for some help ID-ing a bike I'd just bought. I've since managed to find the frame number after rubbing it down, and have determined that it corresponds to a 1961 build date.

I wanted something to potter about working on over the summer that I can take back to uni in London with me in a few weeks. This fit the bill nicely!

Photos:





^new headstock built up: maes alloy bars, Weinmann levers, raleigh stem

^Old vs New tyre (raleigh 27")

^Green paint isn't original, started chasing it up the forks to find the original end point of the chrome.


^Started flatting frame back and found a bit of rust, so decided to give it a proper going over. You can see the original (I think) frame colour on the down tube.

^Forks stripped back

^Frame rubbed down

^Primed
Forgot to take some pics for a while after this... but this is how it stands currently:









I just wanted to get it going for now, planning to replace/upgrade parts gradually. On the cards are a white saddle, new crankset, new shifters and possibly some better brakes.
Needs a bit of tweaking, saddle/bar height sorting, bar tape and end caps, and then it'll be about there I think.

Paint is Plastikote primer, Toyota metallic dark blue, humbrol white enamel around the lugs, and Plastikote clear lacquer.

Brake levers are Weinmanns, drilled out to fit some oversized cable adjusters I had. Rear mech is Shimano SIS, front is a Shimano up-pull that I pinched off of my MTB (stripped, reversed spring and re-bent spring pan to opposite direction to make it down-pull). No idea what the crankset is, but it's pretty nasty. Brakes are stamped "DRAGON", and are the only bit on there that I think might be period. I've put in all new inner and outer cables throughout, and fitted a home-made downtube shifter made of a caniballised cheapo chinese one and a jubilee clip

Opinions and suggestions welcomed

Coming on well. Thanks god its not another 'fixie'

A good quality Brooks saddle will be a nice addtion to the cycle and decals too if possible. Starting to look the business.

That's a nice looking bike. With a few oldie alloy and chrome dress-up parts it's going to be a nice simple build

Welcome to another Retro Rides member! I'm surprised alecw35 isn't on here actually...

Looks great, goes to show you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a gorgeous bike! Nice respray too. You could strip and polish the seatpost too, so it matches the other alloy parts on it.

great work, nice to see it salvaged.

get a brooks saddle on thier!

Thanks for the replies! A more appropriate saddle is on the cards when funds allow
Had a bit of a play with the mudguard this evening. The rear end of it was snapped and splintered from where the previous owner had stored the bike in his garage, so I started off by chopping that bit off. You can see the starting point in the first photos of the OP.
Done:

Also, there should be a mounting bracket about halfway along that bolted to the back of the rear calliper mounting, but that had also snapped, so the whole thing was a bit floppy.
So... I decided to shorten it a bit.
Can't chop any more off of the back, this is too cool to lop off:

So I relocated the front clip and chopped the excess off of the front:

Then made up a new bracket to bolt to the calliper mounting anyway and fitted it:

Quite like the jaunty rakish angle, but might bring the back down a touch. Not sure.
Oh, you can also see the freshly wrapped bars in that shot, quite pleased with them for a first crack.

That's looking great. It's just getting to the stage where it's swung back so far in the direction of gorgeousness that I'd be starting to think about money-no-object rebuilds if it were mine. Is it a Carlton frame?

Thanks! As far as I've been told, it was a basic frame template that was shared between Raleigh, Carlton and a few other related makes and built up to different spec's depending on the badge.
A money-no-object rebuild will probably get underway when money is no object I'm afraid. Also, I don't want to put too much in to it at the moment incase it gets pinched when I go back to london

Sorry for the lack of updates, not really done much other than ride it!

After a few longish rides I came to the (predictable) conclusion that the terrible Universal saddle that I'd plonked on there was a, well, terrible idea.
Picked up one of these:

from ebay. Modern, comfortable, and the white/blue goes nicely with the rest of the bike I think.
Have a shoddy phone photo: