BSA Tour de France

[Johnbb]

Hi chaps

I picked this little beauty up from eBay saturday morning.
I remembered it well from my mum’s Kay’s catalogue in the 70’s so when I saw this one for less than the price of a couple of decent mtb tyres I had to have it.
It’s a great bike although it needs a few parts to if I’m to get it back to original.I also have some questions which hopefully someone on here will be able to answer.

1.Whats my chance of finding original or similar large flange wheels,& does anyone have some for sale?
2.Is it possible to remove and re use the pressed circlips that hold the pedal shafts on? Or can I buy new somewhere?
I also need a dust cap for one pedal.Again are these available anywhere?
3.Is touch up paint available?
4.My bikes orange and so are the pictures I’ve seen of every one on the net.However the catalogue bike appeared red.Was this just a printing difference or did they also do a red version?
5.Thanks for bearing with me,and last question.Where can I find the frame number and is it possible then to build date it?

 

[allenh]

1.Whats my chance of finding original or similar large flange wheels,& does anyone have some for sale?
2.Is it possible to remove and re use the pressed circlips that hold the pedal shafts on? Or can I buy new somewhere?
I also need a dust cap for one pedal.Again are these available anywhere?
3.Is touch up paint available?
4.My bikes orange and so are the pictures I’ve seen of every one on the net.However the catalogue bike appeared red.Was this just a printing difference or did they also do a red version?
5.Thanks for bearing with me,and last question.Where can I find the frame number and is it possible then to build date it?

I'll try and answer what I can for you.
1) Not a great chance of finding those particular steel rimmed and steel hubbed large flange hub wheels I would think so you might want to think about upgrading as you go, the alloy large flange hubbed wheels I expect would have been more likely to survive but you never know so keep looking.
2) Not sure but I expect they are a standard circlip so you need to work out the size. Replacement pedals may be easier.
3) You'd need to know the exact shade for that, replacement decals are available though so if you wanted to re paint the whole thing you can still make it look original.
4) Yes all the Mk1's I've seen are orange.
5) The frame number should be under the bottom bracket from memory.

As a bit of inspiration I'm restoring a later blue Mk'2 here and there's a great thread on them in general here, both in the readers road bikes section.