Ellis Briggs "Favori" - my 1st restoration project

[daccordimark]

A bit more progress has been made on the bike.

Under three layers of cotton 'bar tape I found lots of this powdery corrosion. Would I be mad to even think about using these 'bars again or is this type of corrosion not a problem?

Also, the Milremo stem has traces of red enamel in the cutouts - was this standard on Milremo stems or something riders did themselves? The cable outers are red and still in good nick so there may be a colour theme developing here.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Old Ned]

I think the Milremo stems had red contrasts as standard. If not, then it was always red paint that people used to fill them, never blue or green.

I wouldn't want to trust those bars, they look a bit far gone to me sadly.

 

[Jamiedyer]

I agree mate, those bars look a bit too far beyond a polish and retape
The stem should refurbish fine and will look good with the red filled in a fresh.

Keep the updates coming
Jamie

 

[Robbied196]

I'm just catching up on this...

Looks amazing, the further its gone the more you want to save it

 

[sisyphus]

Really like those Milremo stems - mines got white enamel. They polish up nicely.

 

[daccordimark]

I settled down to watch the Women's RR at the Worlds yesterday and decided to strip, polish and rebuild the front mech. Mechanically it all seems OK but there's a lot of rust and a fair bit of wear to the inside face of the outer cage.

No luck finding a better cable clamp bolt in the spares drawer as it's 5mm not 4mm like later ones.

Next job is to work out how to rescue this:

I'm not sure if this project is a classic in the making or a massive money pit!

Mark.

 

[PeterPerfect]

Those Gran Sport rear mechs are selling quite cheaply now. I'd buy another and keep that one for spare bits. The red paint is original on the stem. That's only a bit of chain rub on the front mech; I'd keep that.

 

[daccordimark]

Really like those Milremo stems - mines got white enamel. They polish up nicely.

Indeed they do

 

[sisyphus]

They really do!

 

[daccordimark]

Having decided the rear mech was past it I bought an early Record one off someone on here and dumped the Gran Sport in a box ready to flog it for spares.

However, with some time on my hands I thought what the hell, there's nothing to lose by trying to rescue it! I took it all apart and soaked it in a well known carbonated drink for a week to see if that helped loosen the rust. Not sure where I got that idea from but it didn't seem to do anything so then I dumped it in degreaser for another week.

After washing all the gunk off I started trying to remove the rust. It was so thick on the jockey cages I resorted to a needle file then wet and dry paper.

During the strip down I found that one of the pulleys was well and truly out of round and one of it's cones was split in two, oh and one of the ball bearings was missing! I'm amazed at how crude the casting is on these early mechs compared to the beauty and precision of the 80s stuff I grew up with.

After much elbow grease this is the result: