Tired Raleigh Mercury gets a spruce up (ongoing project)

[deandent1]

I've recently got my hands on an early 90's Raleigh mercury. It was destined for the scrap heap and I thought that was a sad end for a trusty steed.

Until a recent well earned upgrade to a full carbon number my dad had been using this on his daily commute having bought it through work sometime in the early 90's. It's served him well but because it has been used day to day it has become a little tired and in need of a little love.

I haven got massive plans for it. It'll be a lowish budget restoration (loose use of the word) and my thoughts on the build are to keep it reasonably original but to not restrict myself too much. We're planning on stripping it down and basically giving it a really good service so it'll serve me well as a winter commuter / 'when I feel like it' bike. This will be bike number 4!

This will be a slowish ongoing project that I hope will be of interest to some of you. Photos will follow . . . Enjoy

 

[deandent1]

First mistake. We were so quick to break it down I forgot to take a 'before' photo for comparison. So I hastily and rather crudely put some bits back on for a quick pic or two

 

[Meejoir]

Haha, I always manage to do that too. Good luck with it, I did an old Raleigh last year and it's a beautiful sight to behold.

 

[deandent1]

Re:

Thanks Meejoir. I'll take some time to go through yours later but just from a quick skim I can see there are already one or two parallels between our projects! Love the green!

I should explain for the sake of the project post, I'm planning to keep original paint rather than paint / powder coat. I have done both of these before on previous projects but the paint on this bike isn't so bad and I quite like the 90's fade. I may try and remove some of the tatty stickers (any advice anyone - are they under lacquer?) and just give it a T-cut and polish

 

[Meejoir]

I got mine off with the hair dryer treatment, Mrs Meejoir was utterly bewildered...

 

[deandent1]

Re:

Brilliant, cheers. First job is clean up the cranks and chainrings. Pics to follow

 

[deandent1]

Re:

So first job following break down is to clean the cranks. They're pretty gunked up.



First I tried some hot soapy water and a stiff brush but it didn't really touch them so I went for a little wd40 equivalent and an old Tshirt and although bloody hard work the outer ring and crank arm has come up quite nice. The muck on the inner ring is really caked on so I'm still on with that but check out the outer! More than happy

 

[Hull Zanshin]

Re:

If it looks good on completion I'll have it back

 

[deandent1]

Re:

Might have to be a bike share scheme. How about I have it sunny days and you have it the rest!

 

[Hull Zanshin]

That means I would get most use out of it with our weather, 360 days for me, 5 for you!