Probably towards the end of next week. Working on the wheels - Managed to save the hubs and rims - but new spokes, tubes and tires...Have built the wheels but need to tension and balance them next....
Probably towards the end of next week. Working on the wheels - Managed to save the hubs and rims - but new spokes, tubes and tires...Have built the wheels but need to tension and balance them next....
Not too bad overall, but some chrome loss. That's a project within a project Some of it is in the pantograph, which is helpful! but I have a couple of things I am going to try on the other bits... I doubt it will be perfect close-up, but will look ok from six feet We'll see how it goes! I'll put up some photos when I have a go at it.
A bit of an update on this - I now have a rolling chassis, but not without some small issues.
After a thorough clean-up I rebuilt the original red label Mavic rims and Campy Record Hubs with new spokes. I also bought some new Panaracer Pasela tyres. But the tyres are too big (The wheels are 27 1&1/4) They aren't too wide, but they top out on the frame both front and back.... I feel a bit daft about it, but there's not too much choice in 27 1&1/4 tyres and all I've found so far are similar size.
It's a shame as the wheels look great rebuilt - so I will carry on looking for some thinner tyres in that size. (However, I can't help thinking that this bike would have come with 700c wheels originally? What do you think?)
In the meantime I pulled the boots off of my Simoncini (which is not too happy about it) Mainly so I can move and store the bike while I rebuild it.
Having said that, I quite like them on this bike so they might stay.....
Stupid error no.2 was the bars - When I bought this it had some 1950's GB drop bars fitted to it. They'll be great for something else, but not this. Luckily I had some Cinelli drops, but,it seems this Colnago stem was made by 3TTT, so different clamp size and bar diameter .
Sometimes you can 'make them fit', but both the stem and bars are too nice for that... so new bars are being sent via eBay.
The bike came with black Weinmann brakes, which I also don't think were original. I swapped these out from some silver Campy ones
Also swapped the Suntour shifters for some Colnago Campy ones that I found at a bike jumble. The colours match nicely.
(Since I took these phots this morning, I put the first fill coat in the pantograph of the fork crown - so this bit is WIP)
These tyres were sitting on some Mavic Cosmic rims, hence the comically long valves.... again just temporary...
Sooo, enough with all the 'new' bits. The objective was to save as much as possible from the bike as I got it.
Stem polished up nicely - re painted the pantograph, still need to clean up the bolt!!
Headset too has lost a bit of it's anodising, but cleaned up well enough to reuse.
Saddle - again I doubt it was original, but I like it! - was very faded, but not ripped, this has come up reasonably well, as has the seat post.
As too has the crankset - polished and pantographs repainted - although looking at these photos it could do with a little bit of tidying up
Give the price of the stem, headset, and crankset on eBay (roughly 3 times what I paid for the entire bike) It is nice that they can be reused.
Anyway - just an update - still lots to do, but really nice to get it back on two wheels