1993 Dawes Synthesis 653

[MartinB123]

Late night eBay trawling over the weekend led me to this. I'm a big fan of Reynolds 653 tubing so I had to have this, it was only around 35 miles away from me as well so all in all a good little find!

Mods - feel free to move to the MTB section, although it's more of a road bike than a MTB in my eyes!

Full Shimano deore LX, 653 tubing, Alesa 700c wheels - all original spec. Seatpost is stuck currently, although I have some plusgas on order so fingers crossed I can get it out.

I plan to get it up and running with as much of the original equipment as possible, mudguards and rack will be removed and possibly some drops fitted. I am tempted to run a 1x7 setup too. Decisions decisions!

 

[66 triumph daytona]

Re:

Cool frame and excellent groupset.I`d love something like that,I`d remove all excess,change the stem and fit a set of drops,it would be a blast on the fire roads.

 

[MartinB123]

Re: Re:

Cool frame and excellent groupset.I`d love something like that,I`d remove all excess,change the stem and fit a set of drops,it would be a blast on the fire roads.

Yes! Can't wait to get started on this. Plusgas arrived yesterday!

 

[dan_bo]

Quality bike that.

 

[ThomasElliott]

I really like those old 700c hybrids, somehow the modern ones don't look anywhere near as cool. Think it will look great with drops, and possibly a different saddle?

 

[MartinB123]

Made some progress on this one over the last week or so.

Firstly I stripped the components off the frame... Completely rusted in - stem bolt was rusted to buggery but luckily the stem was slightly loose so it came away eventually.

Next up was the bottom bracket, which required a 12ft aerial mast as a lever to remove it! Fortunately the threads were fine.

Saturday afternoon saw the caustic soda dissolving the seatpost. I originally wanted to hang the frame upside down and trickle the caustic soda solution in from the bb/seat tube hole, however this hole was too small so the bike went upright and I plugged the hole with blu-tac and used electrical tape to protect the rest of the frame.

I must've had about 5 sessions with the caustic soda and each time got progressively stronger. With the help of pliers and a flathead screwdriver the weakened post came away!

Pics of how she currently sits are below:

 

[linsey_young]

Re:

Nice - I've just gotten one of the lower spec versions in 501. Seatpost came out with some application of map gas flame and plusgas :twisted: The other major problem was flaking paint and corrosion around the chainstay bridge which seems to be a common problem on '90s frames. Fortunately it wasn't too deep when I attacked it. Scraped the paint off, filed the worst off and then went at it with wet and dry. Once I had it nice and clean it got a coat of rust killer followed with acid etch primer and then zinc primer. That's where I'm at for now. It's never going to be a pretty repair, but I just want the bike as a town hack so I don't really care.

 

[CTK]

Re:

Love this, another to add to my ebay searches!

I think some randonneur/ dirt drops would look great on it.

 

[scottarm]

Re:

Nice similar to one I used to start CX with

DSC_0611 by Scott Armstrong, on Flickr

cx 001 by Scott Armstrong, on Flickr

 

[fossala]

I had one.

Worst bike I have owned. Never enjoyed riding it. Looked nice and rugged though.