1995 Land Shark 753 OS Build Now Complete.

[Blackbike]

My last build here was a 1983 Serotta named "Plain Jane". The new build is named "Hittori Hanzo" and is a 1995 Land Shark built with Reynolds 753 OS tubing by John Slawta. John built Andy Hampsten's 1988 Gyro d'Italia winning bike, a Land Shark rebadged as Team Huffy. So there is a bit of magic in those tubes.

I found this Shark on Ebay, the frame was dirty, the seller did not mention 753 OS, got the year and the S/N wrong and the photos were not that great but I spotted the 753 sticker, made a bet with myself that the frame was OS, looked at the pictures for about an hour, and hit "Buy It Now". I won all of my bets.

The frame arrived, all the minor bits were removed, and got a major clean, under the dirt was a corrosion free frame, the paint was in good condition. The paint was stripped from the dropouts and the faces were lapped flat, all threads were chased.
One disturbing item was discovered, the NDS chain stay was tweaked resulting in a rear spacing of 127.5mm. Next stop was off to a friends machine shop, the frame was clamped to a very large tooling plate using v-blocks and spacers... 4 hours of vigorous tugging with various implements of destruction we were able to achieve 130.5mm spacing centered dead on frame centerline with the dropouts aligned. The bet part is we did not screw anything up. 753 is very tough, stiff, springy stuff, it can be cold set, just not very easily.

So this is what it looks like after a rubout and many coats of wax and a few new parts. Very soon I will be 67 years old, so never say I'm getting to old for this... You only loose when you quit.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: Mike

 

[Nob]

That’s looking good

 

[Blackbike]

Land Shark progress, I hate cabling handlebars so I'm doing it on the front end of the assembly. Trim the cabling to fit in the morning then wrap the bars.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: Mike

 

[Blackbike]

This is my first dive into tubeless tires and rims, this is also the first new off the shelf wheel set I have bought in years. The wheelset is Mavic Ksyrium SL, nice and light, but what sold me was the spokes are isolated from the inner wall of the rim, the only penetration is for the tire valve assembly, so no rim tape.
Mounting the tires (Vittoria Corsa Pro TLR) required tire lube (Schwalbe) to get the beads over the rim by hand. Getting the beads to seat required more tire lube on the bead seats (19mm wide rim), the air compressor with the regulator set at 70 psi and pushing the tire with my thumbs to find the magic spot to get a partial seal then was rewarded with three pops as the beads seated, both tires made the same three pops.
I used 32cc of Effetto Mariposa tire sealant in each tire shot in with a 50cc syringe and a 10 ga. blunt needle through the tire valve, clean and easy. The Tires were inflated to 80 psi, I spun each wheel every which way for roughly 15 minutes each. The wheels set for 24 hours and the pressure decayed to 60 psi each when checked this evening, I brought the pressure back up to 80 psi and repeated the spinning routine so we will see what the pressure is tomorrow. I suspect this is normal behavior for a first sealant fill on new everything.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

 

[peetee]

753OS is something I have never heard of. There was a 753 ATB so I wonder if Reynolds just used the oversized top and down tubes from the ATB set with road-sized tubes elsewhere to form the OS. That would match the relative diameters in other oversized sets such as 708 and 731.
Sounds like a winning combination to me. Looks like I have another ‘must have’ frameset in my sights!

 

[Blackbike]

Assembly has started for the Landshark and all is going well. We are up on two wheels and I finally got a digital protractor on the frame, head and seat tube angles are both 74.2 ish degrees, clearances are very tight, I believe this is the crit bike from hell.
I would appreciate all opinions.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr



Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr
Thank You: Mike

 

[Blackbike]

We are getting close to completion, at this point the Land Shark is complete with exception of bar tape and some cockpit tuning. The around the neighborhood shakedown ride went very well, the handling is very quick without twitch, the frame reads your mind it goes where you want it to go, no drama.

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: Mike

 

[peetee]

Love it. Especially the lugs. Not seen that design before. Perhaps hand-cut to resemble waves?

 

[Blackbike]

Love it. Especially the lugs. Not seen that design before. Perhaps hand-cut to resemble waves?

The lugs I suspect are Long Shen, the four main frame lugs follow that pattern and I'm 85% sure that the fork crown is Long Shen, the dropouts are Sun Tour Superbe Pro. The lugs were one of the first things I spotted when I found this frame on Ebay, the first thing I thought was this could be something special, the lugs reminded me of this...

I have a thing for fancy lugs and Reynolds tubing, in the final days of Bob Jackson I was able to get in under the wire and order a Audax Club In 853 OS with a Newvex lugset (also Long Shin), its a Jim Clark/Lotus Homage and pride of the fleet.



: Mike

 

[Blackbike]

At this point I'm calling the Land Shark complete. It's fast, it climbs, it turns, it rides very well, and this is the finished product...


Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr

Untitled by nemosengineer, on Flickr


: Mike