Help identifying retro bike

[ishaw]

Some people shouldn't be allowed to lay their ham fisted hands on bikes.

If it were mine, I'd remove the other half of the broken seat clamp very sympathetically, then see what was left in relation to the seat tube

I'd then look at filing the top of the seat post as flat as possible without going any further than necessary. This should leave you enough meat to fit a standard seat post collar, and the added bonus of covering the holes created by the incredible bodge.

You could go a step further and have the holes plugged by weld, silver solder, JB weld or even some rubber plugs (if they'd fit under the collar) to prevent any further frane damage/stress.

I love the rifling on the tubes. I'm sure you know this isn't a merlin of ti fame, but the northern UK brand. I had an alloy frame (malt 1 iirc) which was really good to be fair, obviously yours is tange steel with the rifling detail. I think other brands like ballistic may have produced similar, or may even be the same just branded differently.

Forks are cool, maybe salvageable with a strip down, clean and reassembly. I've not worked on that type of fork so can't say what's inside.

Good luck, a nice frame imo. Worth trying to save.

 

[sam_white]

Pop up the frame number please. It'll be able to put a date on the frame and help others.

 

[Leew2011]

@ishaw thanks, i thnk this will be my exact approach to it, but I will probably just avoid using any heat where I can to avoid any scorching etc. I think for now, I will just plug the holes and make it look at best as I can.

As for the forks, it will be a shame to be rid of them so I will definately attempt to service them as and make good use of them.

I do like the frame, The rifling, as you describe, if certianly a nice detail that I can't say I've seen on any other Bikes before (might jsut be me not paying attention!)

Thanks for the feedback.

@sam_white do you mean the serial number? Its 44631877

Thanks

 

[Leew2011]

Evening all

Apologies, I know I'm going off the original topic. I've taken a deeper look at the saddle post situation and it doesn't look great. I've taken some more closer photos of the frame with the seat removed. There's a little meat left but not around the full circumference.

I'll attempt a new collar in the mornimg. The remaining lug was already split and just fell off then the seat was removed.

Is it possible to get seats with posts that can be clamped further down the frame as opposed to the top? I get this means more stress at the top where the collar used to be. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[bikeworkshop]

You can glue in a sleeve and use a narrower post - I've seen it done a couple of times- often taking a 27.2 post down to 25.4.
Should be easy to find a tube with 1" internal diameter, and if the od is something standard, you can glue it in and fit a seat collar to that, then a USE post.

 

[Leew2011]

Gotcha. This parts all new to me but I know what you mean. So find a length of tubing that has an outside diameter, the same as my current internal diameter-27.2mm. Slide into the frame, coated with something like eproxy (assume this is what you'd use?) leaving 2 or 3 inches at the top where I can then get a 25.4mm seat post plus a new collect and use that.

 

[Leew2011]

Just to add, I tried measuring both the internal diameter of the frame (not very accurate as damaged), along with the outside diameter of the existing seat post, and I got 29.8mm on both.

Having already looked for collars etc, this didn't stand out as a common size.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Nearly always inch equivalents.

Of course the epoxy has fantastic gap-filling properties, so it can be smaller.

Nearly 30mm you could use 1&1/8"od, 1"id, with 28.6 seat collar