Rat Klein pinnacle build - Selfmade parts content!

[Thias]

I've been pondering on starting this thraed for quite some time. Because it's rather troublesome for me to "speak" in english. I actually have to use my brain for it to come up with the right words. If you know what I mean. Also, my sense of humor as a guy (originally from Poland) living in Germany - it has maybe suffered. Not sure about that. Sometimes I make a joke and people look at me funny... Can't be my fault, right? RIGHT?

Ok. Nuff whining. On to the topic of here thread, an old bike that no one cares about.
Or definitly no one had cared about for a very long time, before I bought it in 2017.
Yes. That's how fast my projects evolve.

Pics from back when I got it.


Doesn't look that bad, some of you might think. As did I when I pulled the trigger on ebay. The add had poor quality pictures. The seller had no idea what it was. And I saw it was a KLEIN, 100 Euros asking price. I took the gamble. And, well. Lost.

The steerer situation is not *that* bad. Though I would not trust that old carbon bar. Still, a nice part to put on the bling bling shelf and never ride it.
And the grips! I really like those. Undestructable no wear items, those rubbers are.
My wife also likes them. I'm not sure why, tho.


Some closer peeks on the frame - I did not want to see all that!

What the..


No you didn't..


Why?



You should't... The cap, it's... If you're hungry, don't...


The deacls, just a shadow of their former self.


And of course, all the cage bolts rusted solid into their rivnuts. All 8 of them.


Oh! That one on the right still looks good!

Nope. Doesn't move.
But the rivnut unterneath sure does.

It took me a few weeks to even take another look at the bike after it arrived.
....

 

[slackboy]

sense of humour is coming through loud and clear.

Good luck with the build.

 

[Thias]

Oh, and just so everyone understands: I am currently working on that project. As I have been on and off for the past 4 and a half years. Just had the sudden urge to also start a build thread here on retrobike. The good think for y'all: It'll be much less waiting for updates. (As if ever some one would actually wait for an update on one of my builds. )

@slackboy Thank you very much.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

Agreed, the sense of humour hasn't suffered too badly at all. Good thing too, considering what you received for your 100 notes! Looks a little like the previous owner's only tools were slipjoint pliers &/or their teeth. (Thank the Gods they didn't appear to have owned a hammer)

Looking forward to seeing more of this, if it's ratted out as the title suggests I think that's a great way to keep "in circulation" what is essentially a write-off. Bravo.

 

[Thias]

So. First order of business (after stripping the frame) was to try and take care of the rusted in bolts. So I could at least mount one bottle cage.
A lot of grinding...

... and a little trick to fish out the remainders...


through the hole in the steering tube


Result:


And that's how it still is until today. I have spare rivnuts, but no tool to put them in. I'm thinking to build that tool myself. We'll see.

 

[Thias]

One of the shifter cable end caps really didn't want to part with the frame.


Brute force didn't help it. Which is strange. Because it always does in life.


So out with the drill. And slooooowly


Yay!


That kind of operation. Very stressful. To me at least.

 

[Thias]

At that point, I did a lot of thinking and trying on what to do about the brake cable situation.

Some of you might not know, most of you will - Kleins of that era all had internal cable routing. The cable stop up front was welded onto the top tube. In the back there was supposed to be a small little hole that has just enough space to have a liner with the brake cable fit though it.
Something like this:


In my case here of course, carnage:


Up front, that cable stop was also drilled through. That kind of "tuning" was frequently done bitd. Because it was an easy way to make up for the fact that your new V-brakes needed a rear cable stop to work properly. And those frames didn't have that.
My problem now was, that I really really did not want to use a V-brake on that bike. And I also really really did not want to just leave it like that and route a new outer cable all the way to the back. Because that's...

That's...

....


What was I talking about?

Ah.. right - the press fit bottom bracket bearings. Take the seals off and
they were like this:


Isn't that nice? There is even a cage and balls still in there!

 

[markoc]

Really keen to watch this progress - and very much enjoying your writing style

Looks like someone had no idea what they had and just bodged it along to keep it running - which in some senses I do quite admire, but equally they didn't use a lot of finesse!

That big ring looks massive, not sure I'd want to be topping that out at speed with the front end as it is - eek.

 

[Thias]

The thing about that massive ring is, that it's actually really worn. So whoever put it there, he must have had the legs...

but back to the story from '17...

The bb. Right side didn't look half bad.


So after flushing the bearings with one can of brake clean and looking at the rag



I decided to put in new bearings...

at some later date and instead pack the old ones with fresh grease and call it a day.



See? Good as new. Even saved 4 bucks.

Wait! How much is a can of break clean? Doh!

 

[Thias]

And the journey continues..

After contemplating for a while about the brake cable situation - one of my first ideas was to use Aluminium braze rod to fill in the hole - I suddenly had a genious idea. If I may say so myself.

I chopped up some old frame I had laying around (Don't remember the brand, Answer maybe? Just kidding. Something that had a torn off derailleur hanger) and made a clip that would cover that ugly hole in the back. It would clip onto the frame and I would be able to make different versions of that clip, depending on what kind of brake - even Magura - I would want to use.

This is the clip, not pushed against the frame fully, yet:


I still like that idea. And the looks of it. I hope it will work in real life, too. Because I wasn't able to test in out in the field yet.




Up front, I made a tiny ferrule to hold the brake cable.


While it looks ok-ish, I already had my doubts about it beeing strong enough. The walls of that ferrule were really thin. I had planned for it to have a inner diameter that would fit a outer brake cable plus it's end cap. But, as I later found out, that wasn't going to work. The ferrule broke off just from flexing the brake cable. Oh well.

In the following picture you can see that tiny ferrule laying on the bench, not put into the frame yet. See that wall thickness? Yea.
Also on that pic, my liner flair tool. I used it, to widen the end of the brake cable liner so it wouldn't completely deasappear into the frame.

Fast forward to today, I made a new, beefier ferrule:



That should do it!