Do's and Don'ts when restoring a vintage bike.
 

Just curious if anyone has some tried and true tips. What mistakes have you made? What are some go to products, tools, or techniques? What improvements are good, and what modifications can hurt the value?

All Gitanes must be purple. I know of no other rules.

I’m relatively new at this (done about three and a half bikes so far) and learned these three things real quick:

1. If the bike has them keep the old brake cables and chain handy to easily measure a new fit for both. This is really helpful until you get good at this.

2. Take pictures of every single little thing on the bike before disassembling. I promise they will come in handy, even for what may appear to be the simplest components.

3. Keep like components bunched in labeled bags or boxes (headset pieces in this bag, everything brake related in this bag etc).

This is a personal preference but a product I love is evaporust. Totally natural, safe and doesn’t smell. Dump rusty pieces in it for a few hours and they will almost always come out rust free, even in some more serious cases. And it’s reusable!

Awesome! thank you :) I just starting using evaporust, its amazing!

Welcome! Permanent modifications such as repainting will likely have negative affect on value. Go ahead with reversible "upgrades" especially if you save components you suspect are original. If the bike is vintage but a common model, I wouldn't sweat it.

Tools: Some vintage parts can be damaged by using incorrect tools (crank pullers, for example). Proceed with caution while learning. This is a good place to learn about such things BTW.

Use the right tool. Don't rush. Don't be shy, but don't force it. Don't assume you'll remember how it went back together. Keep records of things like bearing sizes, spoke lengths and anything else you'll forget when it comes time to fix/replace it. Grease every thread. Have fun. Go and do something else if you find yourself getting frustrated and come back to it later. It's only original once. A clean bike is a fast bike. You'll always be happier if you took the time to do it properly.

If your nearing the end of your restoration or build & find that the threaded clamp band & bolt is stripped out on your front aero Grand Compe brake lever & you decide to ride the bike to the co-op in search of a replacement band & bolt while that brake is disconnected (cable removed)...

DON’T do so without tightening the slightly uncommon & somewhat hard to find cable anchor bolt down on your NGC 500 (think Cyclone/Superbe) brake caliper first.

DO expect to feel mighty stupid if you do otherwise.

Make haste SLOWLY!

If you have a good work area where you can lay parts out knowing they won't get disturbed/moved them as you take something apapart lay the parts out left to right and assemble them right to left.

On old bikes the ball bearings in the headset and/or the bottom bracket might be loose rather than being contained in a cage. I like to lay the frame on its side over a rag to catch the loose ball bearings that will otherwise fall out and roll everywhere. Catching them on a cloth allows you to count how many there were so that you can buy the proper number for reassembly. You should always use new bearings as the old ones might be worn an not round and whern reused the item they're used in quickly needs readjusting as the bearings realign themselves. Unfortunately they don't all realign at the same time which means adjustments can be frequent.

If you're a complete newbie it's best, in my opinion, to take one thing apart at a time.

Make a note of the last thing you were working on if you leave the area. This can be very helpful when reassembling things and will help you not to forget to tighten something such as brake anchor bolt, derailleur anchor bolt, stem bolts, seat post bolts and so on. It's just a trifle unnerving to be riding along a road and go to turn and find that your handlebar turns but not your wheel.

Dispose of oily/greasy cloths/paper towels so as not to have spontaneous combustion in your workshop later.

Do NOT be afraid to ask questions about how to do something or how to use something.

Cheers

Big thanks to everyone! I really appreciate all the good tips and stories!

It's a 70's AMF Roadmaster.

I'd just leave it alone.

;)

Unless you've got Eddy's 1 hour track bike or LeMond's 89 TdF time trial bike, or a 50's contructeur bike by Rene Herse, do whatever you want with it. If you're worried about "ruining the value" of the bike, you've got the wrong hobby. Unless you're extremely lucky, whatever you pay for a vintage bike is probably more than you can get for it once you add in your labor and parts replacement.

Find something you like to ride. Clean it up, lube where it needs it, replace consumables as needed, and ride it. Find some like minded people near you, and ride with them. Become a strong enough rider to pass at least one guy on a carbon fiber bike, and ride past him. Get hit up by the touring bug, and ride one.

If it turns you on, learn how to restore them to like new, or even better than new condition. There's a guy near Seattle that many of us know that has literally over 100 fully restored vintage bikes in his possession that he loves to show off - and he rides them.

Better yet, post your location. It's damn near impossible to learn everything you need to know to overhaul a vintage bike just by reading and looking at pictures. There's probably somebody on this forum that lives not to far from you. I've got visitors to my shop all the time, and I'm more than happy to pass along what I know, as are many others.

I built this website, MY "TEN SPEEDS" just for people like this thread's originator. The tools needed, the first thing to do, how to do it, and many more things to help educate and entertain people who are new and old to the interest in vintage bicycles.

Hope it is a help and welcome to the Bike Forums.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0cc9000481.jpg

Excellent advice, all of it. Don't ask me how I know. :o

Can't stress enough the importance of developing a respect for threaded fasteners, especially speaking as someone streamed away from tech work into academics in high school. I really wish they would have let me take machine shop instead of typing in Grade 9. (Yes I know they were thinking of all those college term papers to come.) That's why I highlighted the specifically thread-referencing bits in this incredibly wise yet succinct jedi-master's post. Really learn threads. They are the foundation of industrial civilization. And they keep your bike from falling apart.

Edit: If I'd had Randy's website back in 1972 I would have been spared a world of hurt. Tom Cuthbertson's Anybody's Bike Book pales in comparison.

I'm going to +1 this post.

I think the AMF road master is a great place to start for learning how, if you mess up its no great loss it was a free dumpster bike of no great value, lots of great advice above a couple items I will second:

-take lots of pictures of how things connect before you disassemble it will save your butt
- be willing to walk away when frustrated, took me a long time to learn this, the cool thing about this is that 9 times out of 10 the thing that I was struggling with becomes crystal clear on how to fix when I come back after the red mist has dissipated
-beer can be a patience enhancer
-take your time

For rust you can do a couple things, brass wire brush or brass wool (in the steel wool section at the hardware store) - good on components, on the frame I use Naval jelly but FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS its toxic and nasty but it does the job. YMMV. Your AMF is a great place to learn skills/ make mistakes and also can tell you something about bike fit -ride it to find if its too small or too big etc and then you will have better data when you want to find something nicer.

What you will find is that it takes the same time, energy, tools and consumables to fix a nice bike as it does something entry level so learn on the AMF and then cast your eyes to something more mid range with nicer tubing and components etc there are lots of them out there and with a bit of patience you can find one for a song.

Have fun.

Greeat thread topic, I will use these..

Total agreement on this one, but I will throw in the other-side-of-coin take. Low end bikes may take just as much to fix, but if you're doing it ONLY for the fun.. you can get as big a a kick out of fixing up a low ender as the nicer stuff.

If you don't know how to disassemble something, ask someone who does...

don't hit the stem bolt with a bare hammer. you will likely leave a mark that reminds you of your mistake for eternity.

Figure out your end game. Restoration has different meanings for differnt people.

are you going to make it rideable, cleaning, lubing and replace cables, housing tires etc

Do you want to make it look brand new?

Do you want it 100% period correct

Do you care about value, Is it a significant, super rare, etc bike.....best to do minimal changes....

are you you going to take and old bike and put new components on it?

let the end goal guide you...

get the right tools

if you think you will be doing this a lot get a quality bike stand

have fun

Get involved at your nearest bike coop, assuming there’s one near you. (Hint: put your location in your viewable information. We can help with specifics much more easily if we know where you are, including face-to-face support, tool loans, and the no-longer-made little parts from our many stashes.)

You might find a bike repair class through the coop, and a coop will have the bike tools that you might only need rarely, as well as the instructions on how to use them.

I’ve been assembling my own bikes and wheels for decades, but find I’m constantly learning by repairing the diverse bikes of many quality levels donated to the local bike non-profit (www.bikeworks.org). Last night, for example, I discovered that Campagnolo bottom brackets (abbreviated around here as “BB”) orient their caged ball bearings backwards from the usual orientation, while coaching others on the nuances of adjusting the crude BB’s found on children’s coaster brake bikes.

And for the bike(s) you chose to “restore”, be sure that the result will be something that you enjoy riding!

This is all good advice. The one thing I’ll add is that if you have a specific question, use google for the topic and add “bikeforums”, and you will surely get some relevant results. Most topics have been covered at least once, many ad nauseam :). The search function built into the forum is not good.

Watch out for 6 speed Uniglide drivetrains. They really don't make any replacement parts anymore and, once you start upgrading it never stops.

I'm somewhat new to refurbishing vintage bikes, but here are a few things I've discovered:

Rust spots - I use various wire wheels or polishing pads on a dremel to knock them down to bare, clean metal. Clean with alcohol, then use either a mixture of finger nail polish or automotive touchup paint to fill them in. Once this is done (and fully dry) use a polishing compound on an old rag to smooth them out. I then paint on automotive clearcoat over the spots and repeat the polishing.

Frames look much better once polished. It is amazing how many nicks, scratches, and marks you can remove easily by hand. I mostly use Mothers Mag on everything (even the painted parts) then use a swirl remover polish on the painted parts. Dark frames are much easier to touchup than light colored ones. If you take a rag with rubbing alcohol and wipe it on the frame, what it looks like before the alcohol evaporates will be about what it will look like after a good polishing job.

I am in the process of restoring an old Jamis Diablo into a dirt drop bike, and thought the bike was entirely black until the last polishing step revealed a dark sparkly purple.

Get a few decent tools early (at least a socket set, hex wrenches, and park tool stuff for other things).

If you can't afford an expensive cable/cable housing cutter use a dremel cutting wheel. I've had great results with this method, just make sure you cut somewhat quickly so it doesn't heat up too hot. Use a small drill bit or file to make sure the housing is open right after cutting, and lightly sand around the edges to clean it up.

It's much easier to clean up a frame when completely stripped of components.

Aluminum foil balled up and rubbed on spokes makes them nice and shiny again.

Rubbing alcohol works well for a cleaner and is non-toxic.

Mother's mag polish on a micro fiber cloth makes metal parts look bright and mirror shiny again.

On badly oxidized/stained aluminum (like crank arms) steel wool dipped in Mother's mag will cut through it and make it shiny again.

It's often cheaper to buy a donor bike or more complete component pieces than trying to get individual things on ebay. For example, complete sets of brake levers with hoods can be found cheaper than just the hoods in some cases.

If you don't want to mess with bottom brackets and the necessary tools, many times a $25 cartridge bottom bracket can be had that only requires one tool.

On some components (left pedal for example) you actually turn clockwise to loosen.

Check seatposts and stems to make sure they aren't badly stuck - they can be a nightmare to remove. If the stem is stuck, it is often just the quill - loosen the bolt on the top so it is sticking up half an inch and place a block of wood over it and hit the wood with a hammer to drive it downward. DO NOT PUT THE FRONT WHEEL BETWEEN YOUR KNEES AND TRY TO TWIST WITH FORCE

I've been really surprised at how many completely rusted or trashed parts can be brought back to looking like brand new again.

I'll probably remember more later, and most people here are much more experienced than myself.

This bike was completely trashed and beat up before being brought back to life - like yours, it was not ultra high-end.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6e20acb62c.jpg

You Tube is your friend, between RJ the bike guys videos and randys website My Ten Speeds you can learn a ton. I am a handy guy and found out the hard way that it is better to get the knowledge first before trying to teach yourself by trial and error. Find the tried and trued methods before diving in.