biker42069

I am trying to restore a 1990 Specialized Allez Epic 56 cm and I acquired it around 5 or 6 months ago and purchased it in non-working condition with the hopes to be able to find the one small piece needed to fix it but have found nothing anywhere. I would like to restore it to its original condition and not upgrade to new brifters. The piece that I am having trouble finding is the center shifter piece for the downtube shifters. Because of the bike being carbon, the piece is a threaded insert and as my research has told me, that it was a proprietary piece for these bikes.



The shifter boss that broke was broken during a fall and broken within one of the concave pieces that sets on the downtube. The other problem with it is that it is froze onto the threads and neither end of the bosses will screw off to be able to reinstall. I have visited multiple shops and they have only suggested doing a full overhaul build of the bike and I’d like to keep it as close to original as possible. I went to a vintage bike shop near me a not to long ago and he told me that I would need to be able to push the shifter boss out of the surround that sits on the downtube in order to make it work regardless of if I could a new threaded boss to go through the downtube. I am still working to push the boss out of the surround slowly with penetrating lubrication but there is a heavy amount of corrosion.

biker42069

i wished to include pictures but i am a new member and can’t post pictures

veganbikes

Get involved with the forum post in some ACTIVE threads and get those ten posts and you will be able to post pictures.

I am not as familiar with the older Allez Epics, I did have a co-worker who had one he built into a single speed so he didn't use those bosses and he is long gone onto better things so I cannot look at it anymore.

I will say as much as I love vintage bikes build a practical bike if you are planning on riding it. I built a bike for looks and am regretting not making it work better for me.

Kontact

The carbon/aluminum Epic frames had near 100% failure rate for the tubes unbonding from the lugs. The shift boss coming off just seems like more of the same.

Whatever you decide to do, don't ride this.

ygktech

OK, I know I'm necro-ing an old post here which is generally frowned upon, but I'm searching for information on the 1990 allez epic myself right now and thought I'd correct some misinformation in this thread since it came up in my search.

This is false. My understanding is that these frames did have some unbonding issues with early manufacturing runs, that seed of truth grew into the widespread myth that these frames are unsafe, but the issue was corrected quickly, and those bikes were failing within a year or two of manufacture, not randomly imploding way down the line.
I have thousands of miles on my 1990 model year, and there are many other people out there still riding these frames. I often hear this old rumor bouncing around forums, but have never once found an actual first hand account of it happening to anyone ever. All old carbon parts should be treated with a bit more caution and scrutiny, because some adhesives just don't last forever, but the fearmongering is overblown.

Also, if the tubes do detach from the lugs, you can just epoxy it back into place. One of my rear dropouts came loose after a crash ~10 years ago, I simply pulled it all the way out, cleaned the contact surfaces, roughed tehm up a bit, slathered JB weld on, shoved it back in, and let it set fully before riding again. Literally thousands of miles on the bike since then, it's fine. Epoxy was all that ever held those parts in anyways, if the old batch wears out after a few decades you can just apply more. I don't know why so many people act like carbon can't be repaired.