JaccoW

I finished the front wheel yesterday, spent 2-3 hours fiddling to pull the dynamo wires through the fork and rear fender and deep-cleaned and waxed the chain!
Currently down with a flu, perhaps it's Covid again, but I hope to wrap this up by the end of the month. The main thing is touching up the paint on the frame and putting everything back together again.

Placeholder 35mm tyre on there right now because the cream Vredestein Dynamic City are out of stock everywhere until the end of the month.

The reason the wiring is sticking from the fork tube is because I will be running it inside of it up to the handlebars. These bikes have the lights mounted really high and there are special handlebar wedges with a hole in them to sneak the wiring through.
All in all it's going to be a very clean setup with minimal maintenance once it's done.



Cleaning + waxing the chain




Stripping the hooks from the original wiring and soldering them into place on the new wires:

JaccoW

Worked on this beasty again. Painting turns out to be hard during the cold, wet and short days of winter but I'm slowly getting there.

Today I made a start to put everything back together again. Still need some parts that were not available before christmas but I'll get them.



Drilled the steel handlebars and added some room for internal dynamo wiring.







All of this was made possible because these handlebars are designed for this and have room for wiring stock from the factory.


New (and complete) set of ball bearings and grease on the headset.


All in all it is shaping up to be a nice bike but I will need to source a new bottom bracket axle for the cottered cranks. The right hand side must have worked itself loose at some point and has cracked on the interface between the axle and the cotter. But I have a good source on those in this country.

The wiring inside the headtube... is going to be a fun adventure for the next person that ever needs to take out the handlebars. Let's just hope that's me.

Jay Turberville

What are you doing to treat the rust prior to clearcoating?
Thanks.

13velos

This has been a fascinating project on so many levels. Very impressive! Yes, I’d like to hear more about how you resurrected the paint, too. Great work!

JaccoW

Since this is a black bike I treat most of it with a gel rust converter that I just paint on, then spray off with water after 15-30 minutes. It's called Rustyco. I believe it is essentially phosphoric acid in gel form and it will leave some white residu if left on too long, but nothing you cannot remove with some other chemicals.

For the small parts I use a large mason jar filled with a oxalic acid solution. Works great but when left on too long I noticed it will start eating into some of the chrome, making it dull. We're talking a couple of days though. Chances are I used the wrong water for it. You're not supposed to use tap water as the salts in tap water have a tendency to react over time and leave large crystals.

Parts seem to be elusive still. The tyre I want has its back-in-stock date pushed back again and again so that means some of the last few parts have to wait as well.
I have a line on a NOS bottom bracket axle but for now I am just going to put the original back in with lots of grease.

The cotter pin on the drive side slipped at some point and cracked the chrome and deformed the metal. That was why it was such a pain to get the cranks off originally. So I just cleaned it up with a metal file and put everything back together. Lots of marine grease everywhere and it should be good for a while.
Spins smoothly again.






As a final bit for the day I added connectors to the cables going to the rear light. Two quality crimp connectors and some 4:1 heatshrink should do the trick.
As you can tell the clearcoat on some parts is peeling off. I guess trying to paint a metal frame in near freezing conditions doesn't work great, even if the paint itself is at room temperature. I'll have to remove and redo that part later.



Tomorrow I am going to try and fit the chain and chaincase!

bwilli88 

Where did you find that fender flap?
It would look great on my Gazelle

jamesdak 

Here's a good source for parts.

https://hollandbikeshop.com/en-gb/br...cycle-mudflap/

JaccoW

Like Jamesdak said, that's the Gazelle mudflap he linked to. Just make sure you construct a small metal strip over it. These are usually mounted using the same holes that are used for the Gazelle fender stays.
You might even be able to fit these Gazelle M9 axle nuts to your Sturmey Archer front hub. The rear looks like it might be a Shimano model?

For a lot of really old vintage stuff there is BikesToRemember.nl that mostly specializes in (second-hand) parts for 50's and older models. But some, like the Gazelle Tour, still have spare parts being made for them.

bwilli88 

Both front and rear are Sturmey Archer.
Mudflap and insignia would be around $8 but shipping would be $38
Ugh!

JaccoW

I will probably be ordering from them soon and a post-box package would only cost €12-22 depending on weight including track&trace to Cambodia. So if you don't mind waiting a little bit I could ship it to you later.
Try to find some M9 bolts locally to see if these would fit.

JaccoW

So the bike is going back in the shed for some more work in a couple of weeks. I need a couple of very specific parts that are either out of stock for now or will take some time... and I kind of want my kitchen back.

To do:

• New cottered axle
• New cotter pins
• Longer 26.6mm seatpost
• Pedals
• The right front tyre
• Repainting the top tube
• Special metal wire for the lacquered cloth chaincase, maybe a new frame for the chaincase as well.
• Figuring out if the drag I hear in the rear wheel is because of the brand new tyre or if there is some space issue
• Re-attach the fender shield
• Test drive
• Double check if the Sturmey Archer GH6 dynamo provides enough power at normal riding speed for both LED lights

Here are some shots of the bike in its current state:

JaccoW

No big updates, just replaced the internal frame for the chaincase with something that fits a little bit better though the mounts don't line up perfectly.

noglider 

It's beautiful! You're quite an engineer and mechanic.

52telecaster

Outstanding. Thankyou!