AustinFitz

Haha! I'm constantly searching Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, local buy/sell/trade Facebook groups, and apps like OfferUp and LetGo. Browsing used bikes is pretty much what I do any time I have a few minutes to kill. The super low priced vintage bikes don't usually stay up for very long. Plenty of flippers to compete with. They go even faster on the South shore!

The '86 Raleigh Capri I found on the OfferUp app. It was in a storage unit in Mandeville.

The '82 Kabuki Super Speed I think I found on Craigslist. Went and picked that one up in Slidell.

And the '87 Ross Centaur I think I found on the LetGo app. Picked that one up in Slidell too.

Jadesfire 

Aha. I only keep a casual eye on Craigslist. Just as well, I suppose, as I have no more space...or spare parts anymore...or money, really . Congrats on them all.

AustinFitz

Haven't updated this in quite a while! After my brother took to the Centurion Ironman the Raleigh was cast aside. It sat and collected dust in the corner, and I eventually robbed a few parts from it like the stem, and seat post.

Finally I decided to pull it out and do something with it tonight. I've been swapping around parts and mocking stuff up all evening in an attempt to come up with the best combo of parts using only what's in my parts bin.

It's actually coming along quite nicely I think! It's lost a lot of weight switching steel parts out for aluminum where possible. I'm about to switch out the Bio-pace crank set with a nicer 52/40 Sugino set, and I'm thinking about swapping out the straight cut SunTour Perfect 6 speed freewheel with a twisted tooth Shimano 6 speed in hopes of less clunky shifting. I'll post more pics as I continue to add more lipstick to the pig.

AustinFitz

Piddling around with the Capri again. I'm planning to swap the brake levers, crank set, BB, and freewheel today. I'm also trying to find a shorter stem for it. It currently has a 100mm reach, but an 80mm would feel a lot better for me. Unfortunately all I can seem to find in my parts bin are 100s lol.

Does anyone have any opinions on the straight cut SunTour Freewheel vs. The twisted tooth Shimano? Do the twisted teeth make much of a difference in smoothness? Shifts ok now with the SunTour, but feels very clunky and heavy.

AustinFitz

Nobody has an opinion on SunTour vs Shimano freewheels???

DiegoFrogs

I find the modern Hyperglide stuff from Shimano, and similar, shift quite nicely with an otherwise Suntour friction setup.

I bought a Capri many years ago for pocket cash from a guy who was way too short to ride it. I also found that the ride characteristic was rather dead. I gave it to my sister when her bike was stolen, and her ex-fiance may still be riding it somewhere after 13 years or whatever it was...

AustinFitz

Yeah I'm not expecting it to be anything spectacular really. I'm mostly just building it for the fun of it now. I really enjoy wrenching, and I already had the frame, and all the parts hanging around. I figured why not build them up into something rideable?!

I think the aluminum wheel set will help the ride quality a bit, and then the next time I find a decent frame in need of parts I can just strip the Capri and use the parts on the new frame.

DiegoFrogs

Mine clearly had been upgraded a bit. I recall Shimano SIS stuff, an aluminum handlebar and aero levers, and narrow aluminum 27" rims. Part of the clunkiness I sensed was probably in the loose bottom bracket that I could never break free with my limited skills and toolset at the time.

Road Fan

I think you are right on target with choosing the Shimano. My experience with SunTour is that it's as hard to get good shifting with them as it is with Regina, Everest, Atom, and the other ones with block-shaped teeth. Shimano, Sachs-Maillard, and Campagnolo made sprockets with teeth designed to pick up and release a chain without large overshifting.

I'd also put Sunrace and some other newer brands in that same good category.

With the near-universal use of indexing (requiring a good tooth design), very few other than the greybeards really can make the older friction-based systems work well. You done good by accommodating them.

3speedslow

Grey beard here, have a Suntour-Suntour-Suntour set up on my Marathon now and find everything behaving. Shimano would shift better freewheel wise but I'm not speed shifting when I ride.

ryansu

I do literally have grey in my beard and after returning to cycling in my late 30s with 9 speed STI I realized a decade later I was on my 3rd set of shifters so I found the light of old steel and friction in 2008 and haven't looked back, or had to replace shifters . On a recent build with a 86 Schwinn Passage the FW, RD, FD and shifters were all different makes (the RD was 9 speed and the FW was 6 speed too btw) and they worked beautifully together as a friction set up. Then again a missed shift isn't going to cost me the Tour de France

AustinFitz

Thanks for the input guys! I think I'll swap over to the 6 speed Shimano and see how that feels. I did end up finding a single 80mm stem, so the fit is feeling better now. Still need to swap out the crank set and BB though. It currently has a sealed cartridge BB that's a bit too short in the spindle length department, but I have a decent cup and cone BB that should work out nicely.

AustinFitz

That's a good looking Marathon! I have one just like it that's next in line for a tear down and rebuild once I finish this Capri.

jj1091

That's a nice-looking bike, love the color scheme. I refurbished one about 3 years ago, and it sold on Craigslist in less than a day.

Aubergine 

I bought an old Capri frame (no fork) and built it up with decent parts and good wheels. The ride with Gatorskin tires is not fabulous, but it is pleasant. This was one of the cheap old bikes that made me realize that with the right wheels, even a hi-ten frame can shine.

ryansu

That Capri is looking sweet @AustinFitz and I would have paid that much for the Kabuki just for the cool head badge. I have a bike in the stand that's going to become a campus bike after I get the headset overhauled. It started life as a 1978 Schwinn Traveler III

[IMG]IMG_2917 by Ryan Surface, on Flickr[/IMG]

ryansu

All finished with the "campus bike" Parts bin plus about $20, this model Schwinn uses a one off stem size (21.5mm) so the standard stem I had did not work, and a few mtb brake cables and a used kickstand to complete it, every thing else I had on hand. including he mismatched tires, shifters and wheels.


IMG_3108 by Ryan Surface, on Flickr

AustinFitz

Wow! That turned out awesome!!! I had to put my bike hobby on hold for a while, so I've made zero progress on my Capri, but my life has finally settled back down enough for me to pick up where I left off on all of my projects! I hope to be posting some updates on this bike soon! It's not too far off of being complete!