EJM73

Wax my bike with some of that high end bicycle polish

steelbikeguy

I just went through this with a Superbe front derailleur that I've been using for 30 years.
I applied penetrating oil, applied a bit of tapping via a screwdriver (to try to break the screw loose), and repeated this a few times. No success.
I then tried soaking the derailleur in penetrating oil for days. This probably helped, but I still couldn't budge the screw.
Then I tried applying hot air to the derailleur body, with the hopes of causing the aluminum body to expand more than the steel screw. That did finally get the screw to move!

The hot air came from a "hot air rework station"... which is designed to generate air hot enough to melt electronics solder. It was hot enough to make the penetrating oil start to smoke!
I'm not sure what other tools can be used to generate this sort of heat, but it can be helpful in this sort of situation.

Steve in Peoria

WaveyGravey

Looks great. What wax did you use? Thanks

VintageSteelEU

I do have a heat gun somewhere. Not a very powerful one, but I might try it before I do the drilling. The screw itself I don't care much about, I have several replacement ones, but I'd prefer not to damage the derailleur itself with the drill bit slipping or something.

Massimiliano

jrg1244 (and BertinJim),

Nice Bertin! I am currently working on restoring a 1970's Bertin. The rear dropouts on yours appear to be Campagnolo, as are mine. I see the Simplex rear derailleur you have on there, but I was under the impression that the derailleur stop tab on campy dropouts was in the wrong place for French derailleurs like Simplex. Is that not the case?

steelbikeguy

I'll admit that I did contemplate drilling the screw and trying to extract it with an EZ-out or some such tool.
Then I thought about how small the screw was, how small the drill would end up being, and the probability of breaking off the extraction tool. The chance of success seemed rather small.

Heat seemed easier for me to work with, and the odds of breaking anything were small.
As for a source of heat.... ??
Maybe something as simple as a butane cigarette lighter? Try not to set the penetrating oil on fire, of course.

Steve in Peoria

philbob57

Shifting my 7-speed freewheel has been unreliable with my SIS DT shifters, so I over-hauled and installed my Suntour Power Shifters. Shifting is now better than ever before in the last 12 years (restarted riding in 2013 after a 10 year layoff). I don't know how long it will last, but it's nice now. I liked the indexing when it worked, but the Power Shifters have a nice feel to them, and they seem much more reliable. It's a PITA when I click once and the chain goes up or down 2 cogs.

merziac

Its sitting right there, Pledge, I've seen it used at shows for being quick and easy.

I asked a good friend that is a world class painter about it and he said he didn't know and had never used it but it is formulated for all treated wood so possibly clear coats as well.

VintageSteelEU

Superator is about as complete as it's ever going to be. Well, still ned to replace handlebar plugs with an expanding variety when they ariive. And I'm planning to repaint the frame sometime in Winter.
I've replaced the shifters with another set of Suntour Power shifters which seem to clamp on the downtube quite a bit tighter and it looks like they are staying in place now. Shifting is crisp and confident with a pattern to it, so very easy to change by feeling the number of clicks (2,3,2,3,3). I replaced the saddle with San Marco Regal Evo as it's the lightest saddle I have at the moment.

Current weight of the bicycle is 9kg. I was hoping for more around 8, but 9kg is not bad at all. And there's not much more I can do to reduce weight. Crankset is one of the lightest double ones that would have been available in the early 80's. Stem and handlebar are probably amongst the lightest that were ever available. Current wheelset is about as light as one can get with 32H rims and clinchers. Frame itself is extremely light. I could possibly shave off a bit more weight if I drilled the chainrng, but not much. I could replace the headset with Stronglight A9 Aluminium one, but that's a saving of only 20-30g. I could possibly find a lighter seatpost and saddle, but I think the bicycle is fine as it is. Now let's hope for nice weather to ride more

Kai Winters

To all the Triathletes out there...rinse your f'ing bikes...
Worked on a customer's beautiful Spesh Shiv yesterday. Main complaint was no rear brake. Additionally wanted it tuned. Checked the rear brake by engaging the aero mounted brake lever...it didn't move, didn't budge a millimeter...hmmm wonder what is wrong...this is an odd one. I squeeze the caliper, mounted under the chain stay, and it works but is stiff...ok I sayz to meself...must be in the cable/housing somewhere.

I pull off the wheels, spin the frame perp to the ground and take a look. Yikes what a mess. Grime coating everything...oh well that's easily cleaned...now on to the brake. I remove the cable, which is not rusty hooray, and holding it engage the brake lever...nada...nothing is moving. There is a metal noodle with a barrel adjuster for quick brake adjustment...it is similar to a V brake noodle but a tad fancier. When I try to pull off the noodle it won't budge. I wound up using two pair of pliers and a co-worker to hold one end of the housing while I pull on the noodle. It eventually comes free but the housing is trashed. It turns out the inside of the noodle the cable housing end cap sits in was completely frozen with corrosion...that icky white corrosion dust...ick. Fortunately it is an easy task to pull a length of new housing through then a new brake cable.

While I was removing all the parts for the 'super tune'...we remove all parts and they go in the MucOff bath for a good scrubbing...I notice the headset is 'self centering'...I pop off the stem/bars and try to remove the spacers...nope nope nopety nope they are not coming off...aluminum spacers and aluminum steerer tube is a bad mix for corrosion. Sure enough it is fused solid and not coming off. My co-worker says he thinks we've worked on the bike before and checks its history and sure enough I worked on it two years ago and noted in the work order that the spacers were fused to the steerer tube and I couldn't do anything with the head set without risking the fork...the customer said ok.

The frame was covered in dried on energy drink, I didn't notice anything more objectionable lol, and it took some time to scrub it all off. The parts showed signs of never being cleaned...at least since I serviced it two years ago, basically the same service sans the frozen brake, covered in grime, etc.

The cleaning and reassembly went well and once back together and everything adjusted it ran like new.
It's a beautiful bike but once that headset bites the dust it is going to be interesting to see what the customer wants to do. Were it me I'd be looking at a new fork in case the removal attempt of the spacers goes horribly badly.

Save yourself a butt load of money by rinsing your bike or suffer the consequences when the above happens to you.

Other than that I've been servicing the usual bike shop fare...Huffy's, Schwinns of varied decades, a very nice Bianchi in full Celeste, and a variety of bikes of all kinds.
It can be exciting to see a badly cared for bike come back from the near dead and not too expensively...but not cheaply...
Ciao everyone ! Ride On !

mechanicmatt

...my first new frame with a lot of new parts in probably 20+ years. I will write up the parts elsewhere. Now I just get to ride it. It was my birthday gift to myself last year and I guess again this year now that it is finished.

Prowler 

Reminds me of a concept I first learned of from a SW development document by Her Majesty’s Gov’ment: “Suitable for purpose”. Though it was primarily applied to code monkeys (who strive for perfection long after reaching good enough) it applies to all sorts of situations. Us engineers are well served to keep that in mind when solving problems, eh?

bikamper

Ain't that the truth.

Trav1s

Before



After

jdawginsc 

Started on this one. Will make a thread on it to honor the generosity of @SpeedofLite and his friend.



Honed the rough edges and rust bunnies on the seat tube. The entire inner tube areas were vinegared, evaporusted and coated with anti rust agents.

Touch up after sanding and derustifying looks pretty good.

The blemish — handlebar bang dents...

Barely noticeable touch ups everywhere. Lucked out on the paint.

Cleaned up the threads. This is where the most rust was.

jamesdak 

Nothing major this morning. Swapped some wheels on the Moser. Then I took another go at the Pacenti as I wanted a relaxed ride today. Still just cannot seem to get FD to quit rubbing. I probably need to take the cables off and just start over. But I didn't feel like messing with it any more so I grabbed the Pinarello. I finally put one of my spare Fizik Chameleon saddles on it this morning. This will be today's ride.


The Pacenti is banned into the corner for being bad, LOL!

VintageSteelEU

Back in the 90's my parents got industrial amount of oil based paint in this colour somewhere on the cheap. Soon enough, everything that could be painted with oil based paint: gate to their driveway, fence and dence gate, railing on the stairs, the boat, the shed behind their house... Everything was painted this colour. In fact, I think some things still are.
Whenever I see a Bianchi in Celeste, I see huge tubs of this paint at my parents' garage

jrg1244

It appears that is exactly the case! The stop tab on my Simplex Super LJ is nowhere near the stop on the Campy dropout. It was extremely confusing at first, however it doesn't seem to matter with the Simplex rear mech. It still stops appropriately and has good spring tension when I pull it back It seems like the spring tension is coming from a backing plate that holds the internal spring. The backing plate is squeezed against the face of the dropout by the mounting bolt, which allows the spring to resist chain pull. Neat design.

JaccoW

Used the great weather today to clean the shed. It has been sinking into the ground on one end so the rental company should send a specialist over to fix it some time.
Anyway, it was a good moment to dig through the mountain of wheels and recycle the ones that were beyond use.

Bonus shot of half the bike family.

georges1

ajusted the seat post on my Trek 6700 slr as well as brake levers and shifting levers position

noglider 

On Wednesday, I did a really good job cleaning the drivetrain on my commuter bike. Then on Thursday I rode to work in the rain. Argh. My spouse is away for a few days so I took the liberty of cleaning the drivetrain again. The second time wasn't as messy. I'm not normally fastidious with this, but there was enough grime and grit that I knew it was about to affect the longevity of many components.

VintageSteelEU

Whenever I would decide the weather is nice enough to clean the wheels on my commuter bicycle (which I do very frequently, because I ride it in all weathers and absolutely hate any dirt on the braking surfaces), it would inevitably be raining when I ride that bicycle again.Usually within a couple of hours after I cleaned the wheels. I mean, it rains in London quite frequently, but I refuse to neglect the wheels.

Speaking of wheels, today I found a moment to lace another wheel. It's time for Matsush|ita to get her own Superbe wheelset back. The wheelset currently on is built on Ambrosio Excellence rims and Suntour Sprint hubs and meant for my commuting bicycle. Matsush|ita originally had Ambrosio 19 Extra Elite and Suntour Superbe hubs. Whilst the rims still have some life in them left (after 40 years!), I was getting rims for other projects anyway, so got an extra set of Ambrosio Excellight in 36H drilling to save a bit on the shipping cost. Wish I got more.
I had laced the front one before (it's still waiting to be trued and tensioned), so this evening I've laced and removed some slack from the spokes on the rear one. Now just to find some time to finish building them. These hubs will never cease to amaze me. Absolutely unbelievable, they just seem to spin forever once set in motion.
The rims I currently have on my commuting bicycle are Mavic MA40 laced on Shimano 6207/08 hubs. These are going to be laced to Normandy Luxe Competition for my all-French (well, almost, the brakes are going to be Weinmann Carrera, the saddle is going to be probably Turbo and the seatpost is going to be whatever fits) Motobecane C5 build. Or Maillard 700 large flange, to be decided when I overhaul the hubs and see the state of the cups and cones. My commuting bicycle will be getting Suntour Sprint derailleurs, brakes and crankset. Ambrosio 19 Extra Elite are probably going to be laced to large flange Sansin or Normandy hubs for a winter wheelset.

bikamper

I went to a bike swap today just to get out of the house and BS with like minded idjits. Unfortunately, I bought stuff.


The main purchase was the Esge fenders for the Everton, which I can call finished as of this afternoon.


I stole the frame. The drive side rear dropout had broken and been repaired decades ago. The previous owner squeezed another 20 years out of the frame before retiring it. The frame was resprayed and fitted with new transfers a while ago. The seller told me that the frame is Italian but he wasn't sure if it was really a Guerciotti. I haven't owned an Italian bike since my Bianchi in the late eighties. And, actually, I don't care if it is or isn't a Guerciotti. It's a gorgeous frame and may become wall art instead of a build.

bikamper

I took a boatload of pics of the Guerciotti Sprint frame to see if the collective hive can at least give me a ball park figure on its age. So, consider this my next wrenching project. At least until I can start wearing two shoes again.

Shared this pic yesterday.


Repaired dropout.


BB Shell. The only number I can find anywhere is this number 8 stamped on the left side of the shell.


Bridges



Head and seat tube lugs.



I can verify that the BB Shell is 70mm. The seat tube, not so much. It was a pain to get repeatable numbers with my digital caliper and my ankle started to bug me. I finished up the day like this.

VintageSteelEU

I've got another set of Simplex SLJ as a spare a few weeks back. One of the keyed washers was missing (replaced with a standard washer), so after a bit of searching I found a single lever that was cheaper than buying the washer. I was going to work on the wheelset today, but didn't feel like it, so decided to overhaul the SLJs. De-gunking took some time, but they are now nice and clean. And actually work better than the other set I have, so in the box with Huret Jubilee derailleurs they went. That will be used on Motobecane C5 build. They can probably still use some polishing before use. There will be quite a bit polishing to do when it comes to parts for that one (crankset, seatpost, shifters, hubs), but on the bright side, I have all the parts.



Not bad, but still abit of gunk in hard to access places

After some time with detergent, warm water, brass brush and old toothbrush

Still need to polish them, but they work well