JohnDThompson 

Nor have I; not on a Trek, anyway. What does the fork end treatment look like? Does it match the rear dropouts?

Bruce27

Hi John,
Both Suntour, but not an exact match.

Chr0m0ly 

In my parts bin I have a red TX700 frame from 1978 that had had a factory replacement fork and factory repaint from about 1983.
I wonder if your TX500 has a similar history, but perhaps they sprayed the fork to match the frame instead of a full repaint.
Does the fork’s steerer tube have the frame serial number hand etched into it?

Chr0m0ly 

This is the crown on my factory replaced fork

And where they etched in the frames serial number onto the steering tube to keep things together through paint and assembly

Bruce27

Thanks Chr0m0ly . No markings on the steering tube that I could find. Here's a couple more pics of the fork crown. Mystery fork.

JohnDThompson 

Looks good; could be original and I just don't recall that crown being used.

Chr0m0ly 

have you already pulled the fork?

Bruce27

Had it out yesterday looking for markings. Unfortunately, nothing there.

polymorphself 

In his parts bin, he says.

Chr0m0ly 

…in the most hallowed, honored and highly revered bucket!

And they all came back, shook my hand,
And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, and all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
Bench?

madpogue 

"Kid......."

Piff 

Very much late to the party on this one, but would you say this frame can take 28mm tires plus fenders? It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks as if things are already tight with the tires on there currently. Thinking about getting one of these.

cb400bill

I can't measure it as I sold it off about 3 years ago. I don't think that there is enough room for both bigger tires and then fenders, too. I did a 70 mile gravel ride on it like it was. It beat me up pretty bad.

I replaced it with a modern Trek gravel bike with 38's and full fenders and never looked back.

cjefferds 

Picked this one up a few weeks ago. Rewrapped the bars and put in a solid 20+ miles on it today.

Piff 

Hmmm, it is frustrating to see again reports of these old Waterloo Treks have poor tire/fender clearance despite giant chainstays. Thanks for the response. I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, chasing an old vintage frame that will ride road and dirt/gravel relatively well. Might have to look for a 90s hybrid with reasonable top tube length instead.

mountaindave 

Do a 650b conversion and you can get 38’s with fenders. I have squeezed 42’s on my ‘79 710 (with very little room to spare in the chain stays). I did the same to my wife’s ‘81 710 and 38’s easily fit. See my sig for photo links (in desktop mode).

You can thank me later.

mountaindave 

Both my wife’s and my bike have done Cino. There’s not much gravel out there that’s more challenging (not including mud).

Piff 

I very nearly purchased it based on your recommendation! But! The frame has a slight dent in the top tube...Hard for me to purchase and put a bunch of work into when right now I'm looking for 'the one'.

Or, rather, was looking. If you wait an hour or two you'll see a thread from me with a new find

mtbikerjohn 

Here is a picture of my 1979 710 with 700x36mm Challenge Strada Bianca tires. Just enough clearance with the Superbe brakes, when under inflated. I got rubbing on the bottom of the brake in the rear, when fully inflated...plenty of room in the front, tho.. I am currently running Corsa Control 700x32mm tires on it and am using Gran Compe center pulls now when plenty of clearance. I think 28mm with fenders would be doable. Trek in their infinite wisdom placed the brake bridge in the rear pretty low..ugh..

mountaindave 

I missed the part that you were looking rather than in possession. Have fun with the next one!

kelbype

[QUOTE=Chris_in_Miami;12637461]My '77 TX300 again:

/QUOTE]



What wheels and hubs do you have on this TX300? I'm restoring a 1977 TX500 that I'm trying to track down the original wheels for.

RiddleOfSteel

Another Trek for the thread vault: my 1983 560 in the 25.5" size

I made the four hour round trip to Eugene late last year to pick this up. Over the years of fawning over the Trek catalog scans, the 1983 560's color scheme has long been a favorite of mine, so I was excited to see one come up for sale sorta close to me, and for a reasonable price. The test ride was short, and the rear tube lost air in the process. Still, I was going to buy it pretty much no matter what. Paint was in great shape and the seat tube decal was pretty good as well. Plus, how I am going to say no to that color scheme?

The frame being 64cm instead of 65cm (aka a full 25.5") would present fitment challenges with standard stems as this is a road/race bike and I wasn't about to turn it into an upright cruiser to make it comfortable for me--not if I had anything to say about it. I went through a few builds with it including one as a "for sale" build. The 'for me' builds used traditional stem and bar setups and looked good enough, but the hoods' elevation made for much too aggressive a standard riding position. It rode fine but was not comfortable. The 'for sale' build employed Soma Highway 1s (good) held by a 120mm Modolo Xtenos stem (awkward-looking). The metallic black paint, while gorgeous, absolutely does not play nice with black componentry as the black components are darker yet still too close in shade. The 560 was just a bike with decent components that just...rode.

No one else was interested in the bike, and I "wasn't done with it" in my mind, and I wanted something bike-like to work on after not doing so for a number of weeks (this is recently now). I wanted another crack at it, but it would mean taking some parts from my '84 620 (that was in pieces at the time) and perhaps even keeping them. The goal was all silver components and 32mm tires to take advantage of Trek's generous tire allowance on (some) race bikes for 1983 (the 970 also had this allowance). Simply, I wanted to make a pretty bike, free and easy-going, using components I had, with indexed shifting and decent braking. And it needed to fit me comfortably while still looking fast/good. I confirmed that the ideal fitment was possible and the build was greenlit.

Brevet wheels to 7403 hubs, Rene Herse 32mm tires, 7410 cranks, 7700 down tube shifters and derailleurs, a 110mm Technomic stem, and 42cm Highway 1 bars. I ground off 1.5mm of spline at the ends of the 7403's freehub body as those full-length splines interfere with 9- and 10-speed cassette 1st position cogs and I was tired of dealing with it (modern 8-10-speed freehubs do not have the splines go the full length of the body). The Soma handlebars were a beautiful gloss black, but that did not look good at all with the silver stem/everything else. So I had to remove the paint, and let me tell you, it did not want to be removed. I tried increasingly aggressive grits for a while before hooking up the "death sponge" paint removal wheel to the drill and burned through some rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, then walked the sandpaper grit from 180 on up to 3000, finishing with super fine steel wool and Mother's polish. I beveled the rear pads of the 7402 calipers in the rear. The slots technically reached, but with pads on and cable set properly, the caliper arms swung them high. So it's super cheaty, and I'm mulling a few solutions, but leaving them also works, and since the pads are Kool Stops against machined brake tracks, stopping power is good. This all was one of the bigger (second biggest?) efforts I've done for this "level" of frame, and it wears almost exclusively Dura-Ace, save for the BL-L331 levers. It's what I had that was of the polish I was seeking, and man did it turn out well!

It also rides as good as it looks. It's always been a lovely descender and steerer, and now it feels great to spin along on the flats or get out of the saddle to accelerate or climb. Tight, lively-yet-controlled, smooth, strong. A perfect "simpler times" bike for this guy. Hope you enjoy it's composition as well!

georges1

perfect example of a classic and nice bike