merziac

Sounds like you need to take over where Randy leaves off.

b dub 

In a heartbeat, but isn’t Randy in Canada? For the record I’m not 😜

merziac

Pretty sure he can make it get to you.

b dub 

You’re getting me in trouble 😈

merziac

That's why we're here, it's what we do.

JacobLee 

Full service on a friend’s Surly Steamroller with 650b conversion. It lives under a patio cover, so it’s on death’s doorstep every four years or so.



Treated it to some frame saver, new grease, swapped the 16t freewheel for an 18t, swapped the 110 bb for a 113, swapped the 26.8 seatpost for a 27.2, and replaced the rotted Pacenti/Panaracers for some Panaracer Col de Vie tires



New tires will probably meet this same fate, but at least they were only $25 a piece!



Can’t imagine a Surly fork bent at the crown, but it looks a little off. No visible weirdness, and it rides fine, so I left it alone.



Took it for the flattest 8 mile spin I could find, and it’s a great ride. Realized at mile 7 that the seatpost was the wrong size, and wouldn’t stay tight. Fun bike. Sorta makes me want a SS again. Wait, no I don’t.

Charles Wahl

SotR23 Nice rehab on that lilac/purple Raleigh, and orange sneaker laces go well with that purple frame, but I'm going to bet that it's a 1971 Competition, not a '72. Check the serial: F would be '71 and G '72, and the latter were, so far as I know, all black with gold trim.

Velghinn

I decided that getting back to bicycling seemed like a good idea but I was unaware that it was a difficult time for cycling with shortages throughout the industry. After checking the secondhand market, I picked up two Raleigh Sprites. A Ladies and a Gents, Canadian made from the 1970's. No problem right? Or so I thought.


Welcome to my nightmare and the reason I finally joined these forums.


26 inch bottom bracket threading? Cotter pins? 27 x 1 1/4 tires? Sheldon Brown? These were not familiar terms three weeks ago and now they haunt my days. These are not the friendliest bikes for a beginner to start working on. Did I buy them on a whim? Oh yeah. Did I do any research beforehand? Absolutely not. I have nobody to blame but myself.


"They're red! How pretty! This will be easy!" Well, not so much it turns out.


The cotter pins have been removed but not before mushrooming the top of them with a hammer and breaking a drill bit removing them fully. Didn't know that BikeSmithDesigns had a cotter pin press or a c-clamp and socket might work until well after the fact.


Fixed cups are fixed for a reason as it happens. RJ the Bike Guy on YouTube helped me solve that problem but not before I damaged the cup exteriors. I can't tell yet if it is just cosmetic or structural. Which leads me to looking at a square taper bottom bracket and cups from Phil Wood or a threadless replacement from Velo Orange as replacements. Because I am an idiot. Well that simply leads to new crank arms and pedals if I don't replace the cotter pins. Which should be fun if it comes to that.


Apparently steel rims aren't spectacular at stopping in the rain, or so I have read. So, hey, why not, a new set of alloy wheels won't be that bad, right? If I don't mind cold setting the frame and realigning the dropouts to accomodate a new 126mm rear wheel and freewheel. Or just swap to a 700c set and be thankful the Sprite came with the longest reach brakes in the world.


The funny thing is, I'm actually having an absolute blast with all of this. I'm constantly learning new things and enjoying putting that knowledge to use right away. I'm liking the challenges and the problem solving because each time something clicks, it just feels good to say, "Hey, I did that and it worked. Awesome."


One day I might even actually ride them. Wish me luck!

merziac

@Velghinn

Welcome aboard, glad you found us, you're in the right place.

We need pics or it didn't happen and just because. They also often lead to other discussions that can save you from yourself since "look before you leap" and "proceed with caution, etc." are just suggestions, right?

Talk about the deep end.

You need 5 posts X 2 days for 10 to post pics, just respond to all posts here and any other ones that interest you and you will be there in no time.

Its an anti-spam measure that serves us very well.

And you might want to start a dedicated thread.

Velghinn

Thanks merziac, I appreciate the welcome.

Thanks for letting me know about the 10 post minimum for images. I'll keep it in mind. For now, if one were interested, they could do a search on imgur for @Velghinn and there is an album up that I've quickly thrown together.

I certainly did leap in both feet forward.

Discussions are most welcome as well as any and all feedback. I've an open mind for all this and make no claim I know what I'm doing.
I like the idea of starting a dedicated thread and I likely will but not until sometime later during the process. For now I'm still learning and waiting for some tools and parts. I appreciate the suggestion.

scozim 

For the first time in 37 years the PSV is sporting non-zero levers. Several reasons for it like comfort and I can't seem to get the vintage levers to stop vibrating on these chip seal roads around here. Next step is to match the caliper and lever color by swapping these calipers for some black ones on another bike. And, of course, there's the obligatory garage door in background.

merziac

You're welcome and while I get it, I still strongly encourage you to get a thread going, the collective wisdom here is unmatched and someone always has a nugget that saves time, money and plenty else, skin, patience, rare parts and tools, etc., think fixed cups.

We have regular discussions on this BUT imo, the fixed cup is fixed because it has no adjustment, not because it should not be removed, I remove everyone to clean, inspect and lube the cup and the threads so that I or the next person will be able to do so as well, period.

I have a foolproof method that never fails or hurts any parts, tools, frames or flesh, again, period.

It uses the regular tools plus a few very simple, common others.

We could have saved the ones that did not survive.

A finer lot of enablers you will not find.

If you hit the quote button at the bottom of the post it will notify the poster that you responded.

Prostyler

1984 Bianchi Alaskan
Tearing my house apart for one chainring bolt collar for that rare SR chainring with the Duralumin cold forged cranks....yeah that rare bastard.

jdawginsc 

Kona and a Trek that has been de-matte-ed...

bikemig 

I've been working on a Mercier 300. I had to find replacement parts for the headset which wasn't easy since it is a low stack French threaded headset. And lately I've been working on the frame. The paint is largely in good shape but it has a fair amount of chips and some light rusting I've been dealing with. I'm not finished though.

scozim 

Cleaning up some nasty, grimy components to go back on the Bianchi Veloce.

JacobLee 

I was stealing parts off of my Six-Ten when I noticed a loose chainring bolt.



I tightened it, but then noticed that the other four were equally loose. Not just a little loose, but a whole turn. I hadn’t noticed any noises, and the front shifted really well when I rode it last. Weird. I don’t have any other experience with these small bcd, super-long chainring bolts, but maybe this is a thing?

bikemig 

I like this. I have a lilac one like this I need to rebuild.

merziac

Shouldn't be a thing, can't really tell if the bolts are going into the recess on the chainring, it may be on backwards if the recess is not facing outwards.

bikemig 

I finally got around to installing a headset on a lilac Raleig Competition I picked up a while ago. It has 3 issues.

(1) The fork has the proprietary raleigh threading (26 threads per inch). I was unhappily surprised by this. So I used a Raleigh headset for the top and a Stronglight A9 for the bottom. It works well. The bottom bracket is BSC threading.
(2) The bike has the weirdest derailleur hanger I've ever seen. I have no idea what derailleur--if any--it was intended to work with as the tab is all wrong. I can mod the tab with a file. It looks as if someone brazed this on and then just gave up on the bike.
(3) The PO did a crummy job of drilling out for recessed brakes which sucks. The front was done OK but the rear was not. The holes on either side are too large. I'm not sure what I'll do about this but I may give it to a local frame builder to deal with. The recessed nut slides in but it is loose and the hole facing the front of the bike has also been enlarged.

Other than that, the bike is in fine shape. The paint is good. It weighs 6.67 lbs with a headset which is not bad for a Reynolds 531 bike. Oh and it has the wrong 531 sticker which eventuall will drive me crazy enough to fix, .

Calling on cudak888 gugie and noglider who know more about old Raleighs than I do

thook

good point, merziac!! those bolt heads should be submerged

@JacobLee a quick check would be to see if the ring tooth count number is on the outside

JacobLee 

Aha! Excellent sleuthing! It looks like somebody took the 47t middle and put it on the outside. They put a 36t middle on it. So, no recesses, and I guess that outer ring was rotating and loosening the bolts? I liked the gearing, but it doesn’t look like this is a functional setup!

noglider 

@JacobLee, chainring bolts do come loose, though not often. I can't say it's more common on small BCD cranksets though. You may want to refasten them with blue Loctite to prevent recurrence.

JacobLee 

Yeah, I’ve just never had them all come loose! I think the gents above diagnosed the problem with the lack of recesses in the outer ring (which belongs in the middle). I had never had a crank before where one set of bolts hold three chainrings, so if I do end up finding the correct outer ring for this, I’ll try your loctite trick.

merziac

The Loctite cannot be expected to hold the chainring without the recess, it is there for this very reason to have no slop. The design relies on the recess, you would probably have to way overtighten the bolts to get them to hold at all long term and they would chew things up in the process, ruining perfectly good parts in the end.