itschrisb

I bought an old Motobecane Super Mirage that im still not sure of the year yet. This is what it looked like a few days after having it.

This is it currently hanging to dry while i wait to get money to buy the rest of the parts i need to put it back together. Im gunna paint the fork a dark grey and cant decide if i want to paint between the lugs of the headtube grey too, paint the lugs grey, or just leave the whole frame green.



I bought a used but pretty much new IRO wheelset with tires that im going to use. And for right now im going to just use the stock cranks and everything else. I plan to chop and flop the bars and install a bmx style brake lever for the front brake.

Im still alittle confused on the whole bottom bracket thing but im trying to figure it out. Should have it reassembled in a week or two so ill be sure to post up some pictures. Thanks for looking.

anthegreat1

instead of painting the lugs and since you have to wait for parts to put it together do some pinstriping around the lugs

itschrisb

Grey pinstripe or i have this honey color that could look good too but that might be to many colors going on then. I dunno thats a good suggestion though

middy

You just ruined it.

sneaky viking

true.

JayNev

did u mask off inside the BB and headset?

Jabba Degrassi

It looks to me like there is paint inside the races, but it's hard to be sure. It looks to me like NOTHING was masked, however.

That poor headbadge...

ianjk

Sadly, I have to agree.

All the races/threads are going to need to be stripped of paint.

Poor headbadge. It takes about 30 seconds to properly remove it before painting.

As for a rattlecan job, why not spend the extra $10 and get quality paint and put the effort into masking and prepping?

itschrisb

I didnt care about masking off the headbadge and i plan to clean up the bb and the what do you mean the race, isnt that on the fork?

itschrisb

i dont really see how its "ruined" for not masking off the bb barely any paint ended up in there anyway. As far as the headset cups being painted what does that matter its not like the paint is anywhere near thick enough to mess up the the alignment of the bearing or anything

GregLast

yeah but once your put grease and rolling metal in it your paint is going to strip away and leave you needing to strip the paint from the headset cups and repack the bearing.

It's not totally ruined I would just make sure to get some stripper and start cleaning the inside of the BB shell and the facing around it. Take those headset cups out and strip them, clean and shine them.

You'll thank me in the long run.

It's a cool green. If it were me, I'd paint the fork white, and pinstripe the lugs yellow.

itschrisb

i planned to wire wheel the bottom bracket along with the insides of the headset cups to avoid the paint stripping off or messing up the threading of the bottom bracket cups. Ill take your advice and take out the cups i just dont want to mess them up seeing as how much french headsets and things are. Thanks for being a lot nicer then the rest of the people though.

I thought about using white lettering and putting motobecane back on the downtube but im not sure yet. A white fork would look nice but im not sure if it would end up being to bright then. The grey will dule it down alittle.

itschrisb

After looking at my bb cups i noticed that it says japan-is on them, does this mean that maybe possibly they arent french threaded?

GregLast

Not sure.

If your fixed cup (drive side) loosens when you turn it clockwise, then it's french. Just repack the bearings really well. Clean the inside out, and take your time with it. BB spindles are a lot easier to find than a french threaded cartridge BB for a decent price. It looks like you have a square taper bb spindle in there already, just make sure it isn't bent or pitted, meassure it and find a crankset that will fit and you'd be good to go.

Don't use a wire wheel on the BB. Those things can thrash your threads if you aren't careful. Use some thinner and a rag. It takes more work, but this way you don't run the risk of thrashing the threads.

ModernDivo

you should paint the lugs gold, that would be some dope ****

bbattle

You can take a Dremel tool and clean the paint out of the headset races, leaving the outside green but the inside nice and fresh for the bearings. That paint will take weeks to fully harden; you may want to build a mini greenhouse to "bake" it outside.

I like the idea of yellow pinstripes but I'd paint the fork black.

If your bb is French, Velo-Orange.com has new Edco bottom bracket cartridges but the axle is 121mm.

7eleven

that frame should have english threadings. late 70's, 80's motobecanes used english threadings.

https://www.fixedgeargallery.com/colu...age/indexb.htm

this video might help, i think he is converting the same frame.

middy

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant, "That rattle-can green looks so much better than the original 2 tone with gold piping, headtube badge, and half-chrome forks! You're a true craftsman."

itschrisb

I was more refering to the fact that you were pretty much a long with everyone else saying im a complete idiot and i just ruined a perfectly fine road frame. In which was no where near the case since the only two "mistakes" that were made could be corrected in a matter of minutes with no harm to the frame at all. I might agree that the black red and gold color combo looked awesome and i would have kept it that was if paint wasnt chipping off and the frame wasnt rusting. Sorry i dont want actually ruin my frame by letting it rust just so i can have the original paint on it. And its only a bike im not going to spend 100+ dollars on a real paint job or powder coating or anything a long those lines. Its just going to get scratched and chip anyway so id rather be able to touch it up for 3 dollars then whatever the price it would be for the other paint.

itschrisb

Yea im pretty sure thats the same bike too, is that bike english threaded?

middy

It's still rusting under the paint, unless you sanded the rust off.

itschrisb

I wire wheeled the whole bike down to the bare metal then sanded the bare metal with 220 grit. I prepped it right just bc i didnt mask off anything doesnt mean i was an idiot about prepping the metal.

soul05

keeping the cable guides eh?

middy

OK. I'm finished abusing you.

JayNev

sounds like you did a good prep job, just maybe you should've masked off those areas to save some time and effort later on. thats all

good luck on the build either way