SurferRosa

Wow, you're going to sorta remove all that history with new paint? JMO, of course, but that would be a shame. You can treat the rust and dress it up with new housing, hoods, saddle, tires, and bar tape. It would look great.

Not all men need color their hair as they age.

And you were pretty damn tall at 14.

Unca_Sam

It's a balancing act, for sure. Once you chased down all the rust and are back to bare steel or converted rust, what's the next step? Primer and touch up? Rust inhibitor oil wipe?

SurferRosa

Is it really so much worse than shown in the photo? If so, you could give it an acid bath, clear coat the bare spots, and spray the inside with boeshield.

I generally think folks overreact to a little rust.

ts99

Am I overreacting?
Hadn't thought of the boeshield. Is that a good idea?

ts99

Can you tell from this what size I need to order? Or what do I measure when I pull it out?

Edit: looks like that's the same standard size as those links you posted. I just need to measure the length of the spindle, right?

ts99

If I took off all the rust it'd have more bald spots than I do.

Fortunately I got the bike just after a 7" growth spurt and not before. I go to these bike websites and go through their frame size choosing tool. If I measure my inseam the way they say to do it, it's 39.5" and the website gives me an error saying it's outside of normal ranges because I'm only 6'4".

The bike fits absolutely perfect as far as I can tell, but maybe that's because it's all I've ever had and that's what I'm used to.

by the way, I popped the head tube cups off tonight. Stuck a piece of pipe in there and popped them out in a minute.

ts99

Cool. I'd just run into that bike online a day or so ago. I'll put it on my list of possibilities.

Unca_Sam

😬 you're not overreacting. Your bike is what I consider a good candidate for a total strip and repaint. It looks like your bike has developed rust scale and the paint is barely hanging on on your downtube. Once you've removed the rust and loose paint, what will be left?

Doug Fattic 

How much of an adventure to you want the repaint of your Trek to be? I just looked into my inventory of Dupont Imron paint and while I don't have 44437 Ice Blue metallic, I do have 44436 Lt Blue metallic and 44438 Lt Continental Blue metallic. When I look at my Imron paint chip chart from the 70's, all 3 colors look almost identical. You wouldn't know the difference. I also have some Dupont Corlar epoxy primer. It is the best primer ever made for durability but not popular because it was very difficult to prepare for use. It is extremely hard to stir if it has settled for awhile and after mixing in the epoxy it had to incubate for an hour before use. And it also takes a long time to cure after painting (unless it is baked). So the awesomeness of the result did not persuade most painters (usually car painters) to use it because of the difficulty and time it took to paint with it. I also have a reserve of old formula Imron clear. A few of us old time painters bought up what was left before it was gone forever. California has banned its use and the Imron of today is a completely different formula.

So if you want to drive over sometime this winter to Niles, Michigan (just above South Bend, Indiana where Notre Dame University is located and until a few days ago the city where Mayor Pete is mayor) for a couple of days, you can do the grunt work of sandblasting and sanding and I'll do the spraying. We can check it for alignment too. They were never perfect to begin with and I'm sure it hasn't magically improved over time. And maybe add or subtract braze-ons. I'm set up with housing for frame building and painting class students. In this case I'm going to assume you don't want to be taught how to paint just do the labor. There is more work involved in wet paint then an average person might expect. That extra work is why the result will look better than powder coating. It will also look like you expect it will look like. If this offer interests you PM for details. Of course I can do the whole job myself but it will be a lot more expensive and a much longer wait time.

madpogue 

^^^^^^ +1 on paint vs. powdercoat, esp. with an old lugged frame. Nice lugwork can get visually "lost" with a too-thick powdercoat.

jeirvine 

I used to think that. Now I don't. I find a well-tuned downtube friction shifting setup to be all I need.

And I would definitely consider taking Doug Fattic up on the painting offer. Sounds like a very nice opportunity.

ts99

Wow. What an opportunity. Thanks. I'll keep this in mind and ponder on it.

The Golden Boy 

Until I saw the other side of the down tube- I thought your bike didn't look much different than my 78 TX700.

TX700Built1 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

Kabuki12

I have only resprayed one bike and that was because it spent 12 years on the deck of a sailboat and needed media blast to get the rust off. It was my first racing bike and I love the bike , but after 2 coats of rustoleum primer and numerous top coats and sanding , I will not do it again. I have seen powder coated or pro spray jobs that look great so I would definitely get the bike professionally done. It is expensive , but I spent a couple of weeks sanding and spraying just to get an acceptable result. Joe

The Golden Boy 

There's something to be said about wanting and getting a new and/or modern bike... but... How much thought have you given into doing a "restomod" of your bike? You've got history with this frame- and there's components that still look great in a "classic" sort of idiom. Dura Ace 7700 and 7800 look great as does Ultegra 6500 and 6600.

I went with a kooky mix of DA 7800/7700/Suntour on my 1985 Trek 720- but take a look at the "restomod" thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...i-s-ergos.html

Doug Fattic 

This is what's involved to do a quality wet paint job. It starts by taping and facing the bottom bracket shell and then aligning the frame on my cast iron surface plate. I can assure you your Trek is out at least a bit and maybe more. They were decently made but never spot on. It is possible braze-ons can be added or subtracted. Next the paint is chemically stripped. I then use a power washer to get rid of the residue. After that the frame is primed with 2 coats of epoxy primer and after baking, it is sanded smooth. There is a special barely petroleum cleaner that gets rid of any sanding residue or fingerprints. As an option a sealer can be sprayed next. I would mix a little blue into white to approximate the top color. This improves the bond between the top coat and primer as well as gives a consistent undercoat color. This covers spot putty or little sand throughs. Your light blue is a challenging color to get full coverage. To make sure there is optimum bonding I need to spray the top color between and hour to 3 hours after the sealer applied. This is why I try to put on the sealer just before lunch.

Continuing our thrilling paint job journey description, 2 coats (maybe 3 in your case because the light blue is a bit translucent) of Imron color is applied. Right after that a clear is applied. This is so the color coat can be sanded with scaring the metal flakes. Next comes the application of the decals which if done right and not just slapped on requires placing and marking masking tape to help position them. Also the decals are marked to know where their center is for placement. If I remember right early Trek decals requires an agent to release them from the backing paper. For a glamour job (like is expected from a painter like Joe Bell), multiple clear coats go over the decals. Probably this has to be done 2 different times with sanding in between. For each session it might take 6 applications with time in-between to let each coat set up some or you will get a run. When the paint has hardened then the whole frame is wet sanded before the final clear coats are applied. The final clears require the most skill to do properly. There may be some buffing out of any dust nibs that got into the clear.

The uneducated might not realize how much work goes into a good wet paint job. Furthermore I figure my paint costs are over $100 as well. Because I am a frame builder that puts a lot of emphasis on shaping and filing lugs, there is no way I would want them to be power coated. The utility frames we make for our charity project in Ukraine are perfect for power coating where the purpose is a durable finish with function and cost being the primary concerns. I should also say that not all wet paint jobs have the same durability. What paint is used and how it is applied make a huge difference in the final product.

repechage

that frame appears like it skipped a few stages before the color coat.
As Mr. Fattic mentions, Light blue metallic is a challenge to get good coverage.
I have a light metallic blue Carlsbad Masi what has issues.
In discussion with Brian Baylis a number of years ago, he stated that the owner brought over some "new" primer sealer from his other company, Elixir Industries, they made various aluminum extrusion based products.
Anyway, the experiment was not successful long term. The sealer broke free of the metal. I have a tough decision to make as I like the transfers very much, the replicas are good but the yellow type color is off.
Later Masi bikes where all the lettering was yellow were a darker more marigold yellow.

ts99

Pretty! That's the same color. Mine I think looked better than that until spending the past decade in a wet basement. If it was like yours, I wouldn't be considering the repaint.

Classtime 

Check out Randy's site Painting a Bicycle
If funds are short, brush on might be the way to go. You have the winter to wait a week between coats etc. then when you get $$$, get it done right.
Oh, remove everything.

ts99

Verrrrry interesting. Thanks. That sounds attractive to me.

Update: I pulled out the bottom bracket. Glad I did. Real dirty in there. Even some mud and the spindle was half coated in silt. The bike was half submerged for a couple days in a flood and apparently some mud somehow got in the bottom bracket.

I liked the $15 new bb idea, but this one is so cool looking and solid I'm leaning toward cleaning and repacking it.

Unca_Sam

once it's cleaned, check for pitting on the spindle race and cup races. Mr. Jones can guide you through the process.

The Golden Boy 

There was a discussion (more like I made an observation) about the ‘ice blue’ early Treks seem to ALL have had the livin’ snot ridden out of them.

I don’t know the exact provenance of my bike- but it shares that “excessively worn” look that most of all the early (read: TX series bikes) ice blue Treks seem to share.

The Golden Boy 

m

I’m on the fence about getting this painted. Fortunately there’s projects in the queue way before this one- so I don’t need to make a decision for quite a while.

ts99

Found that thread. Maybe there was a flaw in the painting process as someone above suggested, or maybe that color just shows the rust more.

Still love that color. Might be the reason i bought the bike. My friend and I were both planning to get a Raleigh Competition, but the local bike shop in Wisconsin had bikes from this new Wisconsin company that combined custom hand crafting with high tech and I was intrigued. I think seeing that color convinced me. I spent months going to the shop and finally ordered one. Like I said, you specified even frame details. They had model numbers, but my components don't line up with a model. I think it may have been the $285 one and they upgraded me on stuff. My friend did get a Raleigh Competition, which was a really cool looking bike in black and chrome.

EDIT: I just googled Raleigh Competition and the first photo that came up was one in what looks like Ice Blue. I'd only seen black ones back then. If I'd known... No, I was super happy with the Trek.

I installed a rack wrong and cracked a brake mount. They sent it back (for free) to the factory. I don't actually know if they fixed that frame or gave me a new frame, but i suspect they fixed that one because there were enough different sizes and choices that odds are it was the same one. The serial number is for April '77, which as far as I can remember lines up with when I first ordered it. I think.

The only thing I'd change is I really liked the chrome the Competition and other bikes at the time had on the fork and rear stays.. If someone offered to chrome plate it for me for free, I'd do it.

ts99

So you're saying I should return it?