My wife shared dire warnings with me last night about the air quality, as allegedly the smoke from California's wildfires is finally here in South Carolina. So instead of riding at dawn, I got productive in the shop. It had dawned on me yesterday that a previous owner had replaced the 42/52T Biopace chainrings with a round set of 39/52. The smaller one was developing a serious sharkfin shape, so I swapped it out for the 39T Shimano 130 bcd ring I had modified to fit onto a 128 Nervar crank. It's fine, and the teeth are much better. The cranks went on with zero drama, I made the smallest of adjustments to the BB, then fitted derailleurs and brakes. I generously slathered the inside of the seat tube with grease and added more to the seat post itself and installed the lot, moving the saddle back on the rails a bit. Mother's aluminum polish brought back the shine to the Specialized/Nitto stem and bars, and some generic cleanser removed most of the schmutz from the once-white brake hoods.
I may re-use the cables that came with the bike. The brake cables seem to be okay, and because I can I would pull them out of the housing, run them through some grease and reinsert them and be done with it. I still have a pair of shoes with Look cleats, so I'll clean and reinstall the pedals that came with the bike. The Uniglide chain is still soaking in citrus degreaser, so I'll wash that out with some Dawn dishwashing liquid and lube it up and refit it. At this time I think I'll use the old yellow bike ribbon bar tape and call it done, unless the LBS has a deal on vintage red or white.
So far I'm at -
$50 - purchase price of bike
$5 - used 39T chainring
$4 - old stock Ambrosio bike ribbon purchased from LBS c.2006
And now for some hastily-snapped pix of the bike in progress!
Shiny!
Eager to finish the assembly and take this rascal out on the road!