RiddleOfSteel

Let's see if I can make this work this year. Last year's super classy Fuji S12-S LTD needed chain, cables and housings at the very least to make it actually functional, but I was already at $100 for the buy.

This year we have the same size (25") frame, but a one-year-only Centurion Comp TA in the secondary red-with-silver-headtube color. Beautiful red! Buy price: $60 off of Craigslist.

As bought weight (with everything pictured): 12.5 kg / 27.5 lbs. Without all that extra stuff, but still in "running shape" (bottle cages, pedals): 11.5 kg / 25.3 lbs. Centurion claims, without specifying size and pedals/cages on/off, that these Comp TAs supposedly weigh 22.7 lbs. 10/10 bamboozled.

All cables run pretty smoothly. One brake lever hood is gone, and the other is cracked in half (doomed). Front brake calipers seem to have their pad slots drilled down a bit more...no need to, though. Weird. Twin bottle cage braze-ons, DT shift braze-ons, under-BB-shell shift cable routing, and recessed brake caliper mounts. Champion #2 tubing. Stock other than the saddle and probably the tires. Tires are old Specialized Armadillo 700x28s that actually measure 27.5mm. Good job, Previous Specialized. Chain stretch is right at 0.75, so it's pretty well done. 175mm crank arms!

Q-factor is 150mm, which makes it a little wide for me, and by me I mean my left knee. I have a budget to work with, and part of that will be going to putting on SPD-SL pedals (bought in a groupset buy late last year for a great deal, so they'll be cheap here). Maybe I'll find a slight shorter BB spindle--there's room for the small chain ring to move in on the drive side. I have new Can Creek brake hoods to use if I so choose ($5), but I have the world's worst EVA tap, Cinelli, to try and reuse, which means I'll need new/new-to-me tape if I go down that route. New chain if this roasted one skips. Tires look serviceable, but I'll have to look more closely. I do have cheap used ones I know are much newer and also a bit nicer. Well, two sets. I definitely want to clean and shine this up and overhaul hubs and things. Total dust bucket!

It's been hanging like this for years. Headset spins perfectly.


Home safe and sound!

beng1

Details of the work put into the Huffy "Bluegrass Hardware" road bike I put a thousand or more miles on last year while recovering from heart surgery, and today I got it out and rode it some more with only air needed.

Bottom-bracket bearings were loose enough to rattle in the shell, so I JB welded them in place so they would not beat out the shell anymore. All major components were taken apart, cleaned and put back together with appropriate lubricant and maintenance.

Custom washers were fabricated for the stem-bolt so it would not gall the aluminum when tightened.

This is an unusually tall frame for a Huffy road-bike, or any department-store grade USA-made ten-speed. It is 24-inches from center of BB to top of seat-tube, which I think is 61cm. And that is why I bought it for the $3 as I am tall and need every inch of it, but it helped me see that it is a great size frame for me as it helps me get very "aero" when I want to with the bars set low.
Both brakes have to be adjusted as well as possible as both are required to stop the 34-pound bike plus 215 pound rider, and even at that they are marginal. When I was a teen in the 70s I had a very similar ten-speed and I rode it with only a back brake, and only lived because my young body was able to bounce back from hitting the ground or whatever when I crashed.
Cleaned rims with a wire wheel on a drill-motor and they look great, most of the brown came off. Rear wheel was out of round and out of true, and it took a lot to get it straight enough to ride, had to replace some rusty spokes that broke during truing, another that broke while riding, thus the photo of the rear of the bike with a warped wheel.

Tires are sketchy, age-cracked and worn in the middle, but they never let me down in all those miles, and I think I can get another year and another thousand miles out of them.

I remember doing similar work as a teen 45 years ago on my Columbia ten-speed to get another year out of it, so this brought back a lot of memories, and it brings more every time I ride it.

RiddleOfSteel

Got out for a test ride after setting the Comp TA up for me. Saddle to bar drop is a bit more than I normally run, but it ended up not being the worst. Neither did the slightly wider Q-factor. I put on the SPD-SL pedals (5700 generation 105), so as I said above, killer package deal. $70 total at present. 4.0 miles covered so far. Chain needs lubrication at the very least. Squeaked like crazy. Low gear is a 42-24, so getting up the hill to my place will be a bear. Going down will merely be concerning as the brakes, well, the brakes are mounted to the bike and minorly modulate speed very well. Handling and out-of-saddle character are good though, even with 38cm bars (at the hoods, 41cm in the drops). 28mm Armadillos at 72F/80R pressures also did well.

Thicker tires, saddle-to-bar rake, and overall angles/proportions give this bike a definite presence. I dig it!

zukahn1

I like your ambition have tried this in the past doesn't work as well as one would expect. I can say from some experience that there's a very good chance of ending up with two really not so great builds or not completing either and failing to finish the challenge. Still for a cheap price I really like the Atala and would build if mine even without the challenge seems I find myself building or fixing up several bikes a year on the cheap and I live in bike desert with very few bikes and no real market for selling them. Got four cheap builds right now that I ride some and donated another 4 and did two for the local thrift store in the past year.

RandolphCarter

There's a 100% chance of me ending up with not so great builds.

There's also a pretty good chance I'll fail to finish. Of the Clunker Challenges that I've entered, I've finished exactly one build, a Diamondback Joker BMX bike. I got about halfway on the "ride 62 miles" part on that thing before I quit.

Good job on the donations. The Allitalia was almost free - it cost me some time helping a neighbor move furniture. I still need to take it apart and see what it needs.

rustystrings61 

You never know ...

In 2017 I assembled three clunkers (1991 Diamond Back Venture, 1970s Mercier 200 and a 1985 Centurion Signet) and completed the ride on the first two - in fact, I pretty far exceeded the ride requirement on the DB, but the Signet was just such a drag that I cheerfully donated it.
In 2019 I assembled an 80s Bianchi Timberwolf into a junky dropped bar conversion and rebuilt an early 70s Bottecchia De Luxe. The Timber Wolf was actually rideable, the Bottecchia needed cranks that weren't steel and bent. I kinda lost interest in finishing the challenge after a death in the family ...
Ah, but in 2021 I went nuts and ran THREE Clunker Challenge entries after hemming and hawing that life was too busy, I didn't have time, blah, blah, blah - and they were GOOD clunkers - a 1986 Cannondale ST400 that manages any road surface smoothly, a 1988 Centurion LeMans that rides like it's a really fine bike instead of being a midpriced machine that's had a hard life and looks like hell, and the amazing find of an '88 Specialized Sirrus that has amazing handling. And I finished up with all three, and they're still in the stable and will probably all stay there ...

On the other hand, THIS year's clunker is likely to move on after I am done ... unless it persuades me otherwise.

One thing's for sure - whoever developed the Pre-Lube bottom bracket assembly for Hatta should be forced to rebuild and repack them for a year - it's a more just, if more cruel punishment than the horsewhipping I envisioned while struggling to get the wretched thing back together. The adjustable cup side I left alone, just washed it out with degreaser and Dawn dishwashing liquid and dried it and packed it full of grease, but the drive side one with the rust-welded fixed cup was a brute. I finally figured out which way the funky beveled washer is supposed to fit in - the narrower side to the inside and not press-fit into the spindle aperture! - and keeping said beveled washer in place while installing the ball bearings, then successfully installing the internal dustcap and getting it all aligned right was a bear.

After all of that, the headset was easy peasy lemon squeezy. The outer surfaces are ghastly, and no amount of polishing will help that rust and those pits - but the internals are all excellent. I could see this bike, post-Challenge, being a great stealth bike, invisible to thieves. But for that to happen, I'll want to replace that horrid BB assembly with one that works!

Mr. 66

Here's what it looks like. I put yellow tape on the seatube to give me some contrast.


Here I have it jigged down waiting for someone to lean on the 2x4 as I pressure the barbell bar.

Mr. 66

There it is, I put a longer 2x4 with weights at the end. That gave me enough counter the manipulation leverage.

and the results

The fork will be another day.

OldCoot

Wow! You guys are great at unearthing some awesome bikes! Love the Comp TA and Gitane ( despot the poor alignment/crash).
Well I will keep hunting...

RiddleOfSteel

I took the crank arms off to measure the BB spindle to see if I can track down a slightly narrower one, but otherwise, I can't wait to overhaul all the bearings and most importantly, get that paint glowing!

Mr. 66

I found some time to go through my box of French poo. A couple of things jumped out at me, mainly the brakes. Through all the crusty masses a pair of Mafac dural forge calipers gleams above all. These brakes came of a huge late 60's UO-8 that was marked down to a $1.75 at the goodwill last day sale many moons ago. Finally a resting stop and a good match for the build.

These will look marvelous on the Gitane.

Mr. 66

Looks like it used to be purple

zukahn1

Got the Motive Stone Grinder fully complete and working good with gears and brakes on budget say 107 or so FMV in parts all salvage thaI paid $0 for only paid 22 cents for a washer out of pocket. Pretty boring final build MTB hard frame old school Thumbies and simple 2x7 compact gearing it doe6s ride good and actually curbs at a respectable just under 26lbs. Took it on a nice long ride up to Pike forest 20 miles or so round trip to complete the 100 for the clunketer challenge with no issues troubles only one bad clunky miss shift which I will attribute to user error.




Had to have at least one unofficial sponsor promo sticker on the bike being a competition. So I went with Johny Cat Even in the End on the bottle which actually goes pretty with the bike.

DonkeyShow

Today I learned my Bluetooth speaker fits perfectly in the bottle cage. Racked up another 12.5 miles 600 feet.

Clang

This thread has me really tempted to buy this 1993 Trek 830. But I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm not even sure they'll separate it from the other 4 bikes in the lot. The location's close, it'd be cheap, and I love the paint job...

zukahn1

If your looking for a small easy build this one is about as good as it gets and yes these while middling US built GT's have really great three tone paint jobs and cosmetics and you get a nearly $50 rack as bonus sorry to enable.

zukahn1

You'd be surprised a standard bottle holder car or semi modern bike are the same so bunch of stuff will fit. This is why I try to have two semi flexi cages on nearly all my builds.

Mr. 66

Oh yes it did take the stretcher. The drive side got lengthened a smudge.
The adjustable parallel clamp did the trick.

Where it stands now with a freshly rebuilt headset. Not great, no binding, no slop.

Classtime 

I got almost 40 miles on my Impact Pro MOS. Pretty sweet commute with my 510s. Two more days and I'll have my 100. Then to decide if I keep it around awhile. Maybe pulling the trailer for shopping trips.


Can you see the baby ducks?

UCLA Crew

Not the season for sunset commutes

This artist is local. If the kids leave them alone, there will soon be dozens.

C9H13N 

The Grand Record frame is cleaned up, polished and waxed, and ready for final assembly.



The Maillard freewheel was one of the stumbling blocks on this project. Of course I don’t have the proper remover and no one sells them any more. Fortunately I live close to an awesome LBS, Recycled Cycles in Seattle and they pulled it off free of charge. Thanks again guys!!!



I was concerned that there would be French threads on the hub. The headset and BB are French and the stem is 22.0 quill, 25.4 bar…I hoped that once I had the freewheel off there would be some kind of markings to tell me yea or nay. No such luck! I tried to measure the pitch on the hub shell… M6x1 matched up but so did a BSC bottom bracket cup. BSC freewheel threaded on fine, so did M35x1 bottom bracket lock ring. Finally I read a trick from 3alarmer to screw a BB cup into the old freewheel, and it turned out British was right. The French BB cup made it only 3 turns or so before binding, just like he said.



And there’s my British threaded Maillard 700 rear hub, ready to be torn down and repacked. Even better the axle is standard M10x1 so it could easily be respected to 126 later on!

rustystrings61 

The headset looks awful but is decently smooth and should be fine. The bottom bracket isn't perfect, but it’s tolerable. I may yet sand some of the worst of the rust off - or maybe I'll just start assembling this beast.





Next up - pulling the freewheel and repacking the hubs. I'm hoping they’ll be fine with cleaning and fresh grease.

Looking back over the past six years I've played this game, this is easily my gnarliest save to date - even Magenta the '88 Centurion LeMans had less rust. I suspect the grease, grime and animal hair it was liberally coated with preserved it, like some form of Cosmoline from hell.

jdawginsc 

Is this the one that was posted in the Craigslist/FB/Ebay thread for like $30? We were wondering about that fork...looks like it extends forward a bit.

Clang

If it got posted in that thread it wasn't by me. I think this is just how the forks look on these. The head tube angle looks pretty slack.

On the bike for sale I'm more worried about the seat being slammed all the way down.

jdawginsc 

Yeah... it almost looks like it was bent to the side AND slammed into the tube.

Found the other. Not the same. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...2111112l%22%7D
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Mr. 66

I rediscovered that I needed a trip back to the box of poo for the front brake step down stop, and I found the '68 Simplex rear derailleur from the UO 8, woohoo! I as well located some crusty worn oxidized TA Specialties cranks.



I think the driveside has already gone through some cleaning before they went into storage.