landster

does anyone know anything about this nikishi frame? i bought it a few years ago as frame only from japan, looking i havnt been able to find another nikishi with original track endsi tried to include pictures of all the detailed areas of the frame. it originally had a ZJ stamped shimano bb which i replaced but still have somewhere

imgur.com/a/DKNVw

i posted about the bike previously but never saw any replys, the original post was on page 35 and its mentioned a few years later on pages 62 and 68. i posted about it again as i started cycling again recently and was interested in it again

curbtender

curbtender

mikefitz

Hi Sloper

I bought one of these Nishikis at a yard sale in San Diego 7 years ago. You find out any more about it?

Mikefitz2112@gmail.com

Londonsworld 

Pletscher front rack
Nishiki bag that fits nicely on the rack
Problem solvers for the DT shifters
First attempt at harlequin wrap - need more practice...lol

3speedslow

That's a decent first try at a hard wrap! Keep at it.

mas76

I picked up a Nishkik Kodiak off Craigslist yesterday.

serial number F1G00227

I'm new to the forum and trying to sort through all the posts to decipher this serial number.

T-Mar

Your Kodiak is a Canadian market model manufactured in 1991 but based on the non-drive side picture you posted in another thread, it has been rebuilt and significantly downgraded.

mas76

Here is a pic of the drive side. photos.app.goo.gl/EOJ9FZbHNWNjPhek1

It has the Shimano Biopace crank. I know someone replaced the seat and the handgrips. I am curious as to what has been downgraded on this bike?

Thanks.

I will post pics of the serial number once I have enough posts on the forum to insert the URL links.

T-Mar

Matt, based on the picture I can tell you that at least the wheels, crankset and pedals have been downgraded, though I cannot identify these components due to picture quality.

mas76

Thanks, I will try to get some better pictures. what should the correct wheels and crankset be on this bike?

I liked that it was the same blue and yellow colors of by first bike, an old nishiki 20" dirt bike i got in the early 80's.

I thought the Shimano Biopace crankset was intetesting so thought it was worth trying out. This one needs a new seat and the seatpost is cracked so I need to replace that too. Is it worth putting a little more money into it for a new seat and seatpost? Or with one has been downgraded on it should I just cut my losses and junk it?

Londonsworld 

Finally got around to installing the Alfine Crankset and BB. Trying to talk my buddy out of the checkered Velocity hoop for the Nishiki. Another dumpster find yesterday. Nice Peugeot U08? getting some surgery....

T-Mar

If the cranks are OEM, that Peugeot might be a U09.

zukahn1 

Wow the OEM paint is great on the UO framed Peugeout it should be saved from half ass ss/fg fate.

Londonsworld 

Yeah, I agree....no need to hack it up that way. The bike is in amazing shape.....

Hummer

Hello collegebudget,

welcome to the forum.

The bicycle frame was probably made by Giant of Taiwan. From the serial numbers that I have seen Giant made the Sport model frame from 1977 to 1989.

In the years when the serial number was stamped on the non-driveside dropout, it was normally seven digits long. Usually, but not always, the first digit in the serial number indicated the year of manufacture. The drive side dropout had a date code stamped on.

Your serial number is only six digits and starts with a "3". In 1983 the Sport model did not come with a Suntour Honor rear derailleur.

Hmmm. What is going on?

There is another Sport model that only had a six digit serial number.

https://www.bikeforums.net/17915790-post1383.html

The sport model in the link above was a 1979 model year. If your Sport has the same headbadge then you have a 1979 model year Nishiki.

The other possibility is that you did not read or transcribe the serial number correctly.

Pollster

Hi all, I have a Nishiki Century that I've been riding daily this year. It's in great mechanical shape, but has some paint scratches and peeling decals. I plan to powdercoat the frame and add custom decals this winter, but before that happens I want to try to figure out its date and company of manufacture.

I don't have any Giant ID on the dropouts, nor do I have anything matching the format of the Derby ID. My Suntour derailer date code appears to align with December of 1991, but I'd like to get a positive ID on the frame itself if possible. I've taken one photo of the bike as a whole and one of a chickenscratch ID that appears underneath the frame, and hopefully between the decals and the ID format we might be able to figure out when it was produced. I can't post full URLs until I reach ten posts, but the gallery is located at imgur dot com slash a slash 2OUXf.

Since the photo of the ID is somewhat unclear, those numbers are either 186-42-0119, 188-42-0119, or something similar. The third number and final number are somewhat hard to interpret.

Thanks for any insight you might have!

T-Mar

Based on the Performance Equipe decal, this is a 1989 or 1990 model, so the reasr derailleur would appear to be a replacement. By this time Giant had eliminated the dropout date code and incorporated the date into a proper serial number on the bottom bracket shell. However, I believe the latest cases that I've seen Giant being involved in Nishiki manufacturing is circa 1987. It's tempting to look at your serial number and say that it is format 1YY-WW-XXXX. The 42nd week of 1988 is late enough to make it a 1989 model.

Pollster

Thanks for the thorough response; I appreciate it. This is likely to be from a small batch made by an unknown shop before manufacturing started in Washington, then?

Hummer

Hi Pollster,

I think that the number you have given is not the serial number, but a number that has been scratched into the frame for identification in case of theft.

Your bicycle has a Taiwan decal so the frame may have been made by Giant. Typically, Giant made frames with forged dropouts had the serial number stamped into the bottom bracket shell. I have seen Nishiki bicycles with Giant serial numbers up to the year 1989, but not for the Century model. As previously stated your Century looks like 1989 or 1990 model year, based on the decal layout.

Other Nishiki bicycles with Taiwan frames from around 1990 have had the serial number stamped on the seat tube, lower down on the non-drive side.

Pollster

Upon looking very closely, I found a serial number at the bottom of the seat tube, partially hidden under a National Bike Registry sticker. After peeling the sticker away, it reads SC90204397. Intuitively, that probably indicates the 20th week of 1990. Do you know if that format corresponds to a known manufacturer serial number system?

Hummer

Hi Pollster,

thanks for getting back with the serial number. This is not a Giant serial number. The first digit "9" is for the year of manufacture of the frame, 1989. The next "02" is the month, February.

I have seen a couple of other Nishiki serial numbers that start with "SC".

Pollster

Thanks, that makes sense. Do we have any idea who the manufacturer might have been at the time? Unless the manufacturer country sticker is misleading, I assume it's somebody else in Taiwan.

Hummer

I do not know who the "SC" manufacturer is. Someone else might. I would believe the Taiwan sticker, I have seen it on other Nishiki frames from this time period.

T-Mar

Pollster,

While the first numeric character has a high probability of being the year indicator, I can't make a definitive statement based on a sample of one. Furthermore, while the second and third numerals may indicate the month, there is an equally likely possibility that the second alpha character is the stratifier and could be a month or fortnight indicator. Regardless, the three most common methods of reverse engineering all point towards early 1989 manufacture and therefore a 1989 model.

One thing is for certain, it is not Giant. Nor is it from the roughly half half dozen other Taiwanese manufacturers that were responsible for the vast majority of Taiwanese bicycles in the late 1980s. It would appear to be from one of the dozens of other smaller manufacturers.