ollo_ollo

@rustystrings61, Seatpost measures 25.4, which co-incidentally is also the weight in pounds finished weight. Thought the flyer claim of 25 pounds weight was probably ambitious but I guess not. The non-original gel saddle, derailleurs, tires/tubes probably account for the extra 4/10th pound. Don

tarinalynn

I have a clunker to post but must first work up to my required 10 posts before I can upload photos and make my own posts... (2of10)

Insidious C. 

Welcome! Plenty of time left in this challenge to get your pics posted.

tarinalynn

Thanks! Our farmhouse driveway is beginning to look like a bike shop full of plain old hobby work. I’m still hunting for a decent place online in Canada to buy brake and shifter cables, housing and other gak besides Amazon. A friend gave us 3 broken bikes last week in hopes that my boys are really s inspired to build 3 working bikes out of them. By far, the 2 vintage Kuwahara mtb’s are my fave. Itching to find one that fits me... the XL Shasta and XL Butte are my eldests.

tarinalynn

Epic nameology! I’ve been riding the same undesignated Craigslist $75.00 find I scored 21 yers ago. She has been well cared for but has not had many upgrades. Sometimes the ol’clunkers last.

BFisher

Hey, thanks. And you are right, of course. Plenty of old bikes are still plenty useful.

darnet

Me too! I have spent amazingly few $$ but many hours getting my ride ready. It's just about ready for a test drive. I hope yours goes well.

jdawginsc 

the Bottecchia sounds really interesting. They have some of the best paint in the 1970s...easy to polish.

Mr. 66

$1.99 for a rattle can of paint! How old is that stuff? Nice.

ollo_ollo

Old, very old but not as old as the Follis. Recently married, Wife sold her home in Aloha. Furniture and some other stuff went to new home in Florida. Whatever survived the giant dumpster toss, ended up in my garage and basement shop where lots more is now being tossed or donated by me. Don

tarinalynn

Thanks and to you with yours!

scrapyardcat

This is exactly my kind of thread. I'm a massive cheapskate lmao

Late 70s- Early 80s Chimo Concourse--
Found on side of road less than a month ago. Replaced horrific mountain bike handle bars with a set of curved road bike bars off an old women's Schwinn and took the dual position brake levers along with them. Also replaced the dumpy narrow Mongoose saddle with an old Wrights springer that I took off an ancient British bike sporting a Sturmy geared hub axle, forgot the make of bike, might still go buy it for a resale, it deserves a restoration....

Bike- Free
Handle bars, brake levers, Wrights saddle- $6 bucks scrap price
Chimo still needs tubes, tires and the rear wheel needs to be trued before I can test her out.

Other bike I'm currently riding is a Roadmaster Hurricane Ridge that I again, found on the side of the road less than a week ago. Bike had a totally seized chain, derailleur, rear hub, very rough crankset, seized brakes etc etc. Almost completely toast, definitely sat in the guys yard for probably half a decade considering the condition of the drivetrain... Removed the brakes, the wheels, derailleur upper and main, all cables, handle bars. Tore it almost completely down minus the crankset and front fork assembly. Sprayed a good amount of PB Blaster into the crankset and spent a few minutes spinning it till it was ridable at least lol.

Bike- Free
Parts bike (crappy walmart Next full suspension)- $11 bucks scrap price
Scrapped parts frame and old rusty wheels- $3 greenbacks returned

Took the riser bars, the brakes, the shifters, wheels and tires, chain and derailleurs off the crappy Next bike and began to assemble some of the bits on the Roadmaster. Installed the Shimano Tourer main derailleur and the upper as well, swapped the best wheels and tires I had on, threw on the riser bars, removed all the old shoddy cables and installed just the front brakes onto the bike for now until I get some lime green cable sheath to replace the stock bits that the bike came with. Rides great considering it has terrible front brakes and is stuck in one gear for right now. Also need to figure out how to free up the seat post so I can lower the saddle a bit...

Chimo total investment- $6.00
Roadmaster total- $8.00

Total miles ridden on the Roadmaster is probably just shy of 15, I rode it to the gas station twice when initially testing it while it had no brakes, and today I took it for a nice ride to the waterfront, about 6 miles from my place one way. The Hurricane is a nice urban terrain bike for sure, but I'm dying to ride the Chimo. The Chimo is very dainty, and looks like it probably hauls ass with enough effort from the rider.

Pics will come

scrapyardcat

I like this idea. The Chimo is definitely going to get some love with new tubes and tires and bar tape, but the Roadmaster is a total beater that I'm using nothing but scrap yard and road side parts to build, other than the new lime green cable sheath which is a must have for this purple frame lol

The Roadmaster is ready for 100 miles as is, no gears and all...

Unca_Sam

...Have we considered a balance bike 100KM? I'd like to see a rolling frame, no drive train get pushed 100kms. It would be legendary!

Absent that, I think you mean a single speed, since you'd have one gear combination.

Andy_K 

After stringing together as much patience as I could manage, I'm now ready to declare the finish work on the Takara frame done (minus a few spots that may need touch up). I was really pleased with what I was able to accomplish with Rust-Oleum, wet sanding, and Meguiar's Ultimate Compound. I didn't bring the whole frame up to a uniform level of perfection, but a few parts of the main tubes look really good. I had a college calculus professor who liked to say that when you ask a mathematician to prove something, they'll go just far enough to convince themselves that it can be done, then they'll declare "Q.E.D." and leave the rest unfinished. That's kind of where I'm at with this paint job. I went far enough to convince myself that I could, given enough time and work, achieve really spectacular results with the techniques I was using and decided the rest was good enough.

I splurged on "custom" decals from doityourselflettering.com because I don't like bare frames. You may recognize the font as Arial Black Italic. Does anyone really remember what the Takara decals looked like anyway? This is kind of close.



I also felt like the seat tube needed something. The original seat tube decal was far too ornate to attempt to reproduce, so I drew some inspiration from this Takara that I found online.



A couple of years ago I ordered some chrome tape for similar stripes on my Raleigh Competition. I needed about 7 inches, but I had to order something like 50 yards, so I've basically got a lifetime supply of the stuff. I used the same tape for the transitions from paint to the chrome socks. Here's a better shot of the seat tube treatment. The tape nicely accentuates just how smooth the underlying paint isn't.



I still feel like it needs something between the stripes. I may reach out to the Black Iron Grill and see if they'd be willing to give me a suitably sized decal with their logo on it.

Finally, I left the head badge in more-or-less "as found" condition as a slight tribute to patina and originality. I also left the chrome on the fork crown exposed, even though it was originally painted, as a way of thumbing my nose at patina and originality.



I may still use this frame as a guinea pig for trying out some recently acquired Sharpie paint pens for lug lining.

jdawginsc 

that looks super cool! Like the chrome tape! Great job!

Andy_K 

Thanks! I feel like this challenge is all about doing a lot with as little as possible, and I couldn't just let @nlerner's barbershop seat tube go unchallenged. .

droppedandlost 

How did you get the tape straight? I think you're selling yourself short with how good this looks (at least through photos).

ollo_ollo

Wow Andy, it looks great. All Clunkerdom salutes you. I got my Follis operational and took her out for a little spin today. Right off, I had a big problem. Low bars plus a too high saddle, with my neck problem meant I scarcely saw where I was going. Slowly and carefully rode back to my garage, dropped saddle a bit and raised my stem to its minimum insertion mark. Did a quick "Tour de Driveway" to confirm I could see the horizon now, then called it a day. Time for an adult beverage. Don

rustystrings61 

Well, at least the seat post is free of the frame. I wound up getting a 4 oz can of Corrosion Block-



- and pumping a decent amount into the flutes at the juncture of post and tube. That soaked for more than an hour with some additional touch ups. It sat on top of a piece of cardboard in my office until it was time for me to leave work. I swung by the LBS, Bikes and Boards, where Coleman the owner clamped it up in the big bench vise. The post rotated a minuscule amount, so I took advantage of its upside down status and pumped more Corrosion Block in through a bottle boss and let it sit while I drove off to pick up my son.

We returned to find the bike unchanged. Coleman and one of his assistants spent close to 30 minutes working to free the post. They found a rhythm of wrenching it straight around clockwise, then pushing up while turning it counter-clockwise. It stayed in place for a while until enough of the aluminum oxide bond was broken and the suddenly the frame was lifting off the post.





I know, I shoulda gotten pix of Coleman pushing it around. Watching him work I KNEW I would have immobilized myself for a week with a wrecked shoulder.

It was $20 well-spent, so now I’m at $80.

UPDATE -

I took 40 minutes to polish the seatpost with 200 and 400 grit paper and to run my brake cylinder hone down the inside of the seat tube. Wiped it all clean, sprayed lots of Corrosion Block into the seat tube and slathered both that AND the seatpost with grease. The bike may have problems but I am serious about the no stuck seatposts thing! For good measure I re-installed the BB. We’ll see if I get anything done on it tomorrow!

Andy_K 

Yeah, I definitely played up the flaws because it isn't perfect. Let me be clear, I'm extremely happy with how it looks. From five feet away it looks like it could have just rolled off of the factory floor. But if you know what to look for in a not-quite-finished rattle can paint job, you'll find those things. For a Clunker build, it's embarrassingly good, but no one is ever going to look at it and wonder if it was professionally painted.

Regarding the tape, I cut strips to just over the circumference of the tube, peeled off the backing, held it by the ends, and very carefully attempted to put it on perpendicular to the tube, starting with a single spot in the middle and then pulling it tight (like you would with bar tape) as I wrapped it around, hoping the ends would meet up at the same place. The "glue" on the tape is forgiving enough that you can pull it off and try again once or maybe even twice. The hardest part was cutting the tape to the width I wanted. The roll I've got is an inch wide, but I wanted half inch strips. I thought I'd be able to use my photo cutter to keep it straight and cut along the center, but the tape is narrower than the clear plastic guide on the cutter, and the curl in the tape from having been rolled made it really difficult to keep in place. I ended up just using scissors and eyeballing it, then trimming pieces until I had four that were the same width.

Andy_K 

Outstanding! If I had to bet, I would have said that wasn't coming out. It's always impressive to see what can be accomplished with enough determination.

jdawginsc 

Might have a more appropriate clunker...don’t know why I do this to myself...

darnet

(no pics yet, making my way up to 10 required posts) Took the Green Super Course on its maiden ride Tuesday (May 25), 6.6 Kilometers. Went well except for a couple of details. I forgot how to set up handlebars, so they were pointed too downward.

And the bike was surprisingly twitchy compared with my other favorite bike, the coffee colored SC (another COVID bike, identical to my first road bike). I suspected that the mismatched front (700c) and rear (27 x 1-1/4) wheels affected the handling. So I spent hours trying to remember high school geometry and trigonometry and trying to calculate the effect on head tube angle with mismatched wheels. Turned out, I later noticed the front wheel QR skewer was open, I guess that's why newer bikes have those front fork wheel catchers! I'll ride it again I think today, same route, and see if riding on a secure front wheel makes a difference.

Regardless, if I happen to see either a 27" front or 700c rear wheel at the town dump, I'll grab it and swap it out.

jdawginsc 

Facebook marketplace. $50. The tires are like new, but cheap and look like they are cracking. Frame is in great shape, though evaporust is needed for several parts. Pictures to come.

Has the turkey levers, so I do t think it was too high up the ladder.