Rooney 

To reiterate, I plan on leaving the rear at 120 with the 5-spd.

(Is anyone else getting an error message while trying to reach the 2nd page of this thread?)

Kabuki12

I haven’t visited this thread in a while. It looks like you have made decent headway in getting it on the road. It sure cleaned up nicely and the red bar tape is very nice. I agree with trimming the cables so the arch matches and don’t forget the locking acorn nut on the rear brake.

Rooney 

Good catch! It made me look at the first photos; no acorn nut on the rear brake there either. I guess there's still a part to acquire.

In other news, a pair of NOS red Cinelli Milano barend plugs arrived today. They feel a bit thin and flimsy, we'll see how they do.

Rooney 

Life and other projects have slowed progress on the Cinelli.

The last thing I was doing was attempting to true the wheels, however, neither wanted to cooperate. The front has clearly been rebuilt at some point already. I've been thinking it may be time to rebuild the wheels again, using the original hubs, which seem to be in fine shape. I work at a shop with plenty of vintage parts, including a handful of old tubular rims. There are a few grey anodized Mavic pairs and a set of Campagnolo rims which seem to be from the 80s. Neither of those options seems appropriate for the build. This set of "Record R.P. Italy" rims seems the most era correct, but I can't turn up any info on them. Does anyone recognize the label? There are no other markings on the rims.

I suppose another option would be rebuilding the wheels in their current configuration, with the hope that they'll true up better by starting over.

repechage

I have had success restarting with the same materials - but test:
is the rim flat when on a flat surface?
are all the spokes the same length?
( on a rear wheel- segregate drive and non drive side )
any dents? Sometimes fixable.
do the current spokes all fill the spoke nipples?

so can be done.

Set aside the spokes from one front wheel I took apart- too short spokes. This was probably from the factory but not good practice.

Rooney 

A quick update (from my phone):
The rims I’d previously thought about using ended up being 650c and it took me an embarrassingly long time to even notice. Luckily, there were some NOS Mavic GP4 rims kicking around, and definitely 700c. Most of this year has been me slowly trying to motivate myself to build up the wheels. When I finally got there I ran into small issue after small issue. Finally, to get the project done I had a local shop do the final tensioning and truing as I was very over the wheels and frustrated enough. I picked the wheels up today and was able to finish up the restoration. I’m sure some will wish I’d gone with silver, maybe even Italian, tubular rims, but it’s hard to beat free NOS. Im also using a four prong Suntour 5spd freewheel because it’s much easier to actually remove, whenever that time comes. I tried soldering the cable ends to recoup some points, but I haven’t soldered since design school. I used to be good. I’ll probably find some cable crimps to hide my shame.

I’ll take more photos later, it was a bit grey in Brooklyn today so you just get this one for now.

Kilroy1988 

Such a wonderful bicycle! Yeah, the black rims are pretty disappointing considering how excellent the rest of the period-correct components look together on the bike.

-Gregory

3alarmer 

...with all the stainless cabling sold nowadays, and the die drawn slick stuff, added to the new, higher temperature lead free solder, I stopped soldering these about ten years ago.
Fishing wire crimps work pretty well for me, and you can buy them everywhere there's a sporting goods or fishing supplies store, as well as internet. They go on a little neater than the aluminum bicycle ones.

repechage

old cables have a lot of oxidation. Really a challenge.
‘I have had some success with silver soldier, but with cadmium… good luck finding that today and you need the proper flux and a hot torch.

decades ago there were soldier pots, where a couple fluid oz of soldier were kept molten, a cable could be dipped in, the cables were fresh, the safety rules were lax. How Campagnolo finished the ends of their brake cables.

Rooney 

It’s a slight relief to read that it’s not entirely due to my lack of practice that the soldering didn’t go smoothly. Thank you for the lessons!

Sierra

My recent experience with soldering the "new" stainless cables is that if you get them too hot the solder just rolls off.
If I get the cable just warm enough to melt the solder it seems to flow in much better.

heidelbergensis 

Beautiful Cinelli! I honestly don't really mind the anodized rims. Maybe I'll see this in person sometime tooling around Prospect??

Kabuki12

Nice job on your Cinelli. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a photo of it. I like the way it looks now with the wheels and gum wall tires. I know it is different than what most would expect , but , it looks just right IMHO. I was faced with a situation when I put my Raleigh Pro on the road. I just could not find an appropriate wheel set for the bike , plus I was on a tight budget. I found a bike for sale on CL for $100 that had a really nice set of GP 4 rims laced to some early Phil Woods hubs, plus some other really nice components. I wasn’t sure they would look right on my late seventies Pro , but after I put it all together , it looked fine. Now , ride the heck out of that bike!

bikemig 

That bike looks great. Don't listen to the nattering nabobs of negativity who are dinging the rims. The bottom line is that you built this bike to ride and these are quality strong rims.

repechage

about 1975 for brazed on water bottle bosses. I write about as there were just not many new ones around in the early, middle 70’s.
Spence Wolf records are out there, and there was an East Coast importer, maybe less than 100 coming into the USA per year.
Allen key bar clamping was about 1973. It might have started earlier, stock was not always rotated. There were no “model years”.

The dark anodized rims did not jump out at me. Mine had a mixed set of a no name and a Fiamme Red for the rear, Reds were typical. I found a NOS set of Fiamme Yellow Labels so that is what it wears now.
my bike is about ‘71-‘72- does have brazed on shift cable guides at the bottom bracket.

smd4

Beautiful bike! Personally, I really like dark anodized rims.

Bad Lag

O rings are available at almost any hardware store to replace the one missing from the rear brake's adjuster.

You'll need to install it before you finalize the brake cables.

repechage

nah, Campagnolo is very accommodating. And those O rings are not standard hardware store inventory now.

Bad Lag

What do you mean about "accommodating"? Do they send them free or something?

I do not know your area, but around here every hardware store has plumbing supplies and o-rings seals are a staple. I have a small package of them left over from my last purchase. They do tend to embrittle and crack, so I keep a few spares.

merziac

Massage with vaseline the night before then wipe off good so they don't slip.

Many standard hardware store o-rings that fit right are slightly smaller gauge and don't quite fill the groove properly.

I can easily live with it but.....

merziac

Dark rims and whatever else it takes to get there that you can live with, "sympathetic" build is the order of the day, now days.

Plenty of these are not "correct" or have been for a long time.

smd4

In case you don't want to settle for black:

Bike O Rings

I have them in white. They fit beautifully.

Bad Lag

True for many, but keep looking. O rings are sold based upon diameter or the ring and diameter of the rubber. Look for ones that fill the groove.

If you cannot find what you want here, something is wrong. Link to McMaster-Carr

merziac

I know, I was pointing out that many stores don't have the stock they used too, the common sizes now don't always fill the bill or groove.

I'm fine with it and don't go out of my way when close enough works.

repechage

there is no problem exchanging an adjuster wheel O ring after the cable has been assembled once and a cable end fitted. Undo the cable clamp nut all the way slide the cable through the arm, load the O ring, reassemble.
other brands like the old Weinmann’s or some Dia-Compe, Universals won’t allow similar procedures, but they did not use O rings, some later Suntour calipers would allow and did use O rings.