dbhouston 

What have I done? I've had in my head I wanted to do a touring bike, and this one turned up nearby this week. The bike is in rough shape cosmetically, but the bones are good and I'm up for a long project.










The first thing to notice is that someone in the past started scraping off the paint and got far enough to demonstrate that the frame is fully chromed. So I suppose the first step here will be to finish that job, probably leaving the head tube alone, because the black paint is in very bad shape. Once it's down to the chrome, I'll be able to think about where to go from there. Paint over chrome doesn't usually seem to adhere very well, so maybe this won't be a too terrible job. Some "aircraft remover" stripper should be fine on a chromed steel frame, right?

At the same time, I'll start in on all the other components and hope to save nearly everything.

The frame is Tange #2. Here's a good summary of the Pro Tour with the original specs for the 1984: https://www.vintage-centurion.com/mod.../protour.shtml
I think this will end up a beautiful bike that rides very nicely, but that feels a long way off right now!

bikemig 

This will be a fun project. Evapo rust will be your friend in dealing with the rust on the parts. This bike can be fixed up to look great.

You may win an award for the ugliest saddle found on a used bike. There is some stiff competition in that category though.

markwesti

Looks like a fun and worth while project . I hope you don't have to take apart the Suntour shift levers off the mount . If you do , some where around here there is a schematic .

Peruano

What's not to like. The bike has good bones. I too recently found a Centurion Pro-tour although mine is a 1979 model year built late in 1978. Different head badge, different down tube graphics, and Suntour barcons, but like your bike with a triple crank. My Sugino crank is likely a mod in being a 46,-36-26. My drive train has also been modified with a 7 speed freewheel, on Campy record hubs and 700 c Matrix ISO II rims. All good in my application even if deviating from the stock setup. My question is whether these bikes or at least some model years came with 120 spacing on the rear hub outfitted with the 5 speed freewheel or whether they futuristically had 126 spacing. My bike with its 7 speed freewheel has 126 spacing. Like your bike, mine has shed a large patch of paint on the downtube and may be destined for a mostly chrome presentation with painted highlights. I was curious about chainstay clearance. I currently have Continental Tour Plus tires 622 32's and using the allen wrench as a gauge I have about 6 or 7 mm clearance on each side of the rear tire. Head space above the front tire is also adequate for a tire size increase. The one hitch will be getting anything larger than 40 mm through the brake pads without deflation. Am I thinking correctly?

John E

The closest thing I have to a touring frame is the Carlton, and I am contemplating building it up as a 3x6 or 3x7 tourer. I definitely want something like 700Cx35 tires, but I get to buy new rims for it because I gave away the steel rims that came with it.

As obtained from my wife's younger sister. Just my size. 27" steel rims are going, along with the completely rotted tires.

At least I don't have the world's ugliest saddle.

dbhouston 

I don't know why, but I love the part where you dismantle the whole damn thing. So, that's what I did tonight.

Frame: The part of the bike that looks the worst is the part I have the most confidence in!


It takes a surprising array of tools to dismantle a vintage bicycle. And, yes, the mallet and hammer were needed. This thing was dry as a bone.

Some things already cleaned up and others taking an overnight in the Evapo-Rust.

These are nice light alloy Araya wheels with stainless spokes. I don't know what kind of life they led, but there are a couple of seriously bent spokes in there. I'll probably turn the wheels over to the LBS for a good truing after I do the bearings. When I reassemble the bike, I'll probably try some nice 700c wheels I have to see if the brakes work with them. That does open up a world of tire choices.

dbhouston 

Happily, the shifters feel fine after a ride in the ultrasonic cleaner! A light oiling and they should be good to go I hate taking apart any downtube shifters, and these do look like they'd be a bit odd. They actually say "Symmetric" right on the not-at-all symetric little housing they're in!

StarBiker

The most desirable Centurion......

I had the ubiquitous Dave Scott.....(Can't find the pic)

dbhouston 

Those were great bikes, but there do seem to be a lot of them kicking around out there. In fact, in deciding to buy this bike, I nearly went with a Trek 620 nearby, but was happy to do another Centurion.

Here's the one I had a couple of years ago:

Completely stock, which is how I sold it.

For a while, I rode it with Dura-Ace 9 speed and Spinergy wheels. Pretty sweet in this build, but the frame didn't quite fit me.

OTS 

Nice pickup.
A diamond in the rough but you are headed on the right track for sure.
Looking forward to the rest of this build.
Keep up the good work like where this is headed.

gugie 

I believe @bwilli88 stripped the paint off of his Pro Tour, came out nicely.

dbhouston 

Indeed. It was this thread on that build that persuaded me to jump in on this project: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...her-one-2.html

Unfortunately, no info on how the stripping was done since it came to him fully stripped. I'll start in on the frame soon and see what works.

nlerner

I stripped the paint from a Fuji Finest earlier this year using this stuff:



I applied it and then wrapped the tubes in plastic wrap and waited 24 hours.



It took a couple of applications and some final finish work, but I was pleased with the result.

TugaDude

Looks nice. I wonder whether powder coat might be the way to go? Reason I say that is because you've already pointed out the challenge of painting over chrome. Unless the chrome surface is "roughened up", paint will have a hard time staying bonded. At least with powder coat there might be a chance the coating maintains it's integral bond. I've owned two bikes which were fully chromed and both had peeling issues.

The Golden Boy 

Is that the stock wheel set? 40 spoke rear? Sealed bearing hubs? Cool.

While there are some good 27" wheels/tires out there, if 700C wheels don't work with your brakes- I think it would be worth it to get a set of brakes that are known to have the adjustability to be able to use 700C wheels/tires.

Peruano

Based on the fact that my 78 Pro-tour stock brakes (center pull diacompe) accepted the 700 c intrustion. I'd guess that the same would exist for dbhouston's rig. Worth a try.

gugie 

Maybe. I have an earlier model with centerpull braze-on posts. The long reach MAFAC RAIDs I used swing out wide enough for 40+ tires. The issue with the cantilever posts on your Pro Tour 15 is the posts on the fork are brazed on fairly close together. This was done on most every cantilever compatible fork built during this time period. The pre-mitered posts must assume some fairly wide fork crown, most of the ones I've seen allow for maybe 35mm wide tires to get past the brakes inflated.

Looking at your photo, just measure clearance with the brakes opened as shown below.

Peruano

Since I (peruano) have an earlier bike (78/79 ecotone) with center pull brakes and braze-on posts, I may have extra clearance as you suggest. Its the Pro-Tour 15 that got the cantilever upgrade.and might suffer the limitation you point out. The vintage Centurion site does a great job of letting you determine what features were offered on what years. There were three basic flavors of Pro-Tours. If I recall correctly, Prior to 79 (double crank and braze-one center pulls); 79-82 (triple crank and braze-on center pulls), and 83 on (with canti brakes and a triple crank). All Tange 2 frames. I can't recall about all of them having vertical dropouts but I'd guess that is the case.

dbhouston 

We'll see how the frame looks after stripping, but I think I'd be tempted to leave it chrome, at least for a while. Seems like a little wax would be all the protection it needed?

bwilli88 

I have an 81 and an 83 pro-tour. The 81 is still original paint and the 83 had been stripped. My 83 was stripped of the chrome on the seat tube to braze on some water bottle bosses. I painted satin black panels over it and on the down tube along with the head tube.
I do nothing to protect the 83 chrome one but good cleaning and a bit of wax for the 81.
700c conversion
For the 81, easy peasy. Lower the brake pads and put on the wheels, it took 38mm tires with fenders. It was tight but worked.
For the 83, the cantis do not line up for the rear wheel. The front worked ok. Better left with the 27" wheels. If I were to rebuild it, I would put on a set of Swift Sand Canyon tires or some Paselas.

Chuck M 

I remember seeing this bike listed some time back with a kid's bike too I believe. The price wasn't terrible if I recall. I'm surprised it was still hanging around as late as last week. Looks like a good project.

TugaDude

Wax seems to help preserve chrome for sure.

dbhouston 

Thought I'd clean up the earlier posts and just do one on the frame stripping. I used Rust-Oleum Aircraft Remover outdoors, and it worked incredibly well. The forks took two passes with about 20 minutes of soak time each. The frame was more stubborn, but also harder to make sure I had the stuff everywhere. This morning, I came in and cleaned up the remnants with #0000 steel wool. A few last spots to get to, probably with a soft scotch pad on a Dremel (?), and there is a bit of rust damage by the BB, but overall I'm thrilled with how this came out.

Paint stripper at work ...

After cleaning with just a plastic scraper.

This was after four rounds of stripper and scraping, you can see lots of stubborn remnants on there. After a night of drying, I gave them a pretty vigorous rubdown with #0000 steel wool, and the results are amazing!



Small rust damage area. Not sure what should go on there. Any advice would be welcome.


For the last few tricky spots like these, I'm thinking of trying soft scotch pads on the Dremel. Let me know if that seems a bad idea.

This was a lot easier than I'd feared, probably due to the chrome frame, and a lot more rewarding for the same reason! I think my next step will be to reassemble the bike pretty nearly as stock and ride it a while. Then, if I like the fit and the ride, I'll look into more substantial changes. Thinking more "city" than "expedition" here, but who knows.

I'll close this segment with some "after" porn.


Yes, the seatpost is the one that came on the bike and is as chewed up as it looks. Also, bummer, the headset races looked a little chewed up, and now that they're on, they definitely need to be replaced.

gugie 

Looks amazing! I've found that a buffing wheel works very well on chrome. Once you get the chrome down to where you want it, I'd wax the entire frame. Takes the chrome up to 11.

StarBiker

When I flipped the mint red and white one I had in a 54 CM I constantly top posted it on Balto, and DC CL and got two responses in 4 months and sold it for $180.
The bike was nice, but I just don't care for road bikes. And I did not like the wheels at all. And they were original to the bike.
(There was a four year span that I must have made 10K flipping bikes, and the dig spot was just a ten minute bike ride away)
I still couldn't believe the lack of interest in that bike. Even the buyer, a young French Man working in DC couldn't believe my price. Part of it is local CL can be a big turd. Part of it is people just don't know what that bike is. The name recognition is lost on the average CL buyer. Plus I only take emails. That might pose a problem but it weeds out the tire kickers and general time wasters. (I have never talked to anybody on the phone who bought anything)