Jeff Wills

I have a set of nearly unused Mighty Tour cranks and your measurements confirm what I saw when I mounted them. The tapers are closer to ISO than JIS. If I get around to completing the bike that they're on, I'll switch to a Campy cartridge BB I have... somewhere.

noglider 

I agree that my impression is that Campy BB races are more durable than Sugino, but I don't have a ton of data to confirm this.

bwilli88 

Nice find. I really like my Pro Tours, i i have an 81 with the stud mounted centerpulls and an 83 with the cantilevers. Prefer the 81 over the 83.

DiegoFrogs

It's the same color and, I think, size as my 1977. Great riding bike. I've been riding mine for about 11 years now and took it with me every time I moved, including twice across the Atlantic.

The original post is a 26.8 mm smooth SR 2-bolt post, similar to Campy style.

The original wheels should have had Sanshin Pro Am low-flange hubs with QRs and oil ports and 27" Araya clincher rims.

Pull that top bottle cage and see what's going on under there... Mine only has bosses for the lower one.

Mine came with two plastic cable 'clamps' on the top tube that did a lousy job. I quickly replaced them with modern stuff from Dia Compe and have had no complaints over the years, though it's unusual that the bike gets wet these days.

I bought mine in original, filthy condition from a neighbor for $40 months after they left it behind and moved away. My first clue that it was special was the barcons I could see sticking above the railing it was locked to because the bars were flipped bum-bike style. I couldn't even tell the stays were chromed until I got it cleaned up!

DiegoFrogs

More details about mine from when I got it are here.

dddd

Thanks much, DiegoFrogs.

Learned a lot and did like you said and inspected the bottle cage scenario on my Pro Tour.

I'd been too busy with the other details, like the 3 hours I put into each wheel, un-freezing many spoke nipples using the propane torch, and using battery acid to dissolve crusty white deposits from the hub flanges, to de-rusting the top tube with a vinegar soak, to torch-blasting the quill stem to un-stick the quill.

My water bottle bosses are indeed a riv-nut modification, though positioned with such great accuracy that it had to have been professional. One cage was stainless steel, which promoted such galvanic action that the one Riv-Nut spun before the threads broke free. I had to grind the head off and reconsider my entire bottle cage approach (that bolt isn't coming out).

I'm pro'ly 20 hours into this thing. Today was the day that I got to ride it in good weather, got in 40 miles, 27 miles with the club on a sporting ride in steep terrain.
You were right about the wheels, too. My frame spaced at 119mm, the wheels spaced at 124mm. I cold-set the frame to 123mm and called it good, as the tubing was unusually difficult to bend!
I installed a 6-speed Uniglide freewheel, 13-28t, and a new Shimano HG70 chain that is longer to handle a possible 13-32t freewheel. No axle spacing work needed, I have 3.6mm clearance and that is enough on this frame.

The original wheels would have had the troublesome stainless spokes, don't ask me how I know but they fatigue early and fiercely. I'll take these corroded plated ones, I got all of the nipples turning using the torch in about 25 cases, didn't break even one! My wheel bearings were fine!

The stuck stem finally yielded to a real torch-blasting, smoke was issuing from the top nut area so it was "guttenhot", then after cooling for five minutes the stem broke free with reduced effort, hurrah!

My stash of 27x1" Paselas came in handy, one of Nashbar's close-outs from 9 years ago, I bought 20! These plump out to 26mm on the 25mm (external) Araya rims.

Today's ride went well, the bike's sporting geometry very much in evidence as the steering is light and quick, courtesy of the low-trail fork in a 72.5-degree headtube.
Finally getting the handlebar stem un-stuck and lowered was a big improvement in terms of stability, and it only took three rest stops for me to get everything dialed in.

I should remind everyone not to trust what might be lurking under old cotton bar tape, my handlebars had a pretty serious amount of corrosion under that old tape!

My top-tube soaking for 24 hours using balsamic vinegar (no kidding) removed perhaps 40% of the ugliness. Replacing the rusted housing clips itself made an additional huge improvement.

So that's about it. The original cabling all works fine, though I replaced the rear derailer housing loop with new modern stuff for a big improvement in shifting feel. I will probably be changing the bottom bracket eventually, as the original bb seems to push out the chainline a bit more than I want.

curbtender

Nice, almost like you've done this before.

DiegoFrogs

Mine was the first bike I ever cold-set, from 120 to 135 mm, using a steel L-bracket from a bed frame. It took some real courage, and a six-pack of strong beer to get me there. I had always suspected that there had been something wrong with the alignment of the dropouts, because it was hard to drop the wheel out and get it back in even when pushing them open. Sure enough, after the cold-setting, the DOs were perfectly aligned, and the wheel slipped in and out without trouble! It's a good thing, too, because those dropouts are beefy and small, so it might have been hard to bend all that back into parallel. I wish I had checked that a couple years earlier... I probably should have tried that on one of my gas pipers first, but there turned out to not be any consequences.

DiegoFrogs

Here's my old girl as she presently sits.

I have all of the other original parts, but the wheels were donated to a coop before a move many years ago. The brakes adjusted easily for 700c wheels.

Keep in mind that the front of the fork crown isn't drilled through. These were intended for an original Jim Blackburn front rack that wrapped-around the fork crown and mounted to the rear with a threaded Phillips screw. It keeps the front of the crown looking really slick, but makes it difficult to attach accessories. I mounted my dynamo headlamp to a longer stainless bolt on the DS brake mount with threaded nuts to keep it in place. I've been intermittently on the lookout for one of the JB racks for a long time.

dddd

That's great to know that this bike's particular calipers adjust down to 700c, like it was perhaps designed to do(?).

I'll have to check what the bottom bracket height is like as it sits.

I'm about to change my handlebar to a standard Nitto 42cm B105 bend that I found at the co-op having both ends already shortened for the bar-end shifters.
I'll be replacing the shift housings with lined, compressionless housings at the same time, and new cables too of course.

I did a test with my rear hub, installing a 7s Dura-Ace freewheel to check how thick of an axle washer that I will need to add for the wider freewheel. It only needed 2.5mm thick washer on the driveside end to have needed clearance and for the derailer to shift fully across it.
I also tested a Sunrace 7s freewheel and discovered that an additional 2+mm of driveside axle spacers is needed for that one!
A newer Chinese Shimano 7s freewheelactually wouldn't go onto the hub's threaded snout all the way without bottoming on the dust cover area, so all this leaves the Dura Ace freewheel as the only practical 7s choice that I tried.

Unlike your Pro Tour, mine seems to be moving away from it's Touring designs, so maybe call this one sport touring?

I believe that my frame is the 23" model, measured C-C and having a 57cm toptube with 73X72.5 ST and HT angles. Luckily the factory 9cm stem seems to be the exactly best size for me to have a perfect fit on this bike.

dddd

It's been three weeks of riding this thing now, and despite lots of wet weather I've been riding it whenever I can in it's final configuration, about 200 miles to date.

The new 42cm bar was as expected a huge improvement. The 13-28t freewheel always gets the job done and the bike's tune-up has been holding it's edge (despite a few trail rides and hose-downs).

The centerpull brakes are stunningly powerful with the original old 1976-production pads.

The bike comes in all-up at 24lbs without the bottle, rides sportingly but betrays it's touring intentions (wheelbase) whenever I'm off of the saddle. It does handle my hardest pedaling efforts without much in the way of flex however, and the steering response is as I mentioned quite quick.

I had never much liked these old bar-end shifters until now (as fitted with entirely modern cabling). It manages to be a sporting setup!

I have found the1" Paselas on the wide 25mm rims to feel a bit slippery over pavement-edge seams and such, my carelessness got me sideways a couple of times already and cut one of the sidewalls at the same time. I must have forgotten what kind of bike I was riding as I did my usual errands and club rides(?). I'm runnng 80psi for my 150# mass.
I'm liking the 6s freewheel for it's ability to cross-chain fully without much in the way of rumble or perceived friction. This often saves me from having to drop from the 52 to the 36t (the big dump).

I took this picture just before forever soiling the new tires by riding in the wet conditions. I guess this thread's a wrap.

noglider 

So wider tires are a better choice? And what width did you (or will you) switch to?

dddd

I put the 1" tires on knowing that the mounted width would be a healthy 26mm which is to my liking.

But there is something about this setup, perhaps the wide rim's resulting tread crown profile is putting down the thinner rubber at the sides, and perhaps explaining my sidewall cut as well as my slip-outs.
And then there is the "touring" tire tread compound to consider, as I am used to more of a racing tire on all of my narrow-tire bikes (vs. my usual around-town hybrid).

I'll leave it as is for now, since the tire booted nicely (with just a strip of narrow velox rim tape now crossing the cut on the inside of the casing).

It's just more or less another road bike as it is now, but a pretty comfortable one, and one with a story. And it's one that I don't mind using for winter riding, so perhaps fenders are in it's future(?).

dddd

To better answer Tom's question, yes, wider tires would have been a better choice here, might calm the steering as well.
I have a pile of the 1" wired-on TourGuards here that were an 8.99 Nashbar close-out about 7-8 years ago.

DiegoFrogs

You could definitely do worse for a winter bike.