AdventureManCO 

I mean, I've got a free Huffy for you, and you probably have plenty of Campagnolo that you could rob from some of your other bikes (the nicer, more grail-like, the better)...

AdventureManCO 

IT WAS YOU!!!

I went back to find that post and I just had to quote it here to give you props. And you even had the prophetic line 'a few minutes with an angle grinder...' hahaha NAILED IT man! I love it!


The only deviation I have from your entire statement is that I do think it matters. Because many a squinty-eyed enthusiast will come up to the head tube, look reeeeaal close and mutter quietly to themselves something along the lines of 'Does that really say Campagnolo next to a Huffy logo??...'

Why, yes, yes it does! How astute of you to notice

SoCaled 

Sorry, my Photoshop game in not in the same league with Tiger's

cudak888 

Let's put it this way: I know the source I'll pilfer from

-Kurt

AdventureManCO 

You can have all the Huffy parts you want/need, but you'll have to take them off the Paramount first.

stoneageyosh

I am very glad that AMCO is sufficiently proficient with an angle grinder as well as having the inclination and tools to check his progress and final result. Because of his diligence and patience, he did not prevail upon anyone with actual precision framebuilding tools to do in twenty minutes what took him many hours to accomplish. The thought of professional tools such as Park or Cyclo being sullied by use on a Huffy would be frowned upon. Heaven forbid even considering having a Campy tool set within the same zip code much less being brought into direct contact with such a frame.

AdventureManCO 

Okay, update for the night.

I didn't want to go out to the garage and work on the Le Grande. I just wanted to stay in where it's nice and warm and eat Cracklin' Oat Bran. I did for a little but, but then breathed a sign of exasperation 'Yaaaay time to work on the Le Grande...yet again!'.

I think we got the FD cable guide mainly sorted. It took 10x as long as I thought it would, with way more effort than I ever thought I'd need to dish out. No wonder I'm always so tired these days!

I hadn't really run a cable in it yet, just sort of eyeballed it and figured it wouldn't work as is. I wasn't too wrong -



With about 1-2mm to spare between the cable and the seat tube, you can see we are off about 3/8" or more from the FD.




Making contact with the FD, we also make contact with the seat tube. No buenoissimo!


So I picked up this stainless steel tube to use as a guide extension, and I was a bit worried the ID might not work, so based on the dimensions and the steel gauge, I did a bunch of calculations and came to the conclusion that it should work.


Good news...it did!



So now it was time to get it in shape. For that, let's make a pattern!








Okay, so now we have our basic form. We will use this to bend the tube into the general shape to match the curve of the lower cable guide. Now, we work a lot in copper and anytime you are bending soft copper, you want it supported from either the inside or outside, so that when you bend it, it won't ovalize. I wanted to do both, and the first this was to fill the inside with something so that while bending, the tube couldn't pinch down on itself. I had the shift cable, but that wouldn't do much good, because if it pinched down onto that and then stopped, that is the size I need to run in there so I'd be stuck.

The next thing to try is brake cable, which is thicker. If it closed down on that, I'd still probably be left with enough tolerances inside the tube to pass a shift cable through it.


Would it work?





Actually, it did!





It filled up darn near all the inside of that tube, which was perfect. Since I also wanted to support the tube on the outside, I filed a little support channel down into my form-





And 'Bends Away!!!'





Lookin' good.

AdventureManCO 

Now, next up was fine tuning the length and the bends and seeing if we could actually get shifts out of this thing.



Well, that entering trajectory will not do!




Ahh...better!





It was looking good, so we cut to length, faced the cut end, and chamfered the entry and exit points -





So...will it shift???








Yes indeed!





Because just the tube resting in the slot and up against the frame is not very solid, we will need to secure it a little better. The tube is just a bit too large to ride up in the channel of the cable guide where the cable would normally rest. So we mark things up and prep for some epoxy -

AdventureManCO 

Tube is now secured onto the guide. It was then taped, left to cure about 30 min, and then the tape was removed and the marker lines all cleaned up. It is resting now for curing.




This is not the only way it will be secured. Earlier in the thread someone had posted a picture of a tool that they or their dad made with wraps of something, and some epoxy. We are going to do the same to a couple spots on this guy, to give it a more mechanical connection. I will probably use just a tiny bit of copper wire due to 1) bling and two 2) I can get some. Also, see that little tab on the bottom of the guide? On a normal (not ridiculous dumpster bike) that little tab likely rests up against the bottom bracket shell to space it correctly. On our bike, nothing spaces correctly, including this guide, so that little tab does nothing. It is feeling sad and depressed and left out. Well, no more! We will bend it up and use it for a mechanical connection for the bottom of the tube.



While this cable guide setup isn't necessarily ideal, neither is having a boat anchor as a frame in your bike project, so we are going to roll with it. It's got that nice little 'C-a-m-p-a-g-n-o-l-o' roll mark so it can still contribute a little bit of shock value. I'll live with it, for now. I could come up with some other solutions, but the brain power required would overload my circuits at this point. After the bike ride, I'll have more time to think about it. The addition of the tube gets us shifting, so as long as we secure it, we are good.



While I was at it, I thought I would clean up the clamp area, as it was bothering me how dirty it was. Well, this little adapter piece, which I had every intention of removing, basically melted into the paint haha, so it was going NOWHERE. Since I didn't want to scratch the paint getting it off or worse, rip up paint with it, I just decided to leave it on and work around it. While at first I thought it sucked, it actually will help me locate the right location again for the cable guide. I'm okay with it.



Cleaning the paint aroundit also kinda sucked, so an old toothbrush worked great with some polishing compound.



I actually cleaned up most of the bottom bracket and feathered the paint in where I touched it up from the brazing via wet sanding and polishing. What is really weird is the colors don't totally match down there now. I got it looking okay, but you can see the color transition if you look. I wonder if that is heat from the brazing that changed the slightly older paint a different shade (and by 'slightly older paint' I mean by a week). Oh well. I'll probably end up redoing the whole thing if I come up with a different cable guide solution.

I didn't get any more pictures of cleanup as my phone died, but I'm glad it is looking better. I need to pick up some goof off for some sticker residue. I feel like a zombie.

Time for bed!

Oh! One last thing! I got a notification that the last piece of my cycling gear arrived. No sneak peaks until ride day, but you are gonna like it. I didn't even know such things existed, really completes the whole ensemble.


Next up, either the brake adapter or the RD hanger.


EDIT: Oh, and if you can't tell, I definitely misplaced the Campy bolt and washer for the FD cable clamp. Hmmmmmm

AdventureManCO 

Excellent. Say no more! Enough of a reason right there!

Eventually I would like to face the headtube just cause, and I'm curious to see how close I got.

RB1-luvr

fixed it for you.

stoneageyosh

You could check the head tube races for squareness to the tube and parallel to each other if you really have to know. Reaming and facing does depend somewhat on how it is done, even with the best hand tools. Having seen even Campy facing, reaming and BB tools misused with resultant tool damage there is no guarantee of accurate results unless the user is properly trained. Don’t want to go off on a major rant here so, the end.

AdventureManCO 

Good thing it won't happen any time soon, as I still haven't found anyone local willing to dirty their name on the project


Gonna try to work more on the RD hanger today. Tomorrow is a bit of a work day (not for the bike), so Sunday could be an option to jump back in the mud. I keep thinking that next weekend is the big weekend. It's not, but it is doing some good thinking like that, since it is keeping me on my toes.

Also going to try to cut down the seatube overhang since I need to get that seat lower by about 2 whole inches. Probably going to re-drill the seatpost as well. I will get a detail post on the seatpost probably sometime early next week.

Mr. Spadoni 

[QUOTE=AdventureManCO;22894814]Okay, update for the night.

I didn't want to go out to the garage and work on the Le Grande. I just wanted to stay in where it's nice and warm and eat Cracklin' Oat Bran. I did for a little but, but then breathed a sign of exasperation 'Yaaaay time to work on the Le Grande...yet again!'.

I think we got the FD cable guide mainly sorted. It took 10x as long as I thought it would, with way more effort than I ever thought I'd need to dish out. No wonder I'm always so tired these days!

I hadn't really run a cable in it yet, just sort of eyeballed it and figured it wouldn't work as is. I wasn't too wrong -



With about 1-2mm to spare between the cable and the seat tube, you can see we are off about 3/8" or more from the FD.




Making contact with the FD, we also make contact with the seat tube. No ……

*WAIT! The goal has been to make the bike lighter, right? So if you had taken a 2” price of housing, slipped over the cable, the seat tube would have been protected, and you wouldn’t have added the weight of the stainless tube. I know this works as I have a bike with braze on guides that has the same problem you encountered. Took me 30 seconds to fix. I think you should do it again with my lighter fix.

gilesa

Tiger's fix eliminates a sharp bend in the cable where it left the guide, caused by the guide being too far forward. But that tube really should have been titanium, or beryllium-lithium alloy, for extra lightness. No materials are too exotic for this machine.

wschruba

Wasn't gonna burst AMCOs bubble, but you can buy aluminum "fuel line" for RCs in aluminum

Eric F 

IMO, with the movement of the cable when shifting between chainrings, I would expect aluminum tubing to fatigue and fail where it exists the Campy clamp. A more durable - or more flexible - material seems like a better choice.

gilesa

The tube might be flared at the exit by mounting it in a drill chuck before bending and forcing the point of a lubricated nail into it while it rotates. A sort of metal spinning operation. But the lithium may catch fire, so a Campagnolo nail with superior surface finish should be used.

But that does not address the possibility of fatigue failure where the tube leaves the guide. Perhaps a hand-crafted CF tube formed around a greased brake cable? Obviously that will be a Phase 2 component.

Mr. Spadoni 

Or AMCO could simply bend the arm of the FD to make a smoother line. But then AMCO would then stand for Abusing Many Campy Objects

AdventureManCO 

See folks? The power of collective Huffy engineering is what turns this Le Junk into a bundle of joy.

Good points were made, and I'll have some time with which to address the FD guide conundrum. I think we will be in business for now, and then off to other more pressing matters.

I was working all day today (just got home in fact) so no work on the Le Grande has commenced. And probably none will, at least tonight. I have a feeling there might be a riot at Le Grande HQ if that were to happen Maybe tomorrow.

Points to address:

1. Cutting seat tube shorter
2. Modifying seatpost to get seatpost lower
3. Slimming down seatpost clamp and polishing
4. Reinforcing FD cable guide

More to come for sure. I won't be able to work on the bike tonight, but I sure will be available for all complaints and general heckling for anyone who wishes to contribute!

cudak888 

Cut the seat tube flush with the top tube and braze on some seatlug ear clamps

-Kurt

AdventureManCO 

Well, at least someone took me up on the offer


I really have no reason to keep posting until I do more on the bike, but the seat tube/seatpost/clamp stuff should be easy enough to knock off the list, and also reinforcing the cable guide. I'll throw the chainstay guide in some Evaporust today and clean it up to prep it.

I hope that I'll be able to get this thing together to at least ride it a few miles before taking on a mainly unsupported, dozens-of-miles ride to iron out all the issues.

Also got wind that another component showed up in the mail, so we'll check that today. Gonna be a chill (but hopefully productive) day at Le Grande HQ!

AdventureManCO 

I'm okay with that


Absurd Man Concocting Obscenities?

Amazing Mechanic Creating Obfuscations?

And, Making Cruddy Offenses?

SoCaled 

I know you have already picked out a jersey but @Mr. Spadoni might be on to something?

AdventureManCO