Bicycle Restorations

Over the summer, given the weather was so lovely, I was riding bikes rather than fixing them up.  Now it's not as nice, I've found myself tackling the Cruiser again.  The paintwork was very chipped and as well as one dent in the main cross tube, there were many dents in the mud guards.  New mud guards cost over £70 (inc. shipping) so going to see how both these work out with some car body filler and sanding.

Not only was today a monumental day, Emma and I celebrated our 18th Wedding Anniversary, but I also go the Shimano 3 Speed internal Nexus hub back together... with no parts left over! I gave the tyres a good scrub with soap and bleach and used a copious amount of metal polish to give some sparkle back to the spokes and rims.  Really looking good. The steering stem is still ceased in the front forks..will get more aggressive with that tomorrow...

Well nearly...I've managed to strip the bike down all accept getting the handle stem tube free.  That appears to be ceased well and good. So while that is soaked with WD-40 and tinkered with daily to try to get it free I have cleaned the grubby white wall tyres and polished up the wheels.  Once dry I am very tempted to use plimsoll whitening to get them even whiter! The Shimano hub was really stiff and grungy, so in a brave moment I have taken that apart too, let's hope I can get it all back together! The photo of the crank and front chain ring was taken before I started to clean it all up.  All came up really well, but the chrome plating on the crank arms is peeling off.  My plan is to actually sand it off to a convenient point, make good the rust and then spray the entire crank with smooth silver Hammerite paint.  This should give an even finish and also protect the steel.

I really enjoyed the process of restoring and building my first bike.  The Carlton Single Speed bike is a keeper for sure. So now I am working on a second bike.  It's a 1990s Schwinn Beach Cruiser This bike will need: A respray, there are a large number of chips and scrapes A good polish of the chrome elements Dents taken out of the mud guards Service of the 3 speed coaster brake hub New brake cables and components Someone to buy it!

The last few weeks have been a waiting game, the last few items ordered online have taken their time to arrive, the last being the brake cable end stops.  So while I had everything else together, I had no way of using the brakes. Now that it's all together and the first shake down ride complete, I am very pleased with this project.  What do you think? It's been a great project to do over the past three months, i've learnt a lot: Stripping the bike down and removing the paint took longer than I had imagined You use a lot more paint that you think, in fact I would say that I could have done more coats of paint, or been better at those that I applied Finding the right bottom bracket axle, front chainring combination is hard, in fact, I am not entirely satisfied with what I ended up with, but it works The single speed conversion hub is a genius pice of kit! Cyclecross in-line brake levers are no good if you want to have a front and bac...

One week after the clear coat was applied, I can start to put the bike back together....well with the bits that I have, even if they are temporarily off of one of my other bikes. The forks, brake callipers and modified original handlebars all went back on nicely, but when I started to size up the outer brake cables, it was clear that the cyclocross levers were not going to work. I bit of polishing on the original Weinmann levers and I actually think these look so much better. Still a list of thing to source, but starting to look really good...

I think I am trying too hard to be a perfectionist. After wet sanding the gloss coat ready for the decals, I sanded a little to heavy, or in some places the gloss coat was too thin. The up shot was that I sanded back slightly too much and in two places you could see the metal shining through. The consequence was, more sanding, more painting, hey ho. However, by the end of today I had flattened out the paint ready for the lacquer, but before I do that next week end, I was able to put the decals on. These are a replica of the ones on the original frame and I think they set the colour of really well... In between odd jobs I also wrapped the handle bars with some nice leather look bar tape...

So the primer coats have all applied well and in between coats I wet-sanded to flatten the surface.  On Bank Holiday Monday I went for the first gloss coat on the front forks. It seemed to adhere well, but I was not too worried as the instructions for the lacquer coat tells me that I need to wet sand with 1200 grit the colour coat before applying.  So if I do get any funny patches, I can sort that out with some fine sanding.  The forks after two coats of white gloss came out OK... This was the frame after two coats of white gloss as well... After closer inspection (and after I ran out of paint) I think it needs another coat or two, especially as I have to wet sand before the lacquer coat.

They say all the work is in the preparation, and they're not wrong, while last week I managed to sand the paint off the tubes with an electrical sander, this weekend I was left with the task of hand sanding all the joints. Being a vintage frame, all the joints are not butt welded like a modern frame, they have intricate lugs that hold the tubes which are then brazed into place. Anyhow, 4 hours or sanding got me to the point where I could spray the first coat of primer... On Sunday I wet sanded the primer very lightly to ensure it was smooth and applied a second coat.  While that was drying, I got to work on the brake callipers.  The ones that came with the bike will work with more standard 700c road rims, so these just needed some cleaning up.  You can see how a bit of elbow grease and Autosol did the trick with a before and after shot... I have a load of odds and ends on delivery, handle bar tape, brake cable inner and outers and brake cabl...

So the weekend started with a trip to Halfords to collect my order of 'Rattle Cans.'  A white primer, white gloss and lacquer, plus some panel wipes for cleaning the surfaces before painting. Items collected (social distancing observed), I returned home and started to sand off the paint from the forks.  I was going to use some 'Nitromors' paint stripper,  but what I had in the garage had rusted in the tin and a test patch did't do the job.  After an hour of sanding they were ready for priming.  Given this was the first time I had done spray painting, I was pleased with the outcome... I also took apart the bottom bracket as this was ceased up, I noticed this when the frame arrived earlier in the week, so I had ordered up a claw spanner and the HCW-11 Park Tool for its removal.  The axle will need replacing as well as the bearings, so am sourcing those from Firecloud Cycles I hope... On Sunday I started to play around with the handle...

During this period of lock-down, I felt I wanted a hands on project to keep me busy.  So following my cycling hobby, I decided to have a go at building a single speed bike from an old frame and second hand parts from the internet. The initial purchase came from ebay of a 1975 Carlton Circuit bike frame and forks, £45 (inc delivery), but it comes with brakes and handle bars, the crank didn't survive being taken apart.. They were the photos from the ebay listing