Bicycle Restorations

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