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| mess o cables & housing |
As you may have noticed I have been posting allot lately, being in job search mode means that I have more time on my hands than usual and between that and the bad taste I had in my mouth from the failed Junk bike experiment I went on a bit of a cleaning jag. My cable and housing have been a bit scattered for a while and when I got it all together - the mess above - I was a bit shocked at just how much I had! I tend to keep the leftovers.
I had this idea that if I had a tube, like what posters get shipped in, I could contain all the housing and my local art & frame shop had an old one they were willing to give me. I had a few housing lengths that were so long that even in the tube they were flopping around so those got coiled and zip tied. And the brake and shift cables got sorted and separated.
And finally its all cleaned up, contained and stowed away. I don't think I am buying any complete cable and housing sets for a while.
My dining room area is essentially my "shop", its where I have my bike stand (on a tarp) and since July, when I took apart the Gitane , it has been covered in bike parts. Lately though, in addition to just looking like a mess I was starting to have a hard time finding stuff so I decided it was time to clear the decks.
One of things I would have a hard time finding was tools, where is the %$&^! Y hex wrench! I went through the tool box section by section to reorganize and put all the tools away, which has made them much easier to find. We'll see how long it lasts.
I teased in my last post with a shot of the 1974 Nishiki Professional and I was able to get it all broken down. This is a project bike I should have passed on, that is what happens from spending too much time looking at bikes on CL. The tear down went smooth...mostly...
The notched spacer you see about half way up the threads was so tight to the cup that I thought they might be one piece. I got it started but then it didn't want to go any further and I had to struggle a bit.
Since I had just got done cleaning up my tools I recalled that I had a Park HCW 7 that I almost never use but I thought its 32mm end might work on this headset and sure enough between it and a pin spanner on the spacer I got the two pieces separated and off the bike. I may have to start using the Park tool rather than the adjustable wrench on headsets. At one time I considered using this frame as a platform for a junk bike/stealth commuter but I am just not inspired enough by it to do so and since its a tall frame I would have a small pool of buyers for that kind of bike.
So its off to the growing pile destined for scrap. The good thing about the Nishiki is that I didn't pay much for it and it has enough interesting parts that might even turn a profit if I can sell a few of them, and additional income would be nice these days.
I have a complete vintage Sugino Maxy crankset with dust caps and Sugino bb that I think might be worth something on ebay especially if I clean and polish them up.
Love the logo details on these cranks.
I also like the look of this forged Dia-Compe stem so I will clean it up and see if there is any eBay interest.
There should be a screw and nut where the bailing wire is in the shot above. I am not saying I won't sell them but I want to play around with them a bit before I decide. They still have value even as parts.
This sad little simplex RD will probably join the two or three others I have rattling around in my parts bin and..
Since it came with a baggie of parts I hope to get one complete derailleur from my pile of Simplex's.
I have three complete bikes that I could potentially work on but for some reason this frame set in the boneyard piqued my interest.
Its a 21 inch Schwinn Traveler III and I believe, based on its Pearl Blue color and model, that it's from 1978. And there is plenty of info on this bike on the web, in addition to the 78 catalog there is also a video from the BikemanforU.
It's the same year and color as the Schwinn LeTour I built for my sister-in-law and like the Le Tour its a made in Japan model. It is, however, not without issues. I picked up this frame-set from Bikeworks for $5 a number of years ago when they were having a frame sale and its in rougher shape than I remembered.
There are plenty of rust spots on the frame and the headset as you can see, a big paint scrape on the top tube and overall its in the fair/poor end of the condition spectrum.
Sorry for the blurry photo but this rear derailleur cable stop isn't stopping anything as its only half there, nothing some tape or a zip tie can't fix but it would need to be dealt with. There are also no seat tube or down tube shifter cable stops, they would have been clamp on cable guides when this bike was stock.
No seat post nightmare as this frame has a post, shim and the stock seat post binder - you can almost make out the "S" under the rust and grime.
It also had a rusty crusty Shimano sealed square taper bb which I removed, it was shot and had the cheap plastic cup on the non drive side, which I am not a fan of, so there is no bb. The now departed sealed bb was not stock for this bike, so someone did some work on the Traveler at some point in its life.
- I could donate it back to Bikeworks when I was there 10 months ago they were short on project bikes and frames, might not be the case now but you never know.
- Add to the scrap pile, I don't want to be a guy that just scraps old frames but the argument could be made for this particular one.
- Go the junk bike route - might be a too soon.
- The frame is too rough, as is, for my standard refurb but it might be a good rain bike candidate, like what I did with the Tiger, I think I have enough parts on hand to build up a full bike.
I am trying to do a better job of being deliberate about what I spend my time on rather than just jumping right in. What do you think? feel free to chime in. We'll see what happens, until next time Ride.Smile.Repeat
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