Passage Refit Part V - 2 bearings down 2 to go

I have spent the last week doing my best impression of Daniel-San; wax on, wax off.  Three times to be exact using the Meguiars process as described in a previous post.  Its time consuming but the results are worth it.  The Passage frame looks great from 10 feet, pretty good from 5 feet but of course once you get closer you see the scratches and scrapes a 30 year-old frame acquires.  Taking care of the rust issues, touching up and waxing should protect it for a while. I finished last night and couldn't resist hanging a few things on the frame.

Put the new rear derailleur on- just because.

And the seat post binder bolt with rear brake cable guide which had been given a bath in the sonic cleaner.  No real rhyme or reason here other than I had been waiting until the frame was fully waxed until I proceeded with anything else and it felt good to attach a few parts.


My overall goal is to have this bike up and running and ride-able by April 17th so I can ride it and fine tune it for the Tour De Lopez ride on the 29th. My goal for today was to reinstall the two bearings I have already cleaned up; Headset and Bottom bracket.

First I had to reattach the upper crown race and lower cup which I had removed for cleaning.  I think I may have also fully amortized my headset tool with this use.

I decided to go with new bearings as I had some (left) but I am not sure I am fully satisfied with the ease of movement for the headset so since I am not too far along I may swap back to the original and every so slightly smaller bearings (right) and see if I like the feel any better.

One thing I did reuse was the black rubber seal (bottom) which keeps out the dust and moisture, I recently had a bearing set replaced on the Handsome Devil because it lacked a seal.  You can't see the new bearings in this shot because they have stuck to the cup (top) with the new lube.

I added the spacer, front cable guide and top nut and the headset is done, for now anyway.  I always like to lay out the headset parts in the order they came off so I can put it back together correctly.  I also find that Zinn and Art of Road bike maintenance has handy drawings in case I forget.

Now on to the BB, I like to be very generous with the lube on the bb bearings, I squirt lube with my mini grease gun between every bearing and lube the threads before I screw it back into the frame.

With the fixed cup done it was time for the spindle before installing the adjustable cup.  With this style of bb I carefully measure the spindle before mounting it as you want to be sure the long side of the spindle is on the drive side to accommodate the crank.

I have done a couple rebuilds where the bb had the plastic sleeve for the bb spindle, its to keep debris out of the bb, and I always seem to forget to put them on when I do the rebuild.  This time I remembered.

You want to make sure you grease the ends spindle where they will interface with the bearings.

I do the same lubing for the adjustable cup side, make sure the spindle turns freely without being sloppy -just right - and attached the lock ring and bada bing, the bb is done.

Now I have a frame-set back together.  Next step will be the wheel bearings.  Until next time; Ride. Smile. Repeat.

1977 Raleigh Record LTD Mixte- Campus bike rebuild Part I

I mentioned back in June that I was going to build up a Raleigh mixte as campus bike for my niece who is going to grad school this fall.  I came into this bike about 3 years ago and in the time since it has lost a few of its original parts to other projects like; the wheel-set, both derailleurs, and rear rack to name a few.  In addition to needing to replace the missing parts I also wanted to use a different handlebar set up, add fenders and a front Wald basket.  Anyway lots of parts to order.  I got the new wheels and tires from Amazon early on so I started with them.

My experience with factory built 27 inch wheels is that the hubs are too tight so even thought these were brand new I still opened them up to add grease (the factory is miserly IMHO) and then adjusted the hub bearings.  With some new rim strips, tubes and tires (fatter 27 x 1 3/8") the wheel set was ready to go.

Unfortunately, I still had a stuck stem to deal with, the same issue that had this bike languishing in my queue for so long.  I got to a point where not only was I still working to cut through the stem remnant but the plug (which was still rattling around in the fork) got wedged sidewise.  After consulting my LBS and figuring out I would have to pay a shop rate of $80 an hour (which I don't begrudge them) for them to try and finish the job, I came up with a new plan.

Turns out Amazon.com sells a Sunlite replacement 27inch fork and so I ordered one.  I had mentioned to the mechanic at the LBS I was thinking of getting a replacement and he wisely reminded me that since Raleigh used proprietary threading I would not be able to use my original headset, so I ordered a vanilla Tange replacement headset at the same time- more on that later.

Since I had to wait on the fork and headset I figured I could pay some attention to the paint.  I used the Meguiars three step process I first heard about over at Hugh's bicycle blog.  I used it on the Fiorelli rebuild and liked the results so decided to try it on the mixte.

Step 1- Clean

Step 2 - Polish

Step 3- Carnauba baby!

Now the this Raleigh frame is nearly 40 years old and shows its age with rock chips and dings but man does that paint shine after this 3 step process!

The Wald basket and the SKS fender-set had arrived, the paint was in as good a shape as it could possibly get and once the spanking new fork and headset came in I would be able to get down to business building this bike up into a campus commuter right.......right?

In Part II of this series I will explain why nobody ever said this rebuild was going to be easy.