Bike Blitz Day 1

I got things set up on Monday so I could get down to it today, my goal being to strip the Nishiki Cascade down to the frame.  That would allow me to A) work on the stuck seat post and B) clean up and reuse the parts.

First, off came the wheels.

The front tire is pretty worn, thready sidewalls etc, and easily came off the rim and there was no tube, the back tire is better shape.  If the seat-post won't come out the wheel-set alone should recoup my $11 outlay.

The brakes came off easy but I wasn't sure how the thumb shifters were going to come off since I have never worked on them.

I figured I would start with removing the screw.

After removing the shifter pod I think I see how to remove the mount.

A few turns of the wrench and...

... bingo the shifters are off the bars.  I moved on to the derailleurs, the rear came off with no issues.  The front was a bit more trouble.

When I started with a Phillips screw driver it didn't want to budge.  One trick I have learned is that if the bolt is a hex head then using the hex wrench gives more leverage and you won't strip the Phillips threads.

And now the derailleurs are sorted.

Just the forks, cranks and BB left.

My long abandoned head set wrench came to the rescue again and out came the fork.

When I got the bearings out the upper one (top in shot above) still had some grease but the lower was bone dry and rusty.

Finally it was time for the crank and bb, I hadn't noticed before but the bike came from Boise Idaho, the bike shop badge is in good shape.

The crank bolts didn't want to budge at first, but a shot of Liquid Wrench helped them come loose.

Here's a tip, if you're using your crank puller and it doesn't want to thread on correctly, before you panic or try to force things its good check if the plunger is all the way down...

If, however, you retract the plunger then its much easier to thread the puller into the crank...sigh.

Once I got the BB out, the cups came out easy thankfully, I found it to be rather dry and rusty.

Not a bad collection for about an hours work and lots of parts to either sell or reuse, all for $11.
And the Bullmoose bars are now ready to be de-rusted.

And finally I am down to my goal of just the frame and the stuck seat-post.

And into the vise, I tried it a bit but it's stuck in.

With the bb out I could spray penetrating oil down the seat tube to get at the seat post from bottom.

Of course when I remembered that I had removed the water bottle cage bolts I realized I had a hole much closer to the bottom of the seat-post.

With the wheels out I noticed the forged SunTour drop-outs.  I am really hoping I can get the seat-post out and get this nicely made frame back on the road , we'll see.

After a good hours work it was time to relax on the porch swing with a beer.

I decided to get some more work in and brought in the Motobecane Mirage I picked up a few years ago.  I joined bike forums recently in the hopes of finding info on the Ritchey and on the classic and vintage forums they occasionally do a "clunker challenge"  basically you have 100 days, to get a bike road ready for $100 or less (including the purchase price) and then ride it 100 kilometers.  I figured I could use the Mirage as an entry since I only paid $30 for it.

I had an idea I could even ride it as is for at least the first 50 km but upon closer inspection I found too many issues, the tires are dried out to begin with.  Regardless, I wanted to remove the fenders, the lighting systems and the remains of a wired bicycle computer.   So I started with the rear wheel so I could get at the fender and rack.

In addition to shot tires, the chain is rusty and stiff.

The rear brake pads are also shot the fronts have more pad but are old and stiff.

The bike is dirty and grimy and I was prepared to ride it that way if everything else was up to snuff.

Being that I am going to have to replace the consumables I won't be able to stop from cleaning it up.

I was able to strip off the extra bits, and tomorrow I hope to get it up and running.

I did some back of the napkin calculations and I think I can fix it up for under $70 since I spent $30 to purchase the bike back in 2015.  We'll see how things go tomorrow, of course it probably won't fit well enough for me to ride lol,  I think its a bit small, but at worst I'll have a functional bike I can sell on.

Ride.Smile.Repeat.