Allez Refurb: Components

I spent allot of time on Saturday using the sonic cleaner to clean up components and then hanging them on the bike.  My goal was to get to the end of the weekend with just the wheels/hubs left to do.

Dirty

Cleaned up

One thing about stripping the bike down to the frame and cleaning up parts individually is that you notice things.

This bolt is missing a nut

Had one

functional

Like the fact that one brake was missing a nut on the pivot bolt, I had one in my stash that worked, not perfect but functional and it may solve an odd sound I was getting from the brakes I thought was the too big tires.

New pads on the left

Since I was putting the brakes back on the bike I took the opportunity to replace the pads, and because they went in the sonic bath the pivot points all got some 3 in One oil.

I discovered  I am not a fan of anodized aluminum which was a popular look in the 90s.  The pictures above are where I started before doing any real cleaning.  They just look dirty and dull to me, its revealing that in most searches for cleaning anodized aluminum you come across ways to remove the anodizing so you can actually polish the aluminum.

My next step was to first wipe down the crank with some clorox wipes to remove any surface dirt, and then warm soapy water with a blue scrubber sponge, what I read is that anodized aluminum needs a bit of an abrasive surface for cleaning.

Which got me to here, a bit cleaner but the drive side crank still had some spots I didn't like.

 A bit of wet sanding with some 220 grit sand paper got me here, not perfect but much better.In retrospect I would have used something like 400 grit or higher.

My final step as Mother aluminum polish, its better but I would still rather have polished rather than anodized aluminum.

The pedals on the left are what came on the bike although they aren't stock, but I like them and I'm saving them for when I find a vintage MTB I really like.  The pedals on the right I got from bike works for $5 to replace them.

They are MKS road pedal knock offs and look the part for this bike.

Another thing I noticed in cleaning the parts is that while everything else is Shimano RX100 the FD is 105, so it got replaced at some point.

I noticed after running the FD through the sonic bath that there was some rust spotting on the rear of the cage, a little time with the dremel and brass wire brush got it cleaned up.

RD cleaned up and back on the bike, since both derailleurs went through the sonic bath, all the pivot points got a does of 3 in One oil before going back on the bike.

The last thing I did Saturday was to finally get the remnants of bar tape off the bars, since I am going to put on new bar tape  don't see much point in cleaning the gunk off the bars.  I did clean he stem and logo part of the bars with Mothers after I took this shot.

Today I cleaned the shifters and shot them with tri-flow lubricant and then after they dried out I got them back on the bike.

And the bottle cage and bolts got cleaned up and installed

I think I am going to try to set up the shifters as indexed first and if it doesn't work I can switch back to friction mode.  The wheel-set is where I have been stalling out lately on refurbs so I am going to try and tackle the hub this week and get to mostly done by the end of July.