Making Progress on the Takara

Working through the issues with the Taraka, took the screw off another, derelict, Suntour RD from the parts bin and got the one on the bike secured to the frame and I cleaned it up a bit.

Got the broken reflector off the front brake stop/reflector mount and got the new one attached after cleaning a bit of rust off the under side of the mount.

In my stash I found a screw that would work with the threaded hole on the inside of the FD cage but was too short, and found the one in the correct length that too big for the hole.  I took them both to the hardware store and found an Goldilocks M4 bolt that was just the right pitch and length, so the FD is sorted.

And the bars, oh the (expletive deleted)  bars.  I got the stock bars cleaned up and greased and then when I was trying to install them I remembered the hex bolt in the stem was an odd size and I couldn't get the right hex wrench, metric or standard to tighten it.  Kind of a miracle I got it out in the first place, oh well I have lots of bars and stems laying around.  I will use something from the parts bin...he thought naively.

I pull a different bar and stem out of the stash and move the levers over get it greased and....the (expletive deleted x 2) new stem is too big for the Takara Headtube!!!  They must have been like Schwinn and had some funky one-off size and looking closely I see the Takara stock stem is tapered, narrower at the bottom than the top.  Dang.

I end up canablizing the stem bolt from a Pivo stem that was on a set of bars that I took off my friends late 60's Raleigh Super Course  when I converted it to a city bike for him, that meant I could tighten the binder bolt on the stock setup.  It was an odd 12 mm hex head but I could get a wrench on it and tighten it down, so the bars were sorted.  I also cleaned up the seat post while I was at it and mounted it too.  I even used the brake hone on both the head tube and seat tube just to clean out the old crummy grease.

Here are the stem shifters, which had to go high on the stem due to that was where I could get the clamp to work due to the tapering of the stem, so shifters sorted.  The SunTour Barcons I scavenged from the bike to sell, I have a pair or I would keep them, have 50 views and 5 watchers on eBay currently, we'll see if that translates to bids in a few days.

After all the trouble with the bars I did end up cleaning them up a bit and they have some nice engraving near the stem.  I called it a day there and left the wheels for Saturday.

I gathered my old tubes, that I tested overnight to be sure they held air, the mismatched but decent tires and the old 27" Araya rim/Suze hub wheels I had from the beat up Nishiki I bought a few years back.

The FW on the rear hub was rusty and not really turning so I knew I wanted to change it and I have plenty of used spares around.

The old one is off the rim, and although not in great shape it is a SunTour Perfect which the C&V crowd likes so I may offer it up on the forums for the cost of shipping in case someone wants to rebuild it or use it for parts.

I would rather slap on a working spare in much better shape,

I didn't service the hubs but I did clean up the rims and made sure the wheels weren't noticeably out of true and now they have tires and tubes and the rear even got a new rim strip in addition to the FW.

With wheels it actually looks like a bike, next up cables & housing, some dialing in of the brakes and shifting and then a short test ride and then the bar tape.

Ride.Reuse.Smile.Repeat.