Takara Tuesday

Last night, with the Novara finished and listed on CL I decided to take a look at the Takara I had picked up for its 700c wheelset as a remedy for the lack on the Allez.

One thing I wanted to do is remove all the clutter, bike lights, mounts for long gone lights and computers and the lock mount.

By the time I had them all off the bike it was an impressive array.  I think that uncluttered bikes are more attractive (easier to sell) and I will leave it to prospective buyers to add what they need.  I did gain a nice kryponite bike lock and two functioning easy to attach lights out of this bike that I wasn't expecting.

One of my cardinal rules of looking at a prospective bike is to check that neither the seat post or stem is stuck.  In the case of the Takara I skipped that step because this bike was about the wheels and a stuck stem or seat post wouldn't have mattered so long as the wheels were good.  I didn't want to start in on making this a functional bike project without checking for the dreaded stuck part however and although the seat tube had a hardware binder and not the original you can see the seat post moved so its ok.

The stem had me a bit more worried, when you loosen the bolt an it comes up that means the wedge is stuck but a smart hammer blow to the bolt solved that issue, but my initial efforts to move the stem didn't work.

So I put a spare front wheel I had laying around in the drops, trapped that between my legs for leverage and after some twisting and tugging got the stem to move as you can see.

Turns out I am probably lucky the stem wasn't stuck with as rusty as it is, it will need a clean up and fresh grease.

My prize the Mavic/Ultegra wheels are off the bike and await the new 7 speed cassette and spacer before I test fit them to the Allez.   I checked eBay and the lowest price I could find on a set of used Mavic Open Pro 700c wheels with ultegra hubs was $250 (before shipping) so I am very pleased with this find and even if I didn't get a cent out of the Takara it will have been worth it for the wheels.

And I got the SunTour barcons off the bike, and this morning (Wednesday) I cleaned them up checked them over and listed them on eBay, so we'll see what they bring in.  If there is no interest there I think  I could sell them on Bike Forums to the Classic and Vintage crowd.

So I have harvested the parts I wanted and verified that I don't have a stuck stem or seat post issue and therefore this bike could be put back on the road as a functional beater,  I have no desire to strip this bike down and do a total overhaul, the idea is to get it functional and safe and give it a honest listing on CL and price to sell so it can become someone else's project.  That said I am going to have to overcome some issues to get this bike functional.

The front derailleur is missing the screw that connects the cages at the back, I checked the parts bin to see if I had something I could cannibalize but no luck, but I am hoping I can find a screw in my collection that will work, failing that I can go to the hardware store.  I would like to avoid removing the chain but in a pinch I could use one of my spare quick links to put it back together but I hope to avoid that.

The rear derailleur is missing the hardware that connects the claw to the drops so as you can see it was sagging on the bike and only held in place by the skewer but not truly functional.

I put a random screw in place for now just to keep the RD out of the way, the RD has an open cage design so I can thread the chain back through without having to break it.  I also came up with not one but two claw RDs I can cannibalize for the hardware I need.  I do have a brand new Sunrace claw long cage RD like I have used before and it might even let me use a new 7 speed mega range FW I have laying around but I will save those new parts for something else, besides going that route would require a new chain too which I have but plan to use on the 520.

To round out the drive train issues would be shifters, or lack thereof since I am selling the barcons it came with but knowing that might be an issue I spent $5 on a set of stem shifters when I was at Bike works on Saturday.  I was a bit ahead of myself, not having checked for stuck parts, but knew if I was going to make the Takara road worthy it would need shifters and these SunTour stem shifters are what the bike would have had originally.

Another, more cosmetic issue was the broken front reflector, on the right above, the sample on the left is what it should look like.

The reflector mount is also a cable stop for the front center pull brake so I would like to reuse it but I don't need the bike to be any uglier than necessary and the broken reflector doesn't look so great.

When I was getting stem shifters at Bike works I noticed a basket of free for the taking reflectors by the door so I got an intact one that I will swap for the broken one and issue solved.

Another place I was willing to spend some $$ was a cheap set of cables and housing, these Bell sets go for about $5 on Amazon and I had one in the stash.  I really don't care about putting new cables and housing on the bike, this $5 spent is for my sanity.  The bike has a rear brake that doesn't want to respond with the current cable and housing and I am going to have to change the configuration of the shift cables since they were set up for barcons and need to go to stem shifters and starting from new will just be alot easier than making the old crusty stuff work and for $5 its a no-brainer.

From the parts bin I have a set of 27" wheels like what would have been originally on the bike and I have two used tires in good condition, I had other tan wall tires but they are all very dried out and I would rather have supple mismatched tires than matching sketchy tires, and I am going for the functional beater bike here anyway.

I also have a used FW, right above, that is in better shape than the one currently on the wheel-set and I have some lightly used red bar tape that was originally on the Cresta but came off for fork repair.  It will replace the old faded ugly tape on the bars currently.

So that is where the Takara stands right now and after giving the frame a wipe down and de-glazing the brake pads I plan to start sorting issues so I can get this bike road worthy and listed to sell.

Ride, Harvest cool parts, Smile. Repeat.