What Have You Fettled Today?

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Punkawallah

Veteran
Some very nice rim braked bikes out there at the moment. I have my eye on a Willier Cento Uno with super record, £1k.

The XT SPD's I won on ebay finally turned up after two weeks (combination of seller being on holiday and Evri). First job, pop the axels out, wipe, squirt fresh grease into the body, then put the axels back in. Done. Old grease just get's evacuated as you screw the axel in (old grease was still clear). They were going on the CX bike, but the existing M520's don't seem to want to come off - can't quite get enough leverage, so that's a job for another time.

“You can only do what you can do”.
 
Cleaned my bike yesterday and let the chain dry out over night before reapplying the drip wax. That chain has done over 3,200 miles now and still isn't 0.5% stretched. Whilst I was at it I stuck another 30ml of sealant in either tyre.

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DCLane

Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
June happened with an intention to complete this project within a week. We're now in late August ... :blush:

With a couple of days off I've finally spent a bit of time finishing the Viner Mitus re-build using Dura-Ace 9000/9100 components with a smaller Absolute Black 50/34 chainrings for climbing. With only a 28 tooth cassette - the plan is for 32/34 - it's been a bit of a pain but I'm done.

Most of the components have been transferred off my previous Thompson Capella which was lovely but a size too big. I've added a Dura-Ace 9100 rear derailleur so I can go for a bigger cassette if wanted and used a KMC X11-SL chain in gold plus Fabric's Hex tape in black / lime green which went on well. Final weight as shown is 7.3kg and my climbing wheels will knock at least 1kg off this should I use them.

And the finished photo, with Greta the kitten doing a final check-over inspection deciding that Specialized's 26mm Turbo tyres aren't 26mm at all but more like 22mm:

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pippy

Active Member
Location
London
And the finished photo, with Greta the kitten doing a final check-over inspection deciding that Specialized's 26mm Turbo tyres aren't 26mm at all but more like 22mm:
Calico Cats are Clever with Computation!
Ours knows whether her allocation of 'Dreamies' has been reduced to four instead of the expected five and lets us know in no uncertain terms...

Anyhow...

Fettling over the last few days hasn't achieved anything of note since post #18554 in the 'completion' sense nor much in the overall visual stakes as it has been mainly concerning the touching-up of the worst of countless dozens of paint-chips on the '76 Holdsworth frame accrued simply through hard use (and, unfortunately, some 'not my fault' abuse) this past half-century.

Not helping matters was that although the paint bought for the task is a very close match to (and possibly exactly the same as) the original H-Campag. team colour its 'opacity' hardly merits the use of the word. The paint also has the viscosity of water which hardly helps the process and so a greater number of coats than expected need to be built-up all of which means that, for me, it has been (so far!) an almost impossible task to end up with an opaque yet smooth top-coat surface-finish even after the T-Cut stage. On close inspection areas of the stays appear to have experienced a mild outbreak of orange measles...

Heigh-Ho. I'll sleep on the problem overnight and see if I can find a solution that works (no pun intended).

Anyhow; as the preliminary stage of the rebuild - merely re-grease headset & install forks / attach saddle - began just a few minutes before stumps-up this evening I'm looking forward to getting stuck in tomorrow and hope to get the bike back on the road as soon as is possible.

I'm still in two minds as to what to do with the finish of the saddle. For the model-and-colour-identical saddle of the 'Green Bike' (mentioned hereabouts) a jar of leather pigment / dye / conditioner worked wonders lovely things in terms of renovating / renewing / nourishing the leather but I suspect that the 'very worn' areas of the saddle here are a bit too far 'gone home' for Salvation.

Adding to the visual awkwardness is that with the NOS (white) Campag. hood rubbers, the incoming new (white) brake cable outers and the way in which the rather old (white) 'bar-tape cleaned up all of a sudden the (no longer quite white) saddle looks - and, to be honest, is! - rather shabby.

Hmmmm....Another thing on which to cogitate...

Where we are now;

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Philip.
 
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pippy

Active Member
Location
London
...I'm looking forward to getting stuck in tomorrow and hope to get the bike back on the road as soon as is possible...

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley
and leave us naught but grief an' pain for promised joy
"...

Ah, well, "..as soon as possible.." is currently being delayed due to unforseen circumstances;

1000 Campag. Gear Cable Tunnel.jpg


Bugger!

Another has been ordered and should be here on either Friday or Saturday.

A bit of a shame as the rest of the assembly was going rather well and I should have been able to take it for a shakedown run about now!
FWIW here's the point we had reached by lunchtime;

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I'd rather not put anything else on yet as I find it easier to make any pre test-run fine-adjustments when the whole unit is complete.

Time to get the kettle on!

Philip
 

DCLane

Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
The 1948 Claud Butler International Club has had some work now my LBS helped to separate the seized quill stem and forks.

The frame has been thoroughly cleaned, de-greased and sprayed with matt lacquer: I'm going for patina rather than a re-spray, but locking-in the old paint which was flaking off. All of the components have been cleaned prior to re-assembly.

There's a different crankset - with a fluted Williams T1200 from 1951 being used rather than the un-branded 1980's crankset since the original will have been a Chater Lea or Williams T1000/T1100 so it's pretty close. New 26 x 1¼ tyres are onto the wheels with new bearings in the front plus new grease. The headset's also had new bearings plus grease, similarly with the bottom bracket.

The Brooks saddle is on temporarily until I find something that fits me better and is more appropriate. Similarly the pedals are on temporarily.

I'm waiting on a replacement quill stem as the old 1948 one was in very poor condition. At that point (hopefully) the Viking handlebars plus Kosmi Sport Hinduminium brakes can be added.

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