GRcade

Afternoon all,

My Dad gave me an old road bicycle and it's a bit worse for wear.

Does anyone have any experience with renovating one? I've got a few ideas, but would love some input too.

At the moment I'm thinking:

Get rid of rust, probably with lemon juice?
Get new breaks,
Maybe repaint? Seems a bit of a job that, after a quick Google,
Maybe new pedals
New handle bar tape
Maybe a new seat
Maybe a new chain
Innertubes don't leak, but I need to check the tyres tread

Be a nice little project before summer.

Innertubes are fairly cheap so if they are old I'd replace them, will only be £5-10 for the peace of mind they won't randomly go.

Rust depends on where it is and how severe.

Ah, if they're that cheap I'll just take the hit, yeah.

It's quite rusty, but I'll give it a good shot anyway. I've bought a children's paddling pool and plan to get some lemon juice and wire wool tomorrow. That'll be my first stage, then I'll assess from there how's it going. Probably have to wait for next weekend though.

I believe I was told to try Wilko's for tubes. If not, I got all my parts from Chain Reaction when I 'refreshed' mine last year.

If it's bad rust you'll probably want a wire brush, bit less hassle.

Post pics

Good shout on the brush bc, will be much easier.

And will do, Dual.

You can get a kit for cleaning up any gunk on the gears and chain as well. It should come with a brush.

Been a while. I've only been able to work on my bike a few times due to weather (I don't have a garage so have to work on it outside) and other commitments, but I've almost reached a decent mile stone: almost every single part of it has been taken off the frame with each set of nuts, bots and parts individually bagged so not to get mixed up. The only issue I currently have is that it seems my handle bar stem seems to have fused, just like this:



In fact that is very similar to my bike. Except on mine I tried twisting the handle bars with so much force I broke the part where it fits to the stem. Whoops.

I've sanded down my wheel frames, with the intention of painting them, and I soaked all the fixtures for the breaks in lemon juice to get rid of the massive amounts of rust and they pretty much look new.

My intention has always been to paint the frame, but it's pretty daunting. I'm going to use the wheels as a test I think, and go from there.

Have you tried any penetrating fluid on the stuck part?

Yeah that's my intention, and will try with lemon juice too if that doesn't work (instead of the guys vinegar idea), but I'm not optimistic.

If that doesn't work, try this and leave it overnight to soak. Might need a sharp tap with a hammer or rubber mallet too.

http://www.halfords.com/motoring/engine ... rant-spray

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

I've found this as a possible replacement for the bit I broke:

http://www.tredz.co.uk/.ETC-Quill-Road- ... CH3bw_wcB#

How am I meant to get my handle bars in it? They're one single bar, would it actually open enough to accommodate the bar?

EDIT: I'm an idiot, you just feed it through.

Well, things are mixed. I took everything off the frame, whoo! I've sanded down both wheels, used anti rust under coat and started painting them today; I just need to buy one more can of spray paint to finish them off. Whoo. Just about every part has been cleaned. Whoo. I just need to buy some handle bar tape and I can sort them and the break levels out. Whoo. I've put just about everything back on the frame that doesn't require the wheels. Whoo.

The problems: I don't have enough time to paint the frame due to me kind of needing the bike in a month for a triathlon (and I would be nice to test it before hand or even train on the bloody thing rather than at the gym) so just cleaned it up. It looks better than before, but still really shitty. Boo.

But the main issue is that the stem is still stuck. Been soaking it in various liquids for a couple of weeks broken up with the occasional smack with a chisel and hammer to no avail. I think I'm going to have to buy a new front fork, and I'm gutted.

Some parts of it are really coming along, it's just this one part is pissing me off so much and I feel devastated I can't sort out out. Bloody thing.

Pics of the stem?

How are you trying to pull it out? Could you not dril through the stem from the side, insert a bar and twist it like that? You'd trash the stem but save the forks. (If I'm thinking of this correctly)

You would be thinking right, if I didn't saw the top of the stem off so only have less than 1cm extending out of the top of the fork now. At the time I was more concerned with sawing low enough so I could see down the stem as in the video I posted above, but I've not been able to find a saw small enough to fit down the neck. There's two parts to the stem that remains, the main tube and a thicker bit at the bottom that locks into place. It's this bottom but I think is causing me the main problems. There used to be a long screw that went from the top to this part at the bottom, so you could tighten and untighten, but it broke off when I first twisted it, most likely due to the more solid bit corroding to the outer tube. Even tried to drill it today, but it's too solid for what we have.

I already have a new stem so don't care about saving the bastard. It's dead to me now.

Ah I see. I did have another suggestion but you say you've been trying with a chisel so that would yield the same result.

Yeah, I thought the chisel would work but so far no luck.

Right, strawberry float it, I've gone for a compromise. I'm buying a front fork, I've found one on eBay that should do the trick, but since I'm giving up on this part I'm going to paint it and the main frame.

Going to go with British racing green, and I've just got some white handle bar tape. Should be a nice mix.

Chuck the bike in the bin and renovate your life to the point it was worth living, OP.