Well I thought I should post some in-progress pictures of the cleanup.
I spent all of yesterday working on the bicycle and it’s coming along pretty well. I thought all the bearings in it were destroyed. It turns out that they are in ok shape but this thing had laid in the mud or something. Maybe it was recovered from a canal.
Anyhow she’s got some miles on her but I was able to save the chain. The sprockets look good. Pedal bearings and stem bearings in the neck are all ok now That I washed out the mud and re-greased everything..
But they’re not perfect and I didn’t dare set it up with oil. Everything was set up slightly loose with waterproof fishing reel grease. It’s all gonna have to wear in again.
I stripped the seat all apart because the foam underneath was damp and going moldy.
I have something to recover it with, But I think I’m gonna cut the foam way down because this is kind of a grandma seat.
I won’t be using this on the BBO bike.
I couldn’t get my crank apart with my puller yet, and I’m not prepared to hammer on it or break out the torch. YET!
I’m gonna have to go buy a Park puller. This is a steel crank with steel arms. I was expecting the arms to be aluminum.
I’m so happy that this turned out to be a real Sturmey-archer hub, and as far as I can tell it’s clean inside and sounds good. I haven’t taken it apart yet and I will probably put that off to the last thing.
The frame appears to be pretty straight and undamaged except for paint scratches. It also appears to be fairly well constructed and the only part that I didn’t like as well was the way the rear stays connect to the seat post clamp.
Actually it is pretty strong but it’s just not the classic method.
I was hoping to paint the frame today but I have not been able to get the crank set off and this will have to wait until I can get the appropriate tool. It’s either that or break out the torch. I don’t want to start a grease fire.