753 Raleigh Ilkeston SBDU

[gavr]

For my next project what I think is a 1981 vintage Raleigh SB4310. Given the age if I understand the serial number correctly, it has sometime been resprayed in Team Panasonic colours. It's badged as 753, drilled campag dropouts frame and fork (not shown), cinelli BB shell and fork crown with the SBDU and GOD decals.

Firstly I'd like to put it back to original colours given that it has quite a few surface rust spots spoiling the finish. I'm looking at the 1982 frames catalogue for guidance.

I'm assuming that both the yellow and black bands on the seat tube would have been painted. What would the dimensions have been? Where would the GOD decal be positioned?

Thanks

 

[bikemeister2000]

Seriously...... Leave it as it is now. I'm not joking.

 

[gavr]

It's amazing what a bit of sunshine can do. I would really need to touch up the pearl white in a lot of places and I thought it would look terrible. Lovely frame though...

 

[Pointer]

I agree with above. If it has been resprayed in the the Team Panasonic colours, whoever did it did a great job, I'd leave it. Not sure if you've come across the Yahoo groups on Team Raleighs but it's worth joining, there is a growing list of frame numbers etc to gauge an accurate date from the SBDU numbers.
Should you want to get hold of replacement decals in the future, they are all available from H Lloyd Cycles. I recently finished my Team Track with these, they were perfect, see the link on my signature below:

 

[gavr]

Must say I assumed that it was a factory paint job - I gather people sent their red frames back to be updated. The blue is painted, the red and yellow stripes are decals, it all looks kosher except that the frame number (same on the steerer tube) appears to be from 1981.

 

[fiks]

What does the forks look like? If it has a semi-sloping crown rather than a fully-sloping one, then that might mean it's more likely to be 1981 and not a later frame.

 

[gavr]

Fork crown

 

[bikemeister2000]

We used to use lugs and crowns from Bocama, Prugnat and Cinelli. This one looks like a Cinelli.

 

[gavr]

Thanks for your help. It appears that the original owner had family connections with Gerald O'Donovan who facilitated his racing in the early eighties. Apparently he owned two of these frames and confirms that one of them was red and then resprayed, so there we have it.

 

[gavr]

Refurbished and back to its former glory now built up with mostly Super Record. I'll start a new thread with some better pictures when the light is more suited. Respray by Dave Yates, decals from Nick at HLloyd. Thanks very much to both.