FS: Vitus 979 Frame&Fork NOW £0!! or swap WHY?
- Thread starter Easy_Rider
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I'm looking...but need a 48cm. Before someone tells me they were not built that small, yes they were. I'm not sure what years...but I have seen a few of them. The big difference between the 48cm and the 49 or 50 is the length of the TT. On a 48cm the top tube is just 50.5.
Still looking........
Still looking........
An update on the orignal frame and forks. I picked them up from my mate yesterday, his parents live near to where Gav works so he dropped them off and they came down to Suffolk at the weekend.
I was pleasantly surprised that the damage did not appear to be too bad, but less pleased to find out how well the stem and seatpost were stuck. The headset was a wreck but I managed to remove it without damaging anything else by using a Dremel and a cutting disc. I already have a NOS Shimano 600 headset to replace it. However, the stem simply would not move despite my best efforts so with some reluctance I cut it off to get the forks out. I've now drilled the remaining stem with the biggest drill I've got and most of it is out but about 1.5mm remains and it's immovable. I'm not going to drill it out any further for fear of damaging the steerer tube, I'll try heat first, if that doesn't work I'll have to give it further thought.
The damaged grubscrew was fairly easy to get out, I used a stud extractor, which for those who haven't come across them is a tapered, hardened, left hand thread screw tap. Screwing it in drove it deeper into the rounded off hex socket until it suddenly gave way and came out smoothly. I'll need a new one but at least it is out. I haven't taken one of these out before, although I have two other Vitus bikes with grubscrews, but there is a ball bearing between the grubscrew and the post and this ball has a flat on it that bears onto the post. The rounded part of the ball sits in depression in the grubscrew so if I get a new one I'll have to mill a similar depression into it using a ball ended mill.
The bad news is that the seatpost still won't move and as the lugs are bonded I'm not going to use heat. I've tried the opposite by freezing the post with a freeze spray but I think that because the post is so intimately bound to the frame and is of the same material I can't get a differential expansion to break the corrosion layer. I've also tried filling the seat tube up with a mixture of oil and white spirit to try to soak the corrosion but there's no sign of it leaking though anywhere so I think that the corrosion is uniform around the whole post.
So, what I think I need to do is to apply sudden, rapid and frequent changes in force to the seatpost to try to move it enough to loosen the corrosion without damaging the bonded joints. After puzzling on this one I've decided to try the natural method, I'm going to build the bike up and ride it without the grubscrew in place. With luck the pounding of my ar*e on the saddle will be enough to move it in time. It'll be too big for me by about 1" but I can live with that if there's a chance of moving it.
There are small areas of superficial damage to the frame and forks but I reckon I can fill and smooth them then cover them with a judiciously placed decal or three. If the forks do turn out to be a write off I intend to replace them with some carbon jobs.
Many thanks to Gav for this project, which is bound to have me tearing my hair out for a few more days, but I'll get there in the end and post the results in due course.
Gordon
I was pleasantly surprised that the damage did not appear to be too bad, but less pleased to find out how well the stem and seatpost were stuck. The headset was a wreck but I managed to remove it without damaging anything else by using a Dremel and a cutting disc. I already have a NOS Shimano 600 headset to replace it. However, the stem simply would not move despite my best efforts so with some reluctance I cut it off to get the forks out. I've now drilled the remaining stem with the biggest drill I've got and most of it is out but about 1.5mm remains and it's immovable. I'm not going to drill it out any further for fear of damaging the steerer tube, I'll try heat first, if that doesn't work I'll have to give it further thought.
The damaged grubscrew was fairly easy to get out, I used a stud extractor, which for those who haven't come across them is a tapered, hardened, left hand thread screw tap. Screwing it in drove it deeper into the rounded off hex socket until it suddenly gave way and came out smoothly. I'll need a new one but at least it is out. I haven't taken one of these out before, although I have two other Vitus bikes with grubscrews, but there is a ball bearing between the grubscrew and the post and this ball has a flat on it that bears onto the post. The rounded part of the ball sits in depression in the grubscrew so if I get a new one I'll have to mill a similar depression into it using a ball ended mill.
The bad news is that the seatpost still won't move and as the lugs are bonded I'm not going to use heat. I've tried the opposite by freezing the post with a freeze spray but I think that because the post is so intimately bound to the frame and is of the same material I can't get a differential expansion to break the corrosion layer. I've also tried filling the seat tube up with a mixture of oil and white spirit to try to soak the corrosion but there's no sign of it leaking though anywhere so I think that the corrosion is uniform around the whole post.
So, what I think I need to do is to apply sudden, rapid and frequent changes in force to the seatpost to try to move it enough to loosen the corrosion without damaging the bonded joints. After puzzling on this one I've decided to try the natural method, I'm going to build the bike up and ride it without the grubscrew in place. With luck the pounding of my ar*e on the saddle will be enough to move it in time. It'll be too big for me by about 1" but I can live with that if there's a chance of moving it.
There are small areas of superficial damage to the frame and forks but I reckon I can fill and smooth them then cover them with a judiciously placed decal or three. If the forks do turn out to be a write off I intend to replace them with some carbon jobs.
Many thanks to Gav for this project, which is bound to have me tearing my hair out for a few more days, but I'll get there in the end and post the results in due course.
Gordon
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Hi Gordon, glad to see you got your teeth stuck into it and from reading your progress I think it was too big a project for me to undertake. Will be great to finally see it built up after all this time, looking forward to it. Thanks. Gav.
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